Damn Cancer.
I’m here to tell you it’s not easy carrying around the label cancer “survivor.” Leroy used to hate that word “survivor” because he always felt it carried so much weight with it.
If you were a “survivor” you had to walk the walk of success: YOU beat the beast. YOU were somehow luckier than the person next to you in the infusion room for all those months, they didn’t make it, YOU did.
He used to say, I didn’t fight any harder. We both wanted to live. Leroy was a “survivor” for 4 1/2 years until his cancer showed it’s face in the form of a colon cancer brain tumor. He felt fine, until he didn’t. That’s when he said, “I guess I’m not a “survivor” any more.
It had gotten to the point where he stopped wondering on a regular basis if his cancer would ever come back. That’s what so many cancer “survivors” do, you know, they wake up in the morning wondering if this is the day cancer reenters their life.
So this was the day, three cancer “survivors” I know talked about how much they think about their cancers coming back.
All three are under regular surveillance in the form of check-ups every three months. One just had a scan that showed an active lymph node. Another had a blood test that had an elevated reading and the third is back in cancer world after the discovery of a new tumor.
All three “survivors.” Two of the three still fit the definition and hopefully those test results will prove to be signs their immune systems are working to fight off any new invasion.
And as many times as their doctors and nurses and families and friends can say “don’t worry,” I’m sure it’s nothing, believe me, “It’s something to them.” They will wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it.
Damn Cancer. Being a “survivor” is half the battle.
March 22, 2017 @ 7:55 pm
Getting past the fear of recurring cancer is difficult because it is so hard to trust that it won’t come back–even in another form. My husband has never been a fan of “survivor, warrior, or any of those words that seem to indicate that you just have to be a fighter to beat cancer. The prayer list at my church has so many people who are experiencing a recurrence of cancer or they have a very nasty form of it and the prognosis for recovery is poor. All of them have done everything they could to keep the cancer at bay, but it just has not worked out that way.
March 22, 2017 @ 9:15 am
I have a different idea about the term “survivor”. As long as I get up each day, I am a survivor. I will be one until the beast overcomes me. It was that way when I was NED, and it remains that way though I will be on treatment for the rest of my life.
March 22, 2017 @ 8:19 am
A former boss was told he was NED and he said “but I will be looking over my shoulder the rest of my life” and eventually it came back. Jim never was NED but always managing and fighting and never considered himself a survivor.