We had a work retreat recently, and one of the activities involved writing ten characteristics of yourself on ten stickers and tacking them to the front of your shirt. Then we mingled with colleagues, discussed each other’s attributes, removed a couple of stickers with each conversation, and mingled more until we were down to one sticker.
One of my ten chosen characteristics was “survivor,” and it’s the one I left stuck to my shirt till the very end. Some colleagues knew what it meant; newer ones did not. It felt radical to call attention to it.
Technically, in medical parlance, I am a cancer survivor, meaning I had cancer, but am currently cancer-free. But I am not “cancer-cured.”
The only way I can get a “cured” designation is by undergoing regular CT-scans and blood tests with clean results for five years. Yesterday was a scan day. The scans themselves are relatively quick and easy, especially now that I have more than half a dozen under my belt. But the days leading up to scans, and the hours afterward are nail-biting. I try to be Zen. I have no control over the outcome. But still, it’s a judgment day. What has my body been up to over the past three months?
It’s a reminder that survivorship is a journey.
Calling yourself a survivor is a nice post-treatment perk if you can achieve it. But I’m tentative with the word, even as colleagues, friends and family cheer me on and remark on my recovery. I know the risks of this cancer, and though I am hugely relieved to be alive and in good health, one eye peers anxiously at what might lurk around the corner. I don’t want to jinx anything by boasting about my survivorship.
This thinking must be common, and I assume it will subside over time. Maybe, though, instead of waiting, I should decide myself to control those anxious thoughts.
As I walked past the oncology department yesterday, I recalled my mornings in the chemotherapy infusion clinic—the near constant worry about whether the treatment was working, if my blood levels were up or down, and my vulnerability to infections. The medication smell, the nausea, the insanely annoying beeping of the universally despised (and frequently malfunctioning) pump machines. Everyone in that infusion clinic right now would do anything to be in my shoes. To be called a “cancer survivor.”
I need to honor the struggle, and my accomplishment and milestone. It’s time to fully, proudly and unreservedly own the word SURVIVOR and all it stands for. I worked hard, and I freaking beat cancer, and I will keep beating it day after day, week after week, year after year.
I guess I’m going to need some more stickers.
Update: Yup, still beating cancer this morning. The latest CT-scan came back clear. “No evidence of recurrent or metastatic disease within the chest or abdomen.” Six months down.
[I Will Survive, Gloria Gaynor]