Revealing Grace

It is odd to think that I will always have these scars, these reminders of the cancer that once was. Everyone rejoices with you that it is "over," but so much of it never ends. There are always more appointments, more check-ups, more ways you have to heal. Your body is the most tangible piece of it all. Your muscles have to wake up and your mind has to clear. Your new chest has to settle in and your eyes have to get used to seeing a new and foreign body in the mirror. It is odd to think that this is now me, that I will never look like I did before. Before . Life will forever now be divided by before and after. What was. What now is. Your mind is the less tangible piece of healing. The exhaustion from the last few months of treatment, the quiet that gives space to realize what has just happened. There is a funny mix of fear and relief, anxiety and peace. There is no more cancer. My goodness there was cancer. But the journey has taken its toll. I haven't foun...

No one really prepared me for what it would be like once chemo ended. I guess I never really thought that far ahead. For months it has been a constant cycle of treatments and recovery. It was all I could do to propel myself into that chair again. I had to be short-sighted. It was how I survived. And then chemo ended. And the future opened up. You would think the resulting emotion would be some insane joy that the worst of treatment was over. You would imagine that I would feel free and full of life. But where I expected joy, I found anxiety. Where I expected freedom, I felt trapped by fear. For the first time I had time for the reality to sink in: I had cancer. I'm 29 years old and healthy, and I had cancer.  For the first time I realized that no matter what, I cannot go back. No matter how hard I try, my life will never be the same. For weeks, I worried that every little twinge or pain, every weird and probably normal thing, was a sign of something deadly. As I looked t...

Dating while in cancer treatment is weird.  When you have recently had breast cancer it gets even weirder, considering one of the first things you discuss is your boobs.  See?  It just got weird.  My point exactly.  So when my friends asked if I would be open to being set up with their favorite cousin, I was only cautiously optimistic. With our busy adult schedules, we planned a date at our friend’s home in San Antonio for a month and a half in the future. A month and a half to worry about all the normal things like, will I even have eyebrows when we meet? Like I said, dating while in cancer treatment is weird. So last weekend, just days prior to my final chemo, I put on my cute high-waisted jeans and a funky t-shirt to make me feel cute and wa-la. I was ready. Except I don’t think I was ready. I don’t think I was ready for him to find me beautiful, even though I didn’t feel that at all myself. I don’t think I was read...

I wanted it not to have an effect on anything. I wanted to believe that even though I was in cancer treatment, it didn’t have to touch the rest of my life. I pushed to never miss a day of work or do a job halfway. I traveled and hiked and drove halfway across the country. I started to date and pretend that everything was normal and the cancer was just a little thing. But the pressure of treatment was quietly doing a number on my resolve. The fact was, cancer treatment did have an effect on everything . With only the expectations that I put upon myself, I pushed myself to the breaking point. Constantly confused about why my white blood cell count never rose above the absolute minimum of acceptability since chemo #2, I pushed away rest and tried to continue on with my pre-cancer life. I put undue pressure on myself to perform when no one was asking me to. I took a trip to California and spent half of the weekend sprawled out on my friend’s couch.   I spent weeks commun...

I cannot believe that on Monday I go in for my final chemo. I can scarcely wrap my brain around the fact that slowly, slowly, I will become "me" again.  Those pieces that have been dormant will wake up. In time, my energy will return, my eyebrows will grow back, my hair will try to find its rhythm again. Slowly, the steroid puff will leave my face and the constant fear of having to endure another treatment will subside.  When I began treatment in August, I couldn't imagine making it here.  Yet, my anxieties have not subsided with the end of chemo in my sights. I worry more about a recurrence, about what it means to be past the active part of treatment. I stay up at night fretting about my next reconstruction surgery and the permanent changes in my body, my mind, my will.  In treatment everything seems temporary. Post-treatment you have to come to terms with the fact that some things are now with you forever.  What a freaking mind-game ca...

Do you know that feeling when a page is beginning to turn? It is that feeling of the darkness shifting, the winds beginning to whisper again, and the tides of peace returning to settle in your soul. It is a feeling that the energy of the world around you is moving and perhaps (perhaps) things are about to get better. In one week I will have finished my fifth chemo. In one month I will have finished my last chemo. I never thought I would make it through this challenge. After my first session I was convinced that I would never survive the mind mess of chemo. But here we stand in November. And I am beginning to feel hope. The journey is long from over (I will have 12 more infusions in the chemo room after chemo is done, but it will just be one targeted therapy drug, no cold cap, and none of this nasty fatigue) but the hardest parts will be done. Slowly, I will regain my strength, my resolve, my connection to my body and my mind. Life will not return to normal, but wha...

Here is what it feels like to be on chemo treatments: Your once lovely and thick hair is now thin and balding like a middle-aged man. Your body is doing the opposite. Once thin and trim it is now getting thicker and bulkier from the steroids and lack of exercise due to these treatments being hard on your heart and hello, the lack of energy to do anything more than go to work and play with your dog. If that isn't enough for you, your eye is consistently twitching, your back hurts from "bone pain," you are simultaneously exhausted and wired, and your brain took a vacation and left you behind. And just for good measure, add in slowly disappearing eyebrows. It isn't fun. And it sucks because I want to date and not look like I'm slowly transitioning to a less appealing me. I want to make new friends in my city and not have to feel self-conscious about my new fashion statement, the headwrap+braid. And it sucks because I feel bad for feeling mad about this...