5 things
Today is officially my 1 year of remission as a 3x cancer survivor. This is a milestone because after I got this diagnosis, I was told that a third relapse with ALL was a pretty much a death sentence. I started treatment immediately and at the same time started looking for other clinical options, opinions, and any other answers I could find. I went searching for second, third, and fourth opinions. Micah and I spent most of the end of 2021 traveling to Seattle Cancer Alliance and MD Anderson to learn about clinical trials and other treatment options because we knew getting through this diagnosis and achieving a third remission was going to be really difficult. The hope of achieving long term survival in most cases with this kind of relapse was between 6-8%. That is a difficult statistic to hear. In fact each expert from the hospitals we visited all told me on average I had about 6 months to live.
With Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia it almost always comes back faster and more aggressively each time. Your cancer cells develop immunities to the drugs that you’re on and they can lose their efficacy.
Despite the likelihood of my survival I remember telling my Oncologists that I wanted to be their exception. I wanted to be the one that beat their statistics. I remember telling them that even the most unlikely statistics still get chance to make their way around and that was going to me. I remember telling them with tears in my eyes that no one wanted to live more than me. And even if I didn’t get to live, no one as going to try harder than I was.
And here I am. To their surprise I am still fucking here. 1 year later.
Survival has not come without it’s price. War always has a cost. This year has easily been the hardest year of my life, but it’s also been the richest.
Despite all my side-effects and setbacks in the past 12 months I have done a hell of a lot of living.
I promised myself earlier this year that I was going to go after my bucket list, hard. But all of hospital stays and and side effects definitely put a damper on a lot of those plans. So I had it make some adjustments and deal with some disappointments but, I managed to still get a lot of things in.
That is the fun side of cancer, where you use it as an excuse to do all those things that you convinced yourself could wait…
Now is always as good a time as any other to do the damn things.
There are also parts of this year that have been heartbreaking as Micah and I have started to admit what cancer has taken from us personally and from our marriage. We are still learning how to navigate our new “normal” together and wondering when we’ll actually get a break to assess the damage. We still have no idea what we’re doing but we are going to do it in the most honest way we can. Right now we are going to take it one day at a time and I’m resisting the urge to not have everything figured out overnight and submit to the process.
I’m living in remission but I’m still not “safe” from cancer. My leukemia still has a very high chance of relapsing. At any point I can get a blood test or a biopsy telling me that I have Leukemia again and it wouldn’t be unusual.
But, I have learned how to hold that reality without allowing the anxiety and fear of it coming back prevent me from living. I understand what my statistics are and they don’t scare me anymore. In fact they’ve given me a reason to keep on living with as much honesty and intention as I can. They’ve given me a perspective that I am deeply thankful for, it’s always in the back of my mind reminding me to cherish every moment like it could be my last.
There is a lot that I am still trying to process from the past year, but here are 5 things that this third diagnosis has taught me.
1. This was the very first thing I had to learn, that fear only has as much power over you as you let it. If I didn’t learn how to gain control over my fear and anxiety, over the startling reality of my statistics it would have prevented me from living in the present and quickly destroyed everything that I did still have in front of me. Facing the fear of death didn’t leave much else to be scared of after that. I realized that there is so much freedom that comes with simply facing what you’re scared of. It has made me a more courageous person, also a little more outspoken at times which I am trying to reign in…because not everyone is ready for that yet.
2. It’s ok to quit something, life is too short to spend time being stubborn if it doesn’t serve you anymore. I used to be someone who HAD to finish every goal they set, every project they started and every book they read. It was because I never wanted to be labeled as a quitter, I wasn’t even finishing things for me, I was finishing things because I was afraid of what other people might think of me if I quit. After watching a reel from one of my favorite authors (Ryan Holiday) he said if you’re reading a book that isn’t good, quit the book! There are so many amazing books out there why would you take time to read something that clearly you’re not enjoying?
Life really do be like that though, for real. We are allowed to change our mind, we can pivot. We can change the script on the goals we set and the decisions we make because we are growing and we are evolving. If something doesn’t serve us anymore or we outgrow it, lets move onto the next thing. Life is too short to finish something just to prove a damn point.
3. Every feeling deserves it’s time and space and each one has something to show me about myself. Especially the dark and uncomfortable ones. I stopped putting the pressure on myself to constantly look at the bright side and be positive 100% of the time. It became too much this year, I had days when things came crashing down on me and I tried to pretend that they weren’t. It was started to turn into toxic positivity, I started lying to myself and it turned into denial and avoidance. Finally, I stopped being afraid of those feelings, I stopped running from them. Now when I have those feelings, I have learned to listen to them instead of burying them and they have shown me the deeper parts of myself that deserve to be heard and that has been essential to my healing journey
4. You are the only person who is going to show up for you and you are going to have to push yourself to dig deep and give your best efforts. Don’t get me wrong, you need your friends and family come alongside you, to support and love you especially during the hard days. But they can’t make you do anything, they are there to support and encourage you. Especially on the days that seem impossible. But deep down only you know what you need to heal, only you know what you need to do to push yourself to keep pursuing your deeper potential. And that is something I have learned I alone and responsible for.
5. To be patient with myself and trust that the process will bring me to the destination even if it’s slow. Very few things have gone to plan this year, I have experienced a lot of limitations and set-backs. Any progress I make is painfully slow. But just because it’s small and slow doesn’t mean that I still can’t be proud of myself. I have learned that being consistent, even if it’s not glamorous is something worth being proud of. In the past I would have downplayed my little wins, or not allowed myself to feel proud until I accomplished something “worthy”. But simply showing up for myself everyday and not giving up is worth being proud of and over time that is going to add up. I am learning that you can be proud of the process, not just the results. Success isn’t about the size of your goals, it’s about not abandoning them when they get boring.
There are many things that suffering and loss can show us about living. I often wish I could close my eyes and wake-up like cancer never happened and take back what I lost. But that just isn’t my reality, my life has been forever changed and will never be normal again. So here’s to finding the lesson in our suffering and not letting these experiences go to waste. I didn’t know that death could teach me so much about living.
