#whatcancercan’ttake
Micah and I have been on a “cancer tour” of sorts the past week. We have been meeting with some of the top transplant and ALL doctors in the world. I am so fortunate to have a partner that wants to explore every option, hear every risk, and ask every question. We had our last appointment at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and have to get our heads right, some of it was we learned was hopeful, some of it absolutely devastating. More to come on the outcome of this next week. Once I can process what it all means.
But this post might be hard for you to read, because what I am going to talk about, you’re not going to want it to be true.
The truth is, I will not be the last person that is close to you to receive a cancer diagnosis. I have worked very hard to share only tolerable glimpses of what it looks like to avoid dying of a very aggressive blood cancer with a poor prognosis. But here I am with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia a third time, in three years, fighting for my life. I don’t want to tell people I’m fighting for my life. Because it’s uncomfortable for people to respond and I don’t want to make people uncomfortable.
And then I realized, I can’t protect anyone from what fighting cancer looks like anymore. It’s dishonest to do so. It’s dishonest to the people in your future who are going to receive a cancer diagnosis.
I realized that I actually have a responsibility to you, a responsibility to be honest about cancer.
Despite how gruesome cancer can be, there can be so many ways to empty cancer of it’s power over us-whether we are the ones fighting the cancer, or fighting along someone we love.
There are so many things that cancer can’t take, but I have to talk about it.
If I stay silent about the struggles I give cancer more power than it deserves. And it deserves nothing.
Whether we are the cancer patient, the friend, the caregiver, family, or the random stranger that was touched to reach out to provide encouragement (bless those people!).
We need to get comfortable talking about cancer because we absolutely can not afford to be fearful of it. If we are, it will take things that it’s nothing entitled to.
We need to have the humility and courage to ask the hard questions, be able to sit in the uncomfortable silence, let people know we have no idea how to handle this thing...but we are not going to relent our dreams, our mind, our soul, or especially our heart to it. No matter what kind of cancer prognosis you or a loved one has, cancer can’t touch these things unless YOU LET IT.
Cancer wants you to believe that you operate in a world where you control nothing, when in reality there are so many things left in your arsenal.
My life is less about dying right now and more about showing you everything that cancer is not taking-even through my major setbacks the past several weeks.
There is so much that cancer doesn’t have to take from you or the people around you.
So if you see me post something hard, or you see me post something uncomfortable, know that I am not trying to give cancer more credit than it deserves, I am trying to expose it for what little power it actually has so you know how weak it truly is when it comes to what we love and cherish. I just want to be honest.
My cancer didn’t happen for a reason, but I am not going to walk through something so gruesome without giving it a FUCKING GOOD ONE.
So ask me the hard questions about death and dying, there is nothing that will offend me, we’re all learning here. I’ll tell you what’s hard, but I also hope in this journey of life or death over these next several months I want to talk about it all. But most of all I hope I can inspire you to live deeply without going through a cancer diagnosis.
So if you think I was honest or provocative before, look out because I’m finally ready to address all the things cancer with you.
I need you to know what cancer can’t take
#whatcancercanttake
