You, the Survivor

They say the cancer’s gone, and you post the obligatory social media update so that the church ladies and the former classmates and the cousin who lives on the other side of the world can release that collective breath they’ve been holding worrying about you. Phew! She’s healed. Praise God. They look up from their phones and carry on with their days, wiping you from their minds like a carwash wipes a bug off a windshield. Their brain space is quickly filled by other people, other illnesses, and what kind of cereal is on sale.

You watch the likes and comments roll in - lots of praying hand and red heart emojis - and feel lucky to be so loved. But then you wake up the next day, and start your new life as a survivor, and you realize it’s not going to be all butterflies and roses. You knew that, of course. But now that you’re “better,” the support - which was already dwindling, let’s be honest - trickles to a stop.

And there you are, trying to awkwardly grow your hair back without looking like the Johnny Depp version of Willie Wonka. There you are, your feet as numb as a seventy-five-year-old diabetic’s from all the chemotherapy, tripping down the stairs and actually injuring yourself in front of twenty-five confused strangers. There you are, struggling to lift the gallon of milk into your cart because of all the muscle loss from your time spent in bed, but getting complimented on your thin physique in the same day when you run into an old high school classmate who has clearly not heard what’s happened to you. There you are, smiling tightly as someone offhandedly mentions your “future children” yet again, unaware that your bone marrow transplant put you in clinical menopause and having children naturally will be near impossible.

The meals stop. The cards stop. You’re back at college or at work or at home just trying to do normal chores, and everything is just so difficult. You wish you could add an asterisk to that social media post: “I have been declared cancer-free, but this extremely traumatic event took an immense toll on my body, my mental health, and my relationships, so please continue to support me with your love and care for the foreseeable future.” Not exactly Instagram caption sentiments.

You get sick of every single barista and middle-aged mom in line at the gas station complimenting your “pixie” haircut and telling you they admire your bold choice; they wish they had the guts to try it. Do you interrupt their Tuesday to let them know that actually you’re a two-time cancer survivor and prefer your hair long but thanks for the vote of encouragement, then watch their brows crinkle with embarrassment as they fumble for the right words that don’t exist? On a tough day, you try this and it’s just really awkward for everyone. So now you just smile without showing your teeth and say “thanks,” that one word hiding a universe of mixed emotions.

You’re still so tired all the time, and trying to get back to whatever it is you did before is so much more exhausting than you thought it would be. Your classmates have graduated, or your coworkers have taken promotions, or your neighbors have added a deck to their house while you’ve spent roughly two years hooked up to IVs just trying not to vomit. You understand that none of these things can be compared to the others like apples to apples, and that if they were, you would probably win the award for “most difficult task accomplished,” but it still hurts to see all the forward momentum as you emerge in the same spot you were in two years ago - or perhaps even a bit behind.

You are so thankful to be a #survivor, and you know so many people never make it this far - you know firsthand from all the lovely people you’ve met on your cancer journey who have died - so on top of survivor guilt generally, you also now feel guilty for not carpe diem-ing the crap out of every day and waking up excited about life and lilacs and lavender hand soap.

It’s kind of hard to adopt a devil-may-care attitude when you still have weekly blood draws and monthly imaging and doctor’s appointments, because although you’re cancer-free, there’s a long period of monitoring in which no one at the hospital seems quite sure they have really healed you. Better keep checking. All this close follow-up is evidence-based and whatever, but it’s not exactly a pick-me-up.

And so it goes, for months and months. You adjust. You’ve gotten good at adjusting to difficulty after all this time. Each day you try to just focus on the task at hand, and you get a little bit stronger when you remember to take a walk or do those physical therapy exercises, and you ask for help when you need it at least half the time. The other half you end up crying in your car in the parking lot because of how tired you are from walking all the way to the back of the store for a single bag of shredded cheese, and now your feet are so numb you have to sit here a while until they wake up enough for you to drive home.

But these instances of grief start to lessen in frequency. You’re doing it; you’re figuring out this survivor thing. Someone sends you a message on Facebook saying they just felt like they should let you know today that they still pray for you. This sends a shot of joy to your heart like a sugar rush to a four-year-old. It’s not even the prayer so much as the fact that they reached out to you, made you feel seen. Every little bit of kindness adds up to something - if not quite enough, at least to a spark of hope.

And we all know that enough sparks become a flicker, and a flicker becomes a fire, and a fire unchecked can become a wildfire. In the forest that’s bad, obviously, but in the metaphorical sense it’s great. You are a phoenix from the ashes, rising to face another day. You can’t feel your little phoenix feet and you’re missing a few feathers and you can only fly to the next tree and back today, but hey. Here you are. Carpe diem, after all. Time to rise.

This essay was referenced on Episode 42 of our podcast, “Ongoing Side Effects.”