Cancer quiet | Health Update #6
Cancer quiet | Health Update #6
Clear scans and a personal essay
Welcome to Gen Z Translator. This is What’s Up Wednesday, where I give you a personal update on a Wednesday. Clever, right? If you’re new, you can subscribe here and follow me on X/Twitter or Threads. Views and experiences my own.
Whew, okay. Here we go.
I recently received good news. I’ve had a total response to my cancer treatment. Chemotherapy shrunk the tumor out of existence, surgery guaranteed its removal, and the following pathology confirmed nothing was left. This is the best possible scenario.
I’ll admit, I’ve put off writing this. I think it’s going to take a long time to feel comfortable saying I don’t have cancer in case I do have cancer. I’m also still actively receiving treatment, although it’s not as intense as chemo or surgery. I’m going through targeted treatments now as well as the other routine stuff – EKGs, blood draws, nutrition visits, etcetera.
I wrote a piece for The Washington Post about my experience. I talked about how emotionally, you don’t necessarily transition to “cancer clear” or “cancer free,” but you can transition to “cancer quiet.”
“Group members joke about being part of the “still alive” club and how it’s never ‘cancer-free,’ but ‘cancer-quiet’ — a way of saying our lives will never be totally free of cancer, as we deal with continued checkups and lingering symptoms. But we can live our lives relatively quiet from cancer.” - The Washington Post, I’m in my early 20s. Why do I have breast cancer?
There is so much nuance to cancer I had no idea about before this started. Jokes about “finding the cure to cancer” fall flat when you look at all the variations of breast cancer – let alone all the other cancers and their variations. I am by no means an expert, even on my own type.
Since I was a teenager, chronic pain and invisible illness were on my radar. I’ve seen wrist specialists, occupational therapists, mental health professionals, TMJ surgeons, naturopaths, sleep specialists, and GI doctors. I feel ignorant for never considering cancer. It’s not something my family had experienced before this. Now, I see it everywhere, and my heart aches for other patients and their caretakers.
The headline of my article asked “Why?” I’m not sure I particularly care why I got cancer anymore. Now I’m asking myself “What do I do with this?”
Therapists, social workers, and nurses have all said the same thing. You don’t need to find meaning in this experience. Sometimes there is none. But if you’ve read my writing before, you know I love a good conclusion. I will carry more compassion, appreciation, and intentionality forward with me.
I’m still discovering how to move through this experience – and with it. I think there comes a point where you stop fighting the process and start working with it. I’m at a crossroads in my journey where I’m not completely sick but I’m not completely recovered either. I’m grateful I can oscillate between sharing my experience and expressing my creativity.
I don’t have a neat conclusion for this newsletter. When I first heard the news that my scans were clear, I didn’t have a reaction. I couldn’t move past apathetic self-preservation and into excitement. I’m realizing perhaps this, too, is more nuanced than I once believed.
