fear of cancer

Reflections on My Fourth Year Cancerversary

When I think of cancer "anniversaries" there is only one date that comes to mind. April 15, 2009 - the day of my mastectomy.

From September 2008 to February 2009, all I remember is a whirlwind of appointments, tests, biopsies, phone calls, internet searches, crying jags and, finally, a diagnosis. You would think I could remember that date, but I don't. I think I had been through too much for too long and simply didn't have the brain power to commit the date to memory.

Finally, there was certainty, but many new questions. I was definitely going to lose my breast to a Stage 0 cancer I hadn't even been sure qualified me as a cancer patient. Now I had weeks to count down the days and contemplate the ramifications:

I remember fear and a feeling of being in the Twilight Zone. How could this actually be happening? Who are these many, many people swarming all around me? How am I going to feel, look, function – survive - when I wake up?

One year later, I decided I needed to celebrate my anniversary and asked my husband out to lunch. Mind you, I didn't want to celebrate the actual day. No, I was celebrating the fact that I had made it to April 15, 2010. I had managed to create distance from 2009, which included another surgery in September and major emotional issues. It was a major accomplishment that deserved to be celebrated.

That's how going out to lunch with my husband on April 15th became a tradition. Year two we went out again and I considered it "a very good day:"

It is a tremendous gift to know yourself and what you are capable of doing. Once you know it, you can put that faith in your pocket where it will safely stay in case you ever need it again. ... I'll be celebrating my survival, healing and the surprising gifts of cancer.

Year three was reflective and definitely not celebratory. We went out to lunch again, but I was focused on the emotions and fears of the actual day. On a positive note, I did realize how mindfulness and a few amazing people pulled me through.

How do I feel today? I'm not really sure. Initially, I tried to ignore the day and didn't mention lunch to my husband. For the first time, I felt silly bringing it up - like I should be past all that by now. As I wrestled with that feeling, I slowly realized I was on a survivor's guilt trip. If I wanted to go to lunch, I was entitled and shouldn't try to talk myself out of it.

After all that, my husband said he had remembered our tradition, but wasn't able to work out his schedule. Rather than disappointing me, he validated the importance of our tradition to both of us.

I don't know how I'll feel next week when we go out to lunch. Even four years later, it's clear to me that I'm still dealing with a moving target. I shed some tears as I read my earlier cancer anniversary blog posts, but posting to my Facebook page drew many supportive responses. We had an excellent discussion and, once again, the nurturing of other survivors who "get it" teaches me the most important lesson I've learned over the last four years, "I am not alone!"

Survival > Existence,

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cancerversary

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Summer's Over! Time to Face the Next "New Normal"

The time is finally here! Our daughter is off to college and we're facing yet another "new normal." Because this week has been devoted exclusively to spending time with her, I didn't make time to write a new post. Instead, I thought I'd rerun the piece I wrote last year entitled "What the Last Weekend of Summer Teaches Us About Moving Beyond Cancer."

Reading it again, I was struck by the pertinence of its message to what we're facing this September. Once again I'm hoping to "celebrate (my) tenacious ability to face (my) fears and get on with the next phase of (my) life." Although I'm not quite ready to let her go, I'm going to trust again that I can handle it as I step blindly into the unknown.

I hope you have a wonderful last weekend of summer and we'll talk again in September about our newest adventures.

It's the Friday before the unofficial last weekend of summer, which of course means it's Labor Day Weekend, the last day of summer is September 20th, but no one cares about that. This weekend draws a line in the sand. For the next three days, we continue to exist within the vast openness of summer days filled with sunshine and possibility. As of Tuesday morning, the beach chairs and umbrellas are stored away. It's not about technicalities, it's about knowing when to get on with the next phase of your life.

And get on we will because we've done this before. If you've graduated from the third grade, you're an old hand at it. We might complain about busier schedules, earlier wake up calls, and first day of school jitters, but we know we can handle it. Been there, done that.

When it comes to change or transitions we haven't experienced before, we tend to shy away (actually, we often run screaming in the other direction.) Our fear of the unknown is well known and deep-seated. It is the fear that gripped us when we were told, "You have cancer." Without warning from the calendar, or even our own bodies, we are suddenly plucked from our world and thrown into cancer's. All of the medical terminology, procedures and realities of our new existence are stunningly unrecognizable. There's no "been there, done that" to rely upon. We have to learn anew, sometimes minute by minute, what we are capable of handling.

At some point, if we are very lucky, it starts to get a bit easier. Not necessarily because we are "cured," but because we are healing. Like it or not, we've gotten on with the next phase of our lives. We are survivors. We've taken advantage of support groups, exercise classes, counseling, yoga, Pilates, meditation, guided imagery or whatever presented itself when we needed it. Nothing makes the stark reality of having cancer better. Cancer will always be a despicable blight. But we have managed to adapt to its reality so we can survive, despite our fear, and that's made all the difference.

Next week, with my children safely in school, I will travel once again to the Breast Center for my yearly mammogram. From the first mammogram of my life to the life-changing mammogram of September 2008, I never gave them much thought. They were inconvenient, uncomfortable obligations and I attended to them dutifully, but without concern. Now, I walk in hand-in-hand with my fear of the unknown and the inevitable question, "What if?"

I live in New Jersey and have been "down the shore," as we say here, many times. I love seeing the Atlantic Ocean, but I don't want to go in it. There's something about blindly putting my feet down on whatever might be lurking under the water that unnerves me. I'm never going to stop being afraid of the unknown. I'm just going to have to keep telling myself that I've handled it before, and I'm still here. For now, that's all I can do.

Have a wonderful weekend! Whatever we're up to, let's make sure to celebrate our tenacious ability to face our fears and get on with the next phase of our lives. Join the discussion and let me know how you've managed your fear of the unknown.

Survival > Existence,

Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

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managing the fear of cancer

Meditation Monday - Being Present with 9/11

It’s ironic that I dedicated last week’s Meditation Monday post to living in the present. That hasn’t been easy this week. In fact, it’s been a week to relive, remember and reopen old wounds. Each time I turned on the television or picked up a magazine or newspaper, I was forced to confront the horrors of 9/11 yet again. While nothing compares to the shock and devastation of 9/11/01, each documentary, story, article and interview drew me deeper down into that gaping hole of loss and pain.

This is especially true when it comes to fully understanding what was lost. As I watched the towers fall in real time, from the safety of my home, my mind focused only on the destruction of the buildings. It wasn’t until later in the day that I grasped I was watching as people died right before my eyes. Over the past ten years, I've learned more about them and the loved ones who mourn their loss. A few of the lost were people I knew. My husband worked with a woman who lost her daughter, my daughter’s friend, who was seven at the time, lost her aunt. Our neighbor up the street didn’t come home to his wife and children. The bank teller I chatted with once a week at our neighborhood bank lost her son.

We learned on the evening of 9/11 that we lost my husband’s friend Bob. Bob and my husband were high school friends, who ran track together, grew up together and loved each other like brothers. Just two days before, Bob joined my husband at the Jets season home opener football game. They tailgated, talked and reconnected. When the game was over, my husband called and asked if I minded if he stayed out a bit later than planned, because Bob was dealing with his recent separation from his wife and my husband wasn't ready to leave him alone just yet.

I’ve lived through miscarriages, years of infertility, 9/11 and being diagnosed and treated for cancer. Once I had my first child, the pain of infertility and miscarriages seemed extremely distant. That is not the way it is with 9/11 and having cancer. Am I failing at “being” when I relive the loss of 9/11 or the fear of receiving another cancer diagnosis? I don’t think so. I think we are complex emotional creatures with powerful memories. When those memories create pain, the bravest thing I can do is sit with it and allow it to be. If I allow the pain to exist without judging it, I am present and eventually I will feel it leave me. And when it returns, which I know it will, I can be present to it again and that's how I know I will survive it.

Now when I see the towers falling, the only thing I can think is that I am watching Bob die. That is the reality I didn’t understand those first few moments of this horror. But I also didn’t know, until much later, how important it would be to my husband that he spent those extra moments with Bob that last Sunday of his life. And how important it would be to me that I said I didn't mind and understood. By being present to a friend in need, we gave ourselves the gift of avoiding life long regret.

We spent the morning of 9/11 watching the memorial ceremony, as we have for the past 10 years. We waited for the reading of Bob’s name and we cried and remembered. At that moment, it was a time to grieve and we were present to it:

For everything there is a season,

A time for every activity under heaven.

A time to be born and a time to die.

A time to plant and a time to harvest.

A time to kill and a time to heal.

A time to tear down and a time to build up.

A time to cry and a time to laugh.

A time to grieve and a time to dance.

A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.

A time to embrace and a time to turn away.

A time to search and a time to quit searching.

A time to keep and a time to throw away.

A time to tear and a time to mend.

A time to be quiet and a time to speak.

A time to love and a time to hate.

A time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-9

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What The Last Weekend of Summer Teaches Us About Moving Beyond Cancer

It's the Friday before the unofficial last weekend of summer, which of course means it's Labor Day Weekend. Technically, the last day of summer is September 20th, but no one cares about that. This weekend draws a line in the sand. For the next three days, we continue to exist within the vast openness of summer days filled with sunshine and possibility. As of Tuesday morning, the beach chairs and umbrellas are stored away. It's not about technicalities, it's about knowing when to get on with the next phase of your life.

And get on we will because we've done this before. If you've graduated from the third grade, you're an old hand at it. We might complain about busier schedules, earlier wake up calls, and first day of school jitters, but we know we can handle it. Been there, done that.

When it comes to change or transitions we haven't experienced before, we tend to shy away (actually, we often run screaming in the other direction.) Our fear of the unknown is well known and deep-seated. It is the fear that gripped us when we were told, "You have cancer." Without warning from the calendar, or even our own bodies, we are suddenly plucked from our world and thrown into cancer's. All of the medical terminology, procedures and realities of our new existence are stunningly unrecognizable. There's no "been there, done that" to rely upon. We have to learn anew, sometimes minute by minute, what we are capable of handling.

At some point, if we are very lucky, it starts to get a bit easier. Not necessarily because we are "cured," but because we are healing. Like it or not, we've gotten on with the next phase of our lives. We are survivors. We've taken advantage of support groups, exercise classes, counseling, yoga, Pilates, meditation, guided imagery or whatever presented itself when we needed it. Nothing makes the stark reality of having cancer better. Cancer will always be a despicable blight. But we have managed to adapt to its reality so we can survive, despite our fear, and that's made all the difference.

Next week, with my children safely in school, I will travel once again to the Breast Center for my yearly mammogram. From the first mammogram of my life to the life-changing mammogram of September 2008, I never gave them much thought. They were inconvenient, uncomfortable obligations and I attended to them dutifully, but without concern. Now, I walk in hand-in-hand with my fear of the unknown and the inevitable question, "What if?"

I live in New Jersey and have been "down the shore," as we say here, many times. I love seeing the Atlantic Ocean, but I don't want to go in it. There's something about blindly putting my feet down on whatever might be lurking under the water that unnerves me. I'm never going to stop being afraid of the unknown. I'm just going to have to keep telling myself that I've handled it before, and I'm still here. For now, that's all I can do.

Have a wonderful weekend! Whatever we're up to, let's make sure to celebrate our tenacious ability to face our fears and get on with the next phase of our lives. Join the discussion and let me know how you've managed your fear of the unknown.

Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

Tags:

managing the fear of cancer