How Do You Go From Patient to Survivor?
Tonight, I'm a cancer patient in active treatment.
Tomorrow, at around 2:30pm, I'll get off the table after my last radiation treatment, I'll ring a bell, and I'll be a survivor.
I don't know what to do with that.
My last nine months has been a series of quick decisions, endless appointments, new doctors, and treatments that were supposed to go on for so long, I never thought about what to do when they stop.
How do I make the mental leap that once I ring this bell, I'm in a different stage--that somehow, suddenly, I've won this battle that everyone talks about?
How am I different tonight than I will be tomorrow?
I have six months left of infusions every three weeks (kindof like chemo-lite). I will take another drug in the form of a pill every morning for 5, maybe 10 years. I will have scans every 6 months. So there is still treatment, but after tomorrow, it's not considered active anymore. And I don't know where to put that.
How do you hold your own weird graduation from a school you never wanted to attend? How do you move on from being under the daily watchful eye of some the country's top breast cancer specialists, to driving 1500 miles back home and going back to live a normal life in New Orleans? My brain just isn't there yet.
At the Hope Lodge, they have weekly graduations, and a couple of my favorite people here "graduated" this week. They get a special edition teddy bear and a graduation certificate and they give a speech. I could have signed up for it, but I was scared to do so. I knew that having a ceremony signifying the end of things would be an emotionally loaded experience, and frankly, I didn't want to freeze up and/or cry in front of people. I guess I won't get the teddy bear.
I'm so happy it's over. I'm so exhausted from it. I'm exhausted from holding myself together through all of this. I'm exhausted from having a good outlook--from having a good sense of humor through it all. I miss my life and my city and my truly amazing family of friends. I miss my freedom and my kitchen (god, I miss my kitchen) and I miss having a day where all I do is watch BBC shows on Netflix and hang out in my house without pants on.
But there's this underlying emotional resistance to it. I'm utterly overwhelmed with the prospect of not being near Mass General. Of not knowing what comes next. Of not knowing what to do. Of not having a million medical appointments lined up that dictate what my schedule is and what my top priorities are.
I imagine that, in a way, it's like someone getting out of prison after a long haul. You're jubilant about your release, but now there are all these decisions--all the things you have to take care of that someone else was in control of--like what you're having for dinner, and when to do laundry, and where you want to go, and how to get there, and when you think about it too hard, it's completely overwhelming. Do I have what it takes to be a civilian again? Is it somehow easier to be back in there? Am I still equipped to make it through daily life?
It's just so much.
But tonight, I'm still a cancer patient. Tomorrow, just like it's been for the last nine months, my top priority is to show up for my next appointment.
After that appointment, I'll be a survivor.
After that appointment, I'll have to figure out my next top priority on my own.
After that appointment, I'll ring that bell.