I AM NOT A BLOGGER…
Well now I am. Though I’m not sure one post garners the title of “Blogger.” Prior to this entry, I questioned why I would ever start a blog. As I would scroll through page after page of someone describing how their Great Aunt’s 76th birthday party made them realize the secret to their family’s baked ziti was ‘love’ (In all fairness, it was really good baked ziti…), I would wonder what I would even write about if I started one.
This contemplation would be short-lived since I would 1) be running short on time for dinner (largely because I had spent a good portion of my evening scrolling through the saucy details of Great Aunt Gertrude’s 76th birthday party) and 2) I would quickly remind myself that no one cares about what I think.
Hell, even writing this I question whether or not this blog makes sense.
Please note, I didn’t say I questioned whether or not people cared about what I think. I know they don’t. So I do appreciate your continued attention or even just the nicety of scrolling. But hey, maybe you are hoping that I too have some insight into the secret of my family’s Hamburger Helper recipe. In which case, please forgive my assumption that you don’t give a shit and let me divulge the secret that our recipe does in fact come from a box.
Bloggers, they’re just like us!…
Also, now is when I should note that I am in no way sponsored by Hamburger Helper. Just wanted to clear the air in case something on my Squarespace site made you think otherwise. (Full disclosure, I am not sponsored by Squarespace either.)
However, one of the larger barriers-to-entry I faced in starting a blog was the self-inflicted feeling that I was an Imposter. Now, this wasn’t a new flair-up that arose from some inane fear that the regales of my Great Aunt’s toe amputation might not hold a candle to Great Aunt Gertrude’s Roaring 20’s themed bash. (Hindsight, perhaps we all should have been a bit more wary of 2020 based on the last round of 20s we went through…) Or that the big reveal of Helman’s (not a sponsor) rather than ‘love’ as the secret ingredient to my family’s Tater Tot Hot Dish might not capture your love and admiration quite like bloggers before me have.
No, for as long as I can remember I’ve felt like an Imposter. Running Cross Country in high school, I felt like an Imposter. I was not a runner, even though I was running…
I have been in animation production for four years and still feel like an Imposter, even though I have been producing animation…
Going through Cancer treatment I felt like an Imposter. Even though I was in fact going through chemo, countless surgeries, and the existential crisis that often comes with such a diagnosis…
And maybe now is when I should tell you I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2018…Probably should have led with that. Like I said, I am not a blogger…
At that point, I felt like an Imposter for trying to blend into the Public while everything about my outward appearance betrayed me. Perhaps I can’t even call myself an Imposter for this period of time, or at least, not a good one. I tried with all my might to look like the “Others” whose bodies weren’t waging some twisted cellular civil war. To avoid the nervous stares and the offhanded compliment on my “chic” haircut, a slight frown weighing down the corners of the lips that offered the olive branch of normalcy. The downward curve of their mouth always at enough of an angle to let me know that it was no secret as to why my hair was so “bold” or why I had a raised disk protruding from my right chest. No, it was never that cold in there and I was never that happy to see anyone…
I was naive to think that I would feel like I belonged once I “completed” treatment. (Though I am not sure I will ever feel like it is fully “completed.“ “Completed” implies finality. I am forever changed.) No. In fact, Remission has presented the biggest Imposter of them all.
Now when I walk through the halls of the Cancer Center, knowing it will (hopefully) be a quick 4-hour day (three of which will be waiting and watching HGTV), and the worst my Doctor will most likely say to me is that I work too much (Don’t we all?), I notice my steps quickening as I try to get out of the way of those who have far longer days ahead of them. I was there once. I know those days of not knowing when or if you’ll get to go home.
Those days of staring at the wall, trying not to think about the fire-of-a-thousand-Taco-Bells (not a sponsor), that is rising up in my chest from the piece of toast I was frisky enough to try that morning. (Won’t make THAT mistake again…Spoiler, we did.) Those afternoons of being thrown into a quick lung-biopsy because they have an opening and you have an “abnormal” spot in your chest. (How convenient…I have to wait two nerve-wracking months to find out if I have Cancer but now that I’ve been invited to the party you can throw me into a quick surgery? Do the schedulers know you play it this fast and loose down here?)
Now at my check-ups, I find myself tugging at my medical bracelet as if to remind myself that yes, you do belong here. Not that I want to belong there. I don’t want to contemplate if I will ever feel secure again. But once again, the Imposter starts creeping out from the shallow recesses of my mind. My hair now betraying me the other way. Covering up the scars along my neck from where they took pieces of me to determine if I was another statistic. I am no longer the size of an 8th grader. My pants are no longer baggy, my eyes no longer sunken.
Now, “Survivor’s Guilt” instead of indigestion rises up in my chest, an acknowledgement that I am one of the “lucky ones.” Yes, the lucky ones whose battles with Cancer aren’t too tragic. Our family’s lives weren’t turned upside down too much as we fought for another hour, a different day, one more year. One of the lucky ones with the strength to stand each morning and face the mirror, examining the body that bears the scars and stories of our fragility, daily reminders that all of this is fleeting. One of the lucky ones who was allowed to ring the bell, signifying infusions were over but confusion was just beginning. (Thanks, Chemo-Brain…)
Everyone says there is a “Before” to Cancer and an “After.“ If it could be as simple as a marking on a timeline. No one really talks about how the “After” looks. It’s not like those sexy reveals on HGTV, where now I have a wheel for a foot (asking for a Great Aunt…), shampoo commercial hair, and am just generally crushing my late 20s. I had the notion that Cancer was some deranged cocoon that not only changed my cells but also my outlook on life. Once done with Treatment, I would be thrust into the world anew, ready to take it on with such profound beauty and grace that would leave me serene and whole. Like I was a damn butterfly. (With a robot foot, shampoo-commercial hair, and a sick Insta following…)
Instead, I entered into the “After” ill-prepared for the mental chaos that was and continues to lap at the shores of my brain. I feel like a snow globe that has been shaken up and now I wait for the flurries to land so I may clearly see my path forward. But as the days go by, and I hit various post-stem-cell-transplant milestones, I am beginning to wonder if the flurries will ever settle. The world has continued on. I am not serene and whole. I am not a damn butterfly.
Instead, I feel like a mental Twister living inside someone else’s body and there’s no Bill Paxton (R.I.P.) to stop it in its tracks. (He stops twisters in that movie right?) The shell of me looks the same, (I mean seriously…Couldn’t you have altered my cells to at least have better hair? I admit, I was greedy with the robot foot. The hair was a fair ask.) but my spirit has shifted. The caterpillar fell asleep and out came a bird.
Cancer has a way of bending light and revealing the jagged edges of yourself that you thought facing mortality would soften. In bending this light, Cancer has simultaneously blurred the vision of where I see my path in life. The astigmatism of my sense of self has worsened. My understanding of time has shifted. Every passing moment, precious and to be savored. Every passing moment, fleeting and to be attacked with vigor…slowly building vigor.
I had an identity, a career-path, and an immense confidence in my health before I was diagnosed. I seem to have misplaced them along the way.
Cancer is a great Equalizer, and does not have the patience for perfection or plans. You can fight it all you want, but Cancer will throw you curve ball after curve ball as if to remind you that you are not in control of any of this.
Mornings spent taming your frizzy mane into perfect shoulder-length waves? Ehh, let's just 86 the hair altogether and see how that plays out.
Rapidly climbing the career ladder towards that next promotion? How about we take a bit of a medical leave since you can’t even remember if you’ve showered today.
Busting your ass before your 12-hr workday so you can still pretend like you have abs? Why don’t we inflame your joints and hand you a shiny new whip of a walker to tool around with.
And then, once you are given the “all-clear,” planning is expected to resume…Once again, the light bends and the old trusty framework between which I thrived before now looks a bit more like a cage. A cage that is as terrifying inside as it is outside. I do not want to be contained as the second-hand on my clock increases in speed with each passing second. I do not wish to leave, because I know not what lies beyond the metal bars.
I know how to be sick. I don’t remember how to live.
Where before I was content remaining quiet, working to fill my cage with baubles and brilliant things, my voice now burns deep within my chest. (And it isn’t the Taco Bell (not a Sponsor) fire…)
Before I thought I knew who I was and didn’t have much to say. Now I feel like I am staring at a stranger in the mirror, a stranger who has been staring back at me from day one, through thick and thin. A stranger I have spent years afraid of what people think of her. A stranger I kept quiet for fear she would tarnish our meticulously manicured image. A stranger who has been waiting to speak.
Cancer has presented me with a lot of time in my head (and Benedryl-hallucinations…). And I have realized that through my stem-cell transplant, the slash-and-burn equivalent to a cure, the foundations for who I truly am were forged.
I’ve been broken by chemicals I can’t pronounce, and rebuilt by strength I didn’t know I had.
As I step through the metal bars, away from everything I have strived for throughout my life, I am not sure where I am heading or what I will find out there. Maybe it’ll be clarity. Perhaps peace. I hope it is more of myself.
I am not sure I will find the notion of “sense” that almost kept me from writing this blog. I don’t think I could ever make sense of going through Treatment. Being a young adult with Cancer comes with a unique set of baggage. At a time of your life when you feel like the world is your oyster, your world is confined to the four walls of a hospital room (and you are told you cannot under any circumstances eat a raw oyster…). When your friends are planning their weddings and futures as parents, you’re planning your next Treatment plan which will most likely leave you infertile. At a time when careers are taking off, you’re left wondering if yours still fits.
But the sadness in all of this is that I am not alone. Roughly 80,000 other young adults (15-39 years old) join me every year, and that number continues to increase. We are a group of people who have hit the jackpot of all “journeys,”* bound together by our joint-appreciation of the scars we bare and the pain we bury.
I am not the authority on Cancer, though I am a Cancer Patient. Much like I am not a Blogger, though I have somehow managed to start a blog.
But perhaps I will find a purpose in all of this all. Maybe whoever reads this, be it Patient, Caregiver, Friend, or Lost Soul, will find a little more of themselves too. Life hands us all lemons in one way or another. I’ve found they’re a little easier to chew on with someone saying, “Hey, I’ve been there too.”
So here’s to the Imposters (Not to be confused with identity thieves…I am not raising a glass to criminal activity…). Here’s to those who are feeling a bit lost and unsure of where to head next. Here’s to those who have had their snow globes turned upside down and are also waiting for the flurries to land. You’re not alone. Not by a long shot.
** Cancer Support Tip: I have yet to meet a fellow Cancer patient who particularly enjoys their Treatments and scars being chalked up to a “journey.” It is also a term that is most often used with young adults, as if it is some right-of-passage trip we are on like Rumspringa. This is not a trip. We will not be birthed into this world anew like some pickled butterfly. Cancer is more like a “dumpster-fire” than a “journey.”
Can you use that word in a sentence? Why yes, yes I can.
SOLID SUPPORT SENTENCE: “We may not understand this Cancer dumpster-fire you’re in, but we are here for you.”
IFFY SUPPORT SENTENCE: “It is really amazing how much your Cancer Journey has changed your outlook on life.”
At least with the dumpster-fire verbiage us patients have the imagery of rising out of the trash-blaze like a badass Phoenix, rather than some dainty butterfly. (No offense butterflies, I know you do a lot of important work and are badass in your own right, but being born from flames as opposed to a long mummified nap just seems cooler.)
And I get it, Cancer is hard on everyone, not just the patient. So let’s figure out how to navigate the Great Dumpster-Fire together… Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk. (I am also not sponsored by TEDtalk. I have no sponsors…)