Cancer Is a Cancer

Here's the thing: Cancer isn't just a diagnosis, it almost seems like a life sentence—a stamp on the back of your hand from some loud and violent club that you can't scrub off. You can go through all the treatments, have the surgeries, do the tests, pass the tests, but it will never go away.

It lingers there in the back of your mind, twisting any and all thoughts into constant anxieties, almost to the the point of pure emotionlessness. You become numb, yearning to feel any sort of security in your body again.

The things you were sure of—ten fingers, ten toes (if you were born that way), your organs, where they are, what they do, betray you. Suddenly your colon starts developing polyps that multiply and mutate, your thyroid has grown five times its size and is causing a lump to protrude from your neck and there's nothing you can do but nod and try to listen, try to comprehend what you are being told being told.

That they are going to take these things out of you, cut you open, and pull them out. Hands, hands, hands, inside of you, touching you, a gentle push here, a sharp poke there, and so many needles. Imagine you have a phobia, that you are squeamish, that this is the last place you want to be on this earth, but it’s for your own good. So you take it, you leave your body and you let it all happen.

There’s this promise you hold in your head, that you are going to thrive once you get better, but your brain stays behind. It remembers the touching, the poking, and prodding, the sheer panic and uncertainty, playing everything over and over again. You can shake your head as hard as you want, but it’s not etch-a-sketch; the memories don’t get blurred back into magnetic grains of sand that hide just under the surface, or maybe they do. They wait below the surface until something pulls them forward, forcing you to concentrate and see the thick, bold lines.

You could be in remission for years and it will still feel like just yesterday.

I don’t know how to change this. I don’t know how to escape the constant thoughts, but I’m an artist, a writer; if anything, pain is my fuel, suffering is my muse, and one day, when I’ve processed it all, I’ll be able to share more of my experience, grow from it, and inspire others. This is my first step towards letting it all out, and it’s been therapeutic. It’s been freeing. I know others have had worse, but that’s not what healing is about. Comparing yourself to other people only slows you down or makes you invalidate yourself. Everyone experiences life differently and there are no gatekeepers when it comes to trauma.