Living in the Shadow of Cancer

I recently had my 5 year diagnosis anniversary, and it did not feel as celebratory as I'd hoped.

Hi everyone!

Well, we’ve made it: those glorious, fleeting few weeks when we can open up the windows and sleep through the night without the heat or air conditioning on. Right now, I’m sitting underneath my pergola with an iced chai tea and my Merlin app open next to my laptop and life feels good, a welcome relief after a stressful few months.

Let me explain: April marked my 5 year diagnosis anniversary of Stage 1 Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I had my regular 6 month check-in with my oncologist a few weeks ago, and the appointment fell on the exact calendar day that we had our first meeting in 2020. It felt very full circle. I was expecting to finally “ring the bell”, which, in cancer land, marks formal remission and/or completion of treatment. Instead, thanks to some slightly wonky bloodwork, I have to get a few more tests to be 100% certain it’s not “something”. My doctor reassured me that there’s likely nothing to worry about; I was recently sick, so this probably impacted my bloodwork, he explained. Still, this is the first time in 5 years that I’ve had to “follow up” with more testing, and it really triggered my health anxiety. I felt myself sliding down into that chasm of fear and worry that I lived in for months during my original ordeal. Here I was, obsessively analyzing a cluster of (minor, inconsistent) symptoms and slightly out of range bloodwork, and quickly reaching the terrifying conclusion that maybe the cancer was back. My husband reassured me that I’m fine and there’s nothing to worry about, but I could feel myself unraveling nonetheless.

Then, this week (still without answers for my bloodwork), I vowed to try and forget about cancer for a minute and just…live my life. Somehow, that’s exactly what happened. I’m knee deep in school volunteer commitments, and I’m trying to make time each day to declutter and organize my home. I’m back into the swing of my exercise routine after our Italy trip, and making plans with family and friends. I’m trying new recipes, going to the park with my kids, listening to the birds and going on walks. This is how I want to live my life, not hunched over my laptop, Googling symptoms, hand wringing over every cough or low-energy day, letting my fear eclipse every good thing in my life. I still have to get through the scheduled testing and results, but I’m feeling much better about everything now.

Here’s the thing: survivorship is a long game. Even after you’re “better”, cancer has a way of lurking in the shadows. Little things can trigger that trauma and the fear comes right back. There is no point, no threshold you can cross where you’re 100% in the clear, guaranteed that you’ll never be sick again. I’m fairly sure I will always be afraid, to varying degrees, of a recurrence. Knowing this, is it more helpful or hurtful to spend your life in a state of constant vigilance? Where should we draw the line of what is “enough”, as it relates to prevention? When is it OK to just…move on, and let cancer worries take a back seat?

For the first two or three years after my diagnosis, every lifestyle choice I made was measured on the cancer risk scale. This felt safe, but also stressful and, eventually, unsustainable. I eventually started to question if it was OK to let down my guard a little, or if doing so would be the opening that cancer needed to make its triumphant return. Any time I’d let myself have a few glasses of wine with my husband, or enjoy freshly baked chocolate chip cookies with my kids, I’d feel pangs of shame and guilt, like I was recklessly inviting cancer back into my life. There was a war raging between the part of me that is terrified of becoming complacent and getting sick again, and the part of me that just needs to chill, enjoy my life and not let fear run the show.

The Onion, brilliant as always, with this “If I Don’t Laugh, I’ll Cry” faux-headline

My current take: it has to be a delicate balance. I don’t feel comfortable just pretending this threat doesn’t exist and throwing caution to the wind, but I also refuse to let it rob me of my joy and vitality. It’s taken me five years and a lot of introspection to reach a personal happy medium. We all know stories of people who do everything “right” and still get cancer. Conversely, there are just as many people out there who really neglect their bodies and never get sick. This serves as a reminder that we can only control so much. I have to give myself some grace.

That said, I still have some non-negotiables as it relates to cancer prevention; these are things that I feel are effective in lowering my risk and sustainable to implement long term, in part because they just make me feel good:

1. Regular exercise (usually 4-6 days a week)

2. A whole-food plant based diet with a heavy emphasis on potent cancer fighting foods (and lots and lots of broccoli sprouts!)

3. Adequate sleep (ideally 8-9 hours a night)

4. Time in nature

5. Lowering my daily stress levels, specifically through meditation, mindfulness, #1 and 4 (exercise and nature time), carving out daily “quiet time”, and keeping my day to day life relatively simple.

It is worth noting that the long term impact of cancer on your mental health can be significant, and isn’t something to brush off or ignore. I worked with a therapist for several years following my diagnosis in part to help me process what I had been through. Getting professional help - even if it’s many years after your diagnosis - is worthwhile and nothing to be ashamed of. You deserve a life free from the burdens of your past illness, and there’s no one-size-fits-all timeline for “getting over” a bout with cancer, regardless of the type, staging or specifics.

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If I’m being honest, a big part of me hesitated to write this post; it feels uncomfortable to admit that I still carry a decent amount of “trauma” surrounding my cancer ordeal, especially when so many cancer patients go through much, much worse than I did. But, I know many of my readers here have been personally touched by cancer, and if this makes even a small handful of people feel seen and comforted to know they’re not alone, it’s worth it to put my “issues” out there publicly❤️.