Cancer……Never to be the same

Cancer. The word just sucks. It embodies everything that we fear about it….death, finality, and despair. It’s amazing how one little six letter word can cause so many emotions to come trickling out of us. However, I don’t know if anyone can truly understand its depth without having been personally touched by it. If you’ve had cancer, you’ve had an immediate relative, or your best friend touched by cancer, you know its depth. This is the story of how I intimately know cancer and will never be the same.

When I was twelve, maybe thirteen, my father was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I was a pre-teen girl, with so many emotions of becoming a young woman and then suddenly facing the potential of losing my father. It was like the world stopped spinning on its axis as I tried to understand the complexity of cancer, and its implications. I had seen movies and television shows that depicted people getting cancer, and then dying. There was no chance for hope to grow. Life ended, and that was it. I learned about the staging of cancer, the different types of cancer and which ones were more aggressive. I watched my dad go through radiation that burned his neck. I saw the effects of the chemotherapy when he lost some of his hair, not all, but his eyebrows and arm hair. I knew that the doctors were hopeful that this could be treated and he could regain a normal life. I tried to be hopeful as well, but I heard people whisper around me when they wanted to say something about cancer. I couldn’t understand for the life of me why people couldn’t just talk about it. It wasn’t like I was going to fall apart just by the mention of the word. I wanted more than anything for someone to just talk about it. Tell me if they knew someone with cancer, tell me their story. But the word causes so much fear and insecurity with some people that their only natural reaction is to not speak its name, like its Voldemort.

When I was fourteen, and obviously not a licensed driver, my mom had to work and needed me to drive my dad home from chemo. I was pretty close to turning 15 and knew how to drive but still 14. I had to miss class so that I could drive him home. I sat in the room with him while they ran the chemicals through his veins. I saw a side of cancer I had not yet seen or known. Sure, I knew that he went for treatment but pretending that it was not a debilitating, sickening event was easier. I watched as he lay back in the chair while the nurse prepped him and got him ready for the medicine. I admired her sense of humor. She was fully aware, probably more so than any of us, of the reality we faced yet she kept it together. She was positive and uplifting, and she knew that the mental battle was probably three quarters of the fight. I remember returning to class the next day only to be chastised by a thoughtless teacher for missing class. He wanted to give me a hard time about making up class work because my mom had forgotten to write an excuse. I can only imagine the conversation that she had with him, because the very next day he treated me different–almost as if I were fragile.

Luckily, my dad beat round one of the infamous cancer beast. Before my dad got sick, I had only known of one other person with cancer–a favorite aunt–and she died from the beast. I felt like we had won the lottery when they told us those two words–“cancer free.” The mere mention of the word struck chords with me after that. I could relate to emotions that only someone intimately touched by cancer could know. My senior year of high school, or shortly thereafter, I learned about one of my friend’s mom having cancer. I made a point to visit her and bring her flowers. She had been one of my freshmen teachers and I despised her class. I had a new appreciation for her when I saw her with a rag covering her hairless head. I cried when we left because I recognized that gray skin tone, that breathless voice, and that sense of hopelessness. Her case was much more serious that I had thought, and within a few months she succumbed to the beast.

Years passed and I thought that cancer was a thing of the past, and surely we’d paid our dues to the club we didn’t want to join. But, I was wrong and somehow my dad always knew that it wasn’t a matter of if it would come back but rather when it would come back. When it returned, I knew weeks before we got the diagnosis that it was back. My dad had been dealing with a nagging cough, and what his primary care doctor called “post nasal drip.” It wasn’t until he thought he had pneumonia and went to an acute care clinic where they did a chest x-ray. Something didn’t look quite right with the x-ray and so then it began. They compared that x-ray with a previous x-ray where his primary care doctor had seen a “spot” that he was “watching.” The acute care clinic thought there was more to the story and thank God they did. It turned out to be small cell carcinoma of the lung, a cancer with a higher morbidity rate than survival rate. It was a long shot to treat it, we knew that up front. After the initial diagnosis, we learned that it was in his liver and his brain, a result of metastasizing. What a big, horrible word to say the cancer had spread. After he went through rounds of radiation and chemo, eventually losing all of his hair this time, we thought that the battle was won. The lung was clear, the liver was clear, and the brain was clear. But something was off. Daddy’s gait was wobbly, and Mama knew there was something wrong. When pain became ever increasingly present in his bones, we knew that the war was still raging even though a few of the battles had been won. He was told that he had bone cancer, and as aggressive as it was, likely less than six months to live.

How do you make the most of six months to live when you know the end result will be the same, no matter what? I really don’t know how we did it. It was a blur. I remember the doctor’s telling us that it would only be a matter of time before he became immobile.We jam packed all sorts of trips and stories into those last few days. His bodily strength wavered but his fervor for life and the living never did. He was in full acceptance of what was happening, but had made peace with his demons. More importantly, he knew that he had a family who loved him and I had a Daddy that I knew loved me.  I’ll save you all the graphic details of his last days, except for this. I was headed out for a business trip to San Antonio, Texas and he wanted nothing more than for me to go. I wanted nothing more than to stay in Georgia, by his side. He prodded me to go, even giving me $100 to spend as mad money. I worried on the plane ride out there. I worried in the hotel. I worried that he would die and I would be miles away. I even checked with the airlines about how I could catch the first flight home in the event the unthinkable happened. But, it didn’t. I came home on Friday afternoon, checked in with my parents on the phone. Mama said Daddy had some lucid moments and some where he was in another world. I prayed that he would hang on until I could get back home. We left Saturday morning towards Columbus and my dear friends met me at my parents house. The hospice nurse was in and out, and she was very up front when she told us that the end was near. In less than 48 hours, my Daddy slipped away. He waited until I got home, safe and sound, to let go. That’s a gift I will cherish, even in the twisted face of cancer.

Cancer. Such an ugly word. But something from which magnificent beauty can be born. My dad lost his fight, and that breaks my heart. But, in his fight, he taught me how to be strong and courageous. He taught me how to look death in the face and be at peace. He taught me that even when all hope is lost, there comes a time of renewal–even if its through the fire. I can’t say that I wrote this without tears because I would be a liar. But, I hope that when people talk to me about their struggles with cancer or their family member’s struggles with cancer that I can be a more compassionate ear. I don’t just think about how the word cancer affected my family, I feel it in a place that I hope few should ever know. But by feeling that ping of heartbreak, I feel that I have something that people who are touched by it can understand…hope in the face of hopelessness, renewal in a season of drought, and a love for life when it’s fleeting. Although cancer comes bearing death and sorrow at times, it also comes bearing gifts of empathy and love. Without it, I know that my heart would love just a little less, hope just a little less, and fear just a little more. I’m different because of the impact cancer had on my family, and continues to have on my family, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Finding something precious in the epitome of despair is what allows us to savor life during a most treacherous time, and that is why I’m lucky to never be the same.