Cancer is Not Sexy Enough
After being diagnosed with kidney cancer in January, I started writing — a lot. As an introvert with an active mind, writing has always been a useful outlet for my emotions. And my emotions went pretty much haywire after I became aware that my life might end a lot sooner than I’d always anticipated. From what I can tell, the jury’s definitely still out on that, by the way.
Recovering for six weeks from the surgical removal of my cancerous left kidney left me with plenty of time to write about my experience, and it was really cathartic — but also kind of addictive. I’ve heard directly back from hundreds of strangers who have read some of my essays, and it feels great to know that my writing is connecting with so many people who have felt the way I do now. I’ve been given the gift of seeing my emotions reflected back to me: the fear, the anger, the anxiety, and the hope, too. The response has been amazing and heart-warming.
Recently though, I’m faced with the reality that my cancer stories are competing for eyeballs against Stormy Daniels, and so I’ve got to up my game and make my cancer sexier if I hope to compete.
The first piece I had published at Boston NPR (wbur.org)’s Commonhealth section was shared wildly by my friends and strangers, and it managed to become the #1 most popular article on the site for six straight days.
What a thrill! My writing was finding an audience, and all it took was for me to get cancer. (Is it okay for me to make jokes like this? I hope so because it’s about to get a lot worse ….)
That was the pinnacle, and that was when we all lived in a Pre-Stormy World — a simpler time. When my next essay got published on the same site, I eagerly anticipated its rise through the Most Popular rankings, not realizing that circumstances had changed.
