How cancer made me wish I was a woman

I wish I was a woman.

I was 30 years old when I was diagnosed with cancer (Burkitts Lymphoma) on New Years Day 2007. At the time I was a reasonably fit guy who didn’t drink, take drugs, smoke, was active in sports and had a loving wife. Yet I got cancer.

It was as confusing as it was terrifying.

Where was the inspiration?

My treatment story is like many others with cancer. Frightening diagnosis, intentional on-mass chemical poisoning, insomnia and frightening follow up scans, body issues.

Yet if you read the books, attend the retreats, hear the motivational podcasts, the theme is the same. Cancer should be the greatest of teachers. The ultimate way to “unplug”.

It is greater than the greatest thing you call great.

The thought of this excited me, even when contemplating death. I know it was a source of hope for loved ones because I heard it whispered behind curtains. It became an expectation of a revelation.

Yet nothing. And now I wonder if it had a lot to do with because I am not a woman.

Macho macho man

It is awesome to be a guy.

Our bathroom lines are shorter. We can both tune out and look interested at the same time. Evidently we have brains in two places, that we can use in different situations. That’s got to be good. Oh yeah, and we get to have sex with woman.

See. Awesome.

But when it comes to learning from life changing events, males can suck at it. A lifetime of “macho Aussie bloke” conditioning made opening up to the lessons of “chemo class” almost as hard as the treatment itself.

Yet because I am male, it didn’t seem to bother me too much. Things can be just as they used to be. Testosterone for the win.

17 women and me

I should have cottoned on to this weakness early on after treatment.

A year after my treatment finished I attended a post-cancer 4 day retreat. You know the kind; surrounded by nature, no technology, lots of sitting in circles.

There were 18 attendees, 17 were woman. Most were bald like me. All recovering from breast or cervical cancer. All wishing the creepy guy in the room wasn't there to listen to their new insecurities.

Trust me ladies, me too.

Put that ratio into a pre-cancer context, and this would have been a different (although I suspect just as worrying) story.

The attendee list should have told me about the males tendency to ‘harden up’ when confronted with the uncomfortable. Why was I the only male attendee when most of the patients in hospital with me were male?

My cancer-versary

My 5 year cancer-versary was in 2012. This is the point your hospital records are marked as “recovered”.

I was cured by statistics.

At the time I brushed it off as “just a number”. I didn't need to recognise it because I had moved passed it. I had beaten it with my tough male traits of ‘I don’t give a shit’.

But it is not fair. Because to brush it off, is to forget the importance of the path travelled. And you can’t learn from what you won’t remember.

As it turns out it seems I do give a shit.

Cancer forced me to ‘unplug’ from big corporate and became an entrepreneur, a trader and one hell of a better father.

I just wish it hadn't taken me over six years. Somehow I think if I as a woman, it might not have taken so long.

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Originally published at adamjowett.com