Dear, Person Who Just Wants to be ‘Normal’ Again
An Open Letter from the Person Who Tried to Sweep Cancer Under the Rug: Stupid Cancer Open Letters
“I’m going to put this as far behind me as possible. I’m going to pretend this never happened. I lost an entire year of my life to cancer, and I don’t intend on losing another day.”
That is how I responded when I was asked what I was going to do next after completing my cancer treatment. I intended to never address or revisit my diagnosis, outside of my annual post-treatment scans, again. I refused to talk about it with anyone during treatment, and tried even harder to repress it after remission.
But no matter how hard I tried to ignore it, by focusing on work, my education, going out with friends, and being a normal 24-year-old, cancer always found its own way of reminding me that it will forever be part of my life. Outside of the physical aspects of my after affects, things that I would normally brush off, suddenly brought out the worst in me. The unintentional rudeness of a stranger would bring out my Mr. Hyde. I would also find myself constantly asking, “Why me?”, “Why did I get an ‘easy cancer’?”, “Why was I so lucky to be ‘cured’ when so many others will be in treatment the rest of their lives and may not make it?”
When I found out about Stupid Cancer and CancerCon, I was hesitant to go. At that point, it was five years past my diagnosis date. I assumed CancerCon would be more geared towards people currently in treatment, and I wasn’t sure I would get anything out of it.
Attending CancerCon changed my life.
By attending the panel discussions, I realized that I had been internalizing a lot of pain, anger, and survivor’s guilt. CancerCon was the first time I met someone my own age with cancer. It was the first time I found myself describing my own experience without feeling like the person I was speaking with felt sorry for me because they had been there. They get it.
This April will be my sixth CancerCon. I look forward to meeting you there.
From,
The Person Who Tried to Sweep Cancer Under the Rug
