Waiting

Waiting. Waiting is the worst. What am I supposed to do while I’m waiting? Waiting for the doctor to finally come into the exam room, waiting for a letter, waiting to hear if I got the job, waiting for test results — it all tries my patience and there’s always a chance of disappointment. I, like many others, am not “good” at waiting. Unfortunately, most things, people, and dates don’t care about my disdain for the time between when I know about something and when I know about something. Cancer is no exception to this rule. She is a mean broad with a flair for the dramatic.

Finding out I had cancer was one thing. Waiting to do anything about it based on something as mundane and seemingly irrelevant as my doctor’s schedule was another thing entirely. Ten days of work goes by in a flash, but ten days of waiting between getting diagnosed and going in for full-body scans went like molasses in December.

I got my diagnosis on October 9th, 2017. It wasn’t until the 19th that I got my first set of scans done. Every day in between felt like zero-gravity. I did not feel doomed nor safe, scattered nor settled — I was suspended somewhere in between, desperately searching for a lifeline to pull me back to earth. I could only think of the upcoming scans, of what course of treatment would be required. I spent hours blaming myself for my history with drinking and smoking in high school and college (despite having quit both). I wondered how long the cancer was growing before we found it. I worried it was too late. Time, while passing so slowly, seemed limited. For the first time in my life, I was worried I wouldn’t have enough. Not enough time. Not enough room to make my life what I wanted it to be. It is a special kind of purgatory to be afraid of dying and afraid of the cure. Waiting to find out what my cure would be — if there was one — tested my patience and forced me to prioritize the pieces of my life.

One of the wisest decisions I made after getting diagnosed was to call up my old therapist and book an emergency appointment. Ever wise, she imparted how crucial it would be to focus on controlling the things I could control. In a moment when almost everything seemed out of my control, I badly needed a reminder that it was futile to stress over something as furiously uncontrollable as cancer. She reminded me to preserve my energy for treatment. That succumbing to my anxiety would only let cancer creep in to places it shouldn’t be. She helped me accept that my cancer battle was both physical and mental. And that despite having little-to-no control over the physical aspect of things, I could certainly put up a mental fight if I prioritized properly.

That night after therapy, I wrote the following in my journal:

I want so much more in life. After all this is over, I will not waste any more time waiting. I will live, I will strive, I will laugh and love, and I will chase the stars.

And there lies the sweetness of bitter waiting: in being forced to wait for the worst possible outcome, I realized I had been waiting long before I got cancer — and it was getting me nowhere. I did not need to wait anymore. I could start being the person I wanted to be now.