livingcured

Most of my posts have been general thoughts on the large topic of cancer, and not focused on my personal experience. The good news is that most days, I am Jen, not Jen "the cancer survivor", or Jen "who can't think of anything but cancer". When I was first diagnosed, I used to live a life where my inner-dialogue was cursed with thoughts of the disease, wondering if my death would be long and painful and who my husband would remarry.

Over the past year and a half, I've largely moved from that anxiety ridden state of mind, to a new normal. Sometimes the fact that I had cancer catches me by surprise. Those moments used to be bad moments, because the anxiety would wash over me anew. But now I just say 'yes, that happened' and I move on with whatever I'm doing.

Until something spooks me.

An on-line friend recurred about a month ago, and it really threw me. Nothing about it made sense-- Amy had one of those sleepy pathology reports that I envied-- zero positive lymph nodes, a small tumor, Grade 2 cells. She was going to be fine. Until the disease went to her spine. Which she learned a week before her boyfriend was to propose to her on a Jamaican beach. This wasn't supposed to happen to Amy, and certainly not so soon after finishing chemo. It was supposed to happen to people like me-- people with big tumors and 15 positive lymph nodes (a lot, to you civilians). I had a bout of anxiety, the type that kept my feet tapping and my mind racing. I felt the urge to run (I went to the gym a lot that week) as if I could escape the cancer that was surely out to get me. I was horrified for my friend, and since I had spent so much time thinking about what I would do when/if my cancer advanced, I could too well imagine what she was going through. And if she was having this challenge, I was surely next.

Another jolt to the system was a fund raising letter that I received from the Young Survivors Coalition-- an advocacy group for young women with breast cancer. In their appeal they stated that only 50% of young women diagnosed with breast cancer survive 10 years. Which was BIG news to most of us young survivors who received the letter. And while I could immediately see this statement for what it was, an old statistic used to elicit badly needed dollars, it still caused all the anxiety symptoms that have become standard issue at this point. My chest tightened, I felt short of breath and I struggled to clear my mind of what I knew, intellectually, to be untrue. That stat is old, doesn't include the treatment protocol that I had, or any of the newer chemo protocols that have come along in the past 5, 10 years. But still, the challenges of living cured surfaced-- the struggle to remain in a healthy denial of statistics and the fickle hand of fate.

I recently learned that there are 10 million cancer survivors in the U.S.

To put this number in perspective, I did some research. There are 8 million plus people living in NYC. Supposedly there are 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. I was surprised to learn that there are only 5 million Jews living in this country. All of these groups of people seem larger in the public consciousness than my fellow cancer survivors.

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I felt as thought I'd joined a large sub-culture. I started to learn of other people who were living with cancer, or who had lost loved ones. I don't know if it is a stigma that continues to haunt cancer patients, (victims of the 'c' word) but no one self-identifies as a cancer surivor, the way they do as a Catholic, a college grad or a Mets fan. I've never heard a politician address cancer survivors and the need to cure cancer with the same sort of vehemence that surrounds the illegal immigration debate, at least not since Nixon, who was impeached when I was a toddler.

Maybe we've given-up, maybe most researchers don't really believe there can be a cure. Or maybe our nation's other problems now dwarf the fact that cancer kills half a million Americans a year.

This was released at the recent meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncologist. It is an annual report that cites all the good progress that has been made against cancer during the year, and outlines strategies for improvement. Of personal interest, the battle against Her2 positive breast cancer continues with some postive news about another targeted therapy called Tykerb.

Page 28 is interesting-- it provides statistics on different types of cancer, including annual new cases and estimated deaths. It provides a road map of a place I call Cancerland, where its citizens tend to think 'thank GOD I don't have (insert horrible cancer)' in order to make oneself feel better about having, say, Stage IIIC breast cancer at age 34. As compared to pancreatic cancer, which has a 5 year survival rate of 4%, my (fingers-crossed cured) breast cancer looks like a walk in the park.

Not sure if you can follow this link (I'm new at this), but Bristol-Meyers Squibb has a new ad campaign. Three ads feature an individual cancer survivor and his or her inspirational thoughts. Lance Armstrong is one of the survivors featured and my husband and I came across the ad while channel surfing the other day. We both cringed.

First, I'm embarrassed to admit that I was taken aback by how forcefully Lance Armstrong spoke to his cancer. Lance looks directly into the camera, levels his gaze and says: "Remember me cancer?" He spoke to it head-on, and I, ever the yellow-belly, thought: 'Whoa Lance, careful, you're going to jinx yourself!' Which is irrational, but the superstitious way my mind works sometimes.

But he also said something that I, as a cancer survivor, just could not understand-- he told the cancer "You made me what I am."

When I was first diagnosed, we (my husband and I) adopted the mind frame that 'things' (the cancer and its treatment) are going to suck for awhile, but one day, we'll look back on this sad period of our very long lives and view it as a blip on the radar. There was no reason that once it was over, our life together couldn't go on as planned. I really hung tough to the idea that cancer was not going to change me, and if it did, somehow I would lose a battle of the overall war. And when someone told me that this experience might make me into a better person, I was offended. I was perfectly fine with myself before the evil visited. So I plugged my nose, and kept my eyes on the horizon.

Truth is, I knew this would change me in small, incremental ways. It did almost immediately- I have the surgical scars to prove it. Everyday I make different choices because of cancer. When I'm with my husband, I'm really present, because there were many days when I thought our time together was limited. And when a fifth cousin twice removed invites me to a baby shower, I decline without guilt. There are other things I'd rather do with my time, because my time has a lot more value than it used to.

So maybe these small daily choices will lead to big changes over a lifetime. But I still don't see any big meaning in the 'cancer experience'. I don't think it made me what I am today. But now, almost a year out of treatment, I'm beginning to realize that changing because of cancer doesn't mean losing a battle against it.