The day you get your cancer diagnosis never leaves your mind. It’s always there reminding you that you made it another year. However, in the midst of a pandemic, while social distancing and staying safer at home, you might forget what day it is – what day of the week, what day on the calendar.
I was less than a mile into a three and a half mile run yesterday when I realized it was April 19, the day I learned I had metastatic melanoma. I looked at what I was wearing – new purple shoes that arrived the day before and purple shirt and leggings with purple accents. It was a rare time when I was color coordinated for my regular run. But so appropriate for that day. Purple is the color for cancer survivors.
This last year of my seven year survival was a tough one. In the midst of uncertainty at my full-time newspaper job, I had accepted a part-time (half-time) job as a group exerciser coordinator at the YMCA. When I accepted the part-time job, I did the math and knew I’d be putting in 60 hour weeks, but there was flexibility within those 60 hours, which was good and bad. It was scary, but I figured I could handle it.
Many times I’d be working into the weekend or at night, depending how family and the rest of life overflowed into my work week. About half-way through the year, family demands increased and it became increasingly difficult to get those working hours in. Thankfully, I had lots of paid time off and could use it to fill in gaps.
However, it was all taking it’s toll. I felt more tired. My closest friends started asking how I was or point blank telling me I looked like crap. I had many conversations with myself and others and finally used my 62nd birthday as the driving force behind leaving my 23-year career. And then – as I wrote in my last post – all hell broke loose and the country started shutting down.
Looking back at my cancer journey, I see parallels to what I experienced and what I was hearing about the pandemic.
When I first found the lump under my arm, dread and horror flooded me, bringing me instantly to tears. Then I pulled it together and rationalized, it’s probably no big deal. Watch it and see what happens.
When the news of the coronavirus started making its way across the ocean, many people said, it’s no big deal. It’s no worse than the flu. Everyone is overreacting. The country watched and waited, not really taking any actions.
That lump I found began to hurt. I went to my general practitioner, who ordered a mammogram, which resulted in an ultrasound, which ended up with a biopsy. Still, not really admitting to myself what might be happening, I sat in the clinic for the biopsy wondering if this was the day that would change my life.
As the coronavirus hit the United States, hot spots began appearing across the country and officials began ordering one precaution, then another and another and people questioned every decision wondering – is this really necessary? It’s no worse than the flu.
The day I got the phone call with the biopsy results is embedded in my mind forever. While a small part of me had wondered if this might be something big, the bigger part of me still denied anything serious was wrong. That phone call crashed down on me, bringing with it the weight of the word CANCER in big bold letters. Not only that, metastatic – spreading, – not know where or how far or how fast. I could no longer deny the battle I was facing.
As the coronavirus, COVID-19, became very real to many Americans, the news of social distancing, being safer at home, and schools, restaurants and business closing, came crashing down hard on people and try as they may, it was hard to deny the reality of such an extremely contagious, potentially deadly virus. Reactions were dramatic.
Suddenly, everything they took for granted was being ripped away from them, much like life before cancer is ripped away from anyone diagnosed with cancer and going through cancer treatment consumes your days. As COVID-19 became very real, it consumed every waking moment and possibly invaded sleep, if you let it.
Every cancer patient, or anyone who has had a serious health issue, will tell you, your perspective on life changes dramatically when you are faced with the possibility of losing everything. Moments are more precious, little is taken for granted, time slows as you try to absorb all the good around you. A cancer survivor never sees life the same way again. It alters your view, changes your priorities and adjusts your attitude – almost always for the better.
As the country and our state of Wisconsin come out on the other side of COVID-19, I hope people pull from the experience lessons that will change them and their lives for the better. I hope they remember that family is everything, that many things we think are crucial are rarely important, that it’s ok to be imperfect, that rest, health, exercise and good nutrition are vital, that at the end of the worst storms lie the brightest rainbows, that nothing should be taken for granted.
I remember vividly my new perspective as I went through treatment and knew I was going to survive this round of the fight. I’ve seen that perspective dissolve over the years of surviving until I feel I’m back where I once was, thinking time will stand still and wait as I cram 20 pounds into my 10 pound bag of life, trying to fit in more than I should, more than I need.
This pandemic has redirected my perspective again and I look back to the clarity I had seven years ago where I spent summer weekends watching dragonflies dance as I recovered from each treatment. I long for that simplicity, similar to the simplicity forced on everyone as they social distance.
As safer at home orders lift, will people remember the beauty of family meals, even if it was carryout to support a local restaurant? Will they remember the peace of not chasing in a million directions and wonder how much of that is really necessary? Will they realize that life slowed down is better for our overall health? Will they understand that sometimes the biggest lessons in life come from not getting what you want, from having to wait, from being bored, from finding the beauty in something that is difficult?
Seven years after my diagnosis, I am nearly halfway through the 15 years of life expectancy the clinical trial had shown when I started immunotherapy. In those seven years, two people I know died of melanoma recurrences. Several others with a breast cancer diagnosis have passed away after the disease came back.
Why was I driving myself back into the ground the last year or more when I was given the grace of 15 additional years, hopefully more?
As I’m looking at the sunset of a long, somewhat unexpected career (I never intended to be a journalist, it just happened), I look forward to the sunrise of something new, refreshing and bright – both on the other side of a pandemic and on the other side of refocusing my life.
April 19 will always be embedded in my memory. Hopefully next year, I will remember what day of the week/month it is when that day arrives.