A Lot Can Happen in a Year...

Last year, on a sunny morning like today, while pulling into my driveway, I heard the words, “It’s cancer” for the first time. Up until then, May 2 had been just another day; now, it was the worst day of my life. What followed over the course of just a few hours since that phone call from Radiology remains primarily a blur, a hazy picture Etch a Sketched into my mind: phone calls from doctors I’d never heard of, countless Google searches late into the night, panicked cries, piercing silence… my calendar quickly turning into a Tetris of medical appointments (pricks and scans and infusions and consults whose surface I was just beginning to scratch).

Hazy still are the few phone calls I made and texts I sent in the hours and days that followed, an internal debate of just how much to share and when and with whom and how soon and what answers to provide when I had so few myself… all of it magnified by the deep heaviness I felt about the secret I was keeping and protecting, cradled in my womb.

“A lot can happen in a year,” they say, but I could’ve never imagined just how much could and would happen in 365 days. From May 2, 2023, to May 2, 2024 I have had several surgeries; spent time intubated in the ICU (an experience I’m still processing and likely always will); undergone 16 rounds of chemotherapy and 30 rounds of radiation; endured hundreds of hours of cold-capping in subzero temperatures; scanned my breasts and my womb more times than I can count; and discarded more fistfuls of hair than I like to acknowledge. Ultimately, I created a new life while simultaneously fighting for my own.

Over a year, I have felt the tenacity and healing power of unconditional love. I have witnessed the very best in people. I have loved myself purely and without judgment. I have relieved myself of all expectations. I have marveled at the knowledge and resilience of my body. I have learned from and faithfully relied on the brightest medical minds (and the most empathetic ones at that). I have reframed what it means to not only live but to live authentically and unabashedly in the moment. I have been witness to the immense joy that lives (and thrives) within the beige walls of a chemo lounge.

These 365 days have sharpened my sense of presence, of being, of giving and of receiving. They have fine-tuned my perspective. They have highlighted fidelity and friendship, and opaqued pretense and pretenders. They have bloomed new possibilities and buried wastes of time. They have colored me richer and bolder and rooted me infinitely deeper within myself.

I don’t remember much from that first week of knowingly cohabitating with cancer, but if I close my eyes, every feeling I felt then still bubbles right up to my throat and brushes my skin. My tumor wasn’t palpable and yet, was it ever; I have felt its presence long after its removal. That’s one of the aspects of cancer so few talk about and even fewer can possibly understand: it never actually goes away. We survive, but we never escape it. Survivorship is grueling, and particularly so for those of us diagnosed at an early age. There are still several years of daily medications, monthly injections and biannual follow-ups ahead of me to reduce the rate of recurrence (and the rate at which my mind can so quickly spiral into sensational scenarios) – though that’s a post for another time. 

Surviving. That’s what this past year has been about. Surviving and living thriving to share the story. 

As my body readjusts and recharges and acclimates to its new baseline, I find myself reflecting on this year with newfound admiration for myself. “A lot can happen in a year.” I am capable of so much in a year. Fittingly, as I write this thought, my six-month-old daughter is sitting next to me, laughing – at what, I’m not quite sure, and does it really even matter? She’s here. She’s well. She’s happy.

I’m here. I’m well. I’m happy. In fact, I don’t think I have ever felt this present and happy on a random May 2 morning.