Writing About Cancer

In September of 2024, I was driving my son to his end of season soccer awards. I’d missed most of the games that fall, having been in the hospital until a couple weeks before. My hair was gone, and I was physically exhausted, but I was glad to be home for a little bit as I recovered from my first round of treatment. I said something to that effect – “I’m glad to be here” or “I feel really thankful for these moments with you” –  something that in any other circumstance would sound cheesy, but at that moment felt more true than anything I’d ever felt.

My son responded, “You should write about your experience. I think it would be interesting to read about it.” At the time, my son had just turned 10, and I’d tried to be as honest with him as possible about treatment and prognosis. 

Before that, I hadn’t written much about my experience with cancer. In fact, I hardly ever said the word. If someone asked me about my diagnosis, I would say, “I have leukemia,” avoiding the c-word, but generally I didn’t want to accept any of it. To write about cancer would be to admit that I had it, and it still didn’t make sense to me.

My diagnosis, which I might write more about later, was a whirlwind. I went from having some intense but treatable headaches to visiting a hematologist to the hospital in less than a month. 

When I came back to work after my first visit to the hematologist, one of my coworkers was complaining about something. I said, “At least you didn’t have to sit in a room full of people with cancer. That was depressing.”

When I look back at the timeline of diagnosis to treatment to recovery, I can clearly identify some of the stages of grief. I’m sure I’m not the first person to make that connection.

In mid-August of 2024, my mom and I walked into the hospital, dragging my pink flowered suitcase that she’d bought for me when my husband and I temporarily moved to the Netherlands 14 years before. I had just had my first bone marrow biopsy, a procedure that involved copious lidocaine shots and an instrument that seemed like a medieval torture device. After that, we’d gone for lunch while we waited for a hospital bed. Now, it was time to check in. I said, “I feel like you’re dropping me off at summer camp.” Nothing about the experience felt real.

My mom and I sat on the hard sofa, and when the first nurse came in, she asked which one of us was the patient. In the next week, each new staff member who came in asked where the patient was. I didn’t look or feel like a cancer patient. I had been at work the day before admission. I had played a disc golf tournament two weeks before. This was an inconvenience,

That first afternoon, I sent texts to friends to let them know where I was and what was happening, but I didn’t want to talk about it. To talk about it meant that it was real, and I just wanted to go back to work, to go on a run, to play a round of disc golf. I was annoyed that I couldn’t lift my suitcase on my own due to restrictions after the biopsy. 

When people suggested I journal, and they did, I didn’t really have a lot to say. I did record meals that I ate and tracked labs and some symptoms in a notebook, but I avoided writing about any emotion. To write about it meant that it was real, and I was doing an okay job pushing down my thoughts, focusing only on what was happening in the next 12 hours or so.

Mountain views seen from my walks around the oncology floor. I would stand here with tears in my eyes wishing I was on the other side.

In the beginning, cancer was an inconvenience, something that disrupted my routine and forced me to live day-to-day rather than plan ahead. Those who know me personally know that this element was the most torturous to me. A change in plans can provoke intense anxiety for me. I was not a person with cancer. I was a person who couldn’t go to work the next day, who had to cancel plans made months in advance. I would not, could not adopt cancer-patient as part of my identity. 

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But something was different about my son’s suggestion. Partially, it was the timing: I had completed my first round of chemo, and was technically in remission (although, as the doctors reminded me, it was only a matter of time before the cancer came back without further intervention). I was back at home and able to get outside. Mostly, however, it was also the source: My son wanted to know what I’d gone through, and I wanted him to have a written record. So I bought a new notebook, and I started recording what I’d gone through so far.

The other thing was that I knew that my son trusted my experience and my knowledge. He wasn’t going to suggest that a cold plunge would cure cancer or that I should have questioned a certain treatment. To write for him meant to write for someone who would validate and support.

Today, I’m pretty much an open book about my experience, although I occasionally still get suggestions or commentary that I could do without. (Yes, the “cold plunge” conversation was real.)  

I started writing for my son, but I’ve realized that the act of writing about my experience has also helped me acknowledge and validate the impact of cancer and cancer treatment on my life. Because I am back at work, playing disc golf, and rock climbing again, sometimes I forget what my life looked like a year ago. Still, what I went through has in many ways changed the way I look at life,

So, while I have other writing projects going on, for now I intend to use the blog to continue to think through, describe, and just generally share a little bit more about my time with cancer.