See Spot. Run.
“You’ve done this before?,” asks the CT Technologist. I nod, making a classic white-people-making-eye-contact-by-mistake face. You know the one: The spiel begins. “So, you...
No Evidence of Disease
For my 35th birthday, the Ontario healthcare system gifted me an oncology appointment: my first since finishing chemotherapy less than a month ago.
I officially received word that I'm in the NED stage of my my cancer treatment. No evidence of disease.
The truth is, I’m tired.
Dealing with cancer since February has been exhausting. As I approach my final few rounds of chemotherapy, I can't help but wonder how long the exhaustion will last.
Will I ever find my energy again, or am I doomed to be a husk of my former self?
Am I Just a Tourist?
I've been reflecting a lot on a powerful quote from author Susan Sontag. It may be familiar to some, but it's especially fitting as someone who's going through a cancer diagnosis (as she was when she penned it).
"Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place."
Will I get back home?
Susan Sontag, from Illness as a Metaphor
A Liminal Space
It's been tough to provide an update because, in truth, nothing much has changed. I'm supposed to start treatment this week.
An Update on the Treatment Plan
It's Sunday. Tomorrow, just over 24 hours from now, I meet with my medical oncologist to make a decision about the chemotherapy options that have been presented to me.
Reality Takes Hold
I'm sitting at home after having spent the last few days in the hospital following my bowel resection surgery. I think sleeping in my own bed last night was the best sleep I've ever had.
While I was in the hospital, mostly disconnected from the outside world and high on hydromorphone, the reality of my situation really set in: this is just the beginning—or, at least, it could be.
Imposter Syndrome Sucks
It feels like a weighted blanket, rooted in some unnamable space between body and mind, applying a firm pressure as it whispers that you don’t belong. Those whispers grows louder—immune to logic and rationalization—the interloper insisting evermore loudly that you’re a fraud. That you’re in the wrong place. That you should feel bad. That you are, in fact, the interloper in your own life.