Two Years Gone

It is hard to believe that it's now been two years since the scan that revealed my cancer had spread to my bones. Two years ago, almost to the hour, I was on the phone with my sister, crying while telling her that the average life expectancy post-metastatic diagnosis is only three years. Today, two of those years are gone. I am reminded of the torturer in The Princess Bride: "I've just sucked one year of your life away...Tell me. And remember, this is for posterity so be honest. How do you feel?"

I feel good, praise God! It is hard to believe statistics would say I should be two-thirds of the way to my death. I'm not bed-ridden or bald; I'm not popping pills for pain or moaning with nausea. These are all the things I expected when I received my diagnosis two years ago, but treatment for metastatic disease is quite different than treatment for earlier stage cancer and has come a long way over the years. While there is no cure yet, there are more treatments and they have fewer side effects.

This is not to say I am without difficulty. I think of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most. Hahaha. Have you ever seen that saying on a key chain or card? I feel the effects of "chemo brain" every day. My mind really is the thing I miss the most. Now I forget entire conversations or things on my to-do list. I lose my train of thought mid-sentence. I can't remember people's names.

Before cancer, I was sharp. On it. Reliable. My entire job was just using my brain. I feel like I've lost that to a large degree and I grieve it. I've been reading a book called The Hardest Peace, written by another women diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer (MBC). She shares her own loss of memory and brain ability and her doctor's response that the hormonal treatments given to younger women with MBC to force them into menopause are "staggeringly difficult."

That admission, that compassion, that recognition of the difficulty of even these treatments that are so much better than what we had before, was a gift to me. So often, it seems like doctors think that as long as you're not dead, their work is successful and you should be grateful. And I am thankful to be alive. But I'm also sad. Part of me has died and it IS difficult, staggeringly difficult, even if it can't be measured or relieved by a prescription.

I am thankful for a good two years. I am thankful that I likely have quite a few more years to go and will knock the socks off that three-year average life expectancy. I'm thankful that radiation has helped my pain. But it is still "staggeringly difficult." I believe God is working for my good and that all that happens to me is ultimately in my best interest and is writing a beautiful story, but, to quote The Hardest Peace again, "[I] weep because [I] never imagined this would be the good story" (emphasis mine).