Instead of a weekly article about something funny, ironic, or informative, I decided to have this one published. These are the words from my sweet roommate who was diagnosed with Cancer last year. I did no editing, these are all her thoughts. I love you, Lisa.
Cancer: a six letter word that takes more than 7.6 million lives each year, with one in two men and one in three women affected. To top it off, this same six letter word is the second leading cause of death in the United States. The battle is different for everyone, some drawn out, while others are quick. In a perfect world, this six letter word would never exist. It would disappear from the everyday vocabulary.
In my life, I have been taught that hate is a very strong word and should never be used, but what other word can be used to describe something that has the ability to destroy everything: families, relationships, lives, self-esteem. Cancer rips through an individual like the tornado that destroyed the Midwest years ago. There is no way to prepare for it, and it can come at any time for any reason. It gives the individual a thought that they may never be able to bring themselves back to where they were before this began.
For years, I have been on the sidelines watching many I love be destroyed by something that is so defiant and relentless. At the age of 5, I watched my best friend and next door neighbor be consumed by leukemia. At five, she was having to go through so much more than many of us do after college, being prodded with needles and countless hospital visits every time she had something as small as a cold. The thing about cancer: a cold can kill you. There were moments her parents couldn’t be near her because her immune system had been compromised so much. After seven months of fighting her heart out, I lost my best friend. From that point on, it felt as though this six letter word started to consume my life. My grandmother was taken from me at the age of six. In the twelve years of grade school, I lost two of my favorite teachers. Cancer took my uncle in November of 2014, after something as small as a headache and pain on the right side of his body sent him to the doctor, only to find he had Stage 4 terminal brain cancer.
On June 29, 2015, I added myself to the list of those affected by cancer. For weeks I couldn’t say the word. I didn’t want to believe it was true. Those I was close to knew I had appointments, but I couldn’t get myself to tell them the truth. More importantly, I didn’t want to watch the reaction I knew would come with answering that question. In my head, I was never going to tell a soul. I was going to go to Rome, enjoy two weeks seeing the beauty of the eternal city, and deal with reality when I got home. But things don’t always go how we plan them, do they?
The first people I told actually guessed what was going on. They have never been ones to pry, but it came up in conversation. This time, however, it led to a very silent moment between conversations. I will never forget that day: the way two of my sisters reacted, the sheer terror I felt about having that conversation, but most importantly, the insane amount of comfort I felt that night driving back to Grapevine knowing that I finally had someone to talk to about everything that was going on. Someone who would, literally, be there for me at the drop of a hat, no matter what else is going on.
As I once again sit in a hospital, I can’t help but think of everything that I have learned throughout this time. They say that life is a journey and the lessons learned along the way will stay with you forever. I will never refer to the last nine months as a journey, but I have learned a couple of things along the way.
- 1.“Today is going to seem like the worst day ever, but know this, it will get better.”
- 2.As long as you look for the blessings in life, no matter how small, you will find them. If you look for the negative thoughts, you will find those instead.
- 3.It’s just hair. It will grow back.
- 4.Bad days are going to happen.
- 5.Surround yourself with people who care.
- 6.They will understand if you help them understand.
- 7.Stop and smell the roses
- 8.Enjoy Food!
- 9.You can do anything you set your mind to.
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard this since July. Every doctor, roommate, friend, sister, old teammate, and choir member has told me this at least once in my life. They were right. There is not a single day that lasts forever. One of my favorite quotes growing up was, “When you come to the end of your rope, make a knot and hang on.” There is always a light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes we have to look a little harder to find the light, but it will always be there.
This is probably the hardest life lesson that I am still trying to figure out. Cancer sucks, that’s a given, but I never truly realized how important maintaining a positive attitude was until now. It doesn’t matter how we feel about what is going on; cancer is here to stay, for now anyway, and there isn’t much we can do to change it. I have hit some low points in my life, especially in the last month that I am not proud of. You are told when you’re diagnosed that you have two options: either taking the easy way out and falling into a state of depression and complaining, which sucks the joy from everything around you, or to keep your chin up and try, sometimes really hard, to make the best of the bad situations. Think about it this way: when someone fails a test, crying about the grade doesn’t make the grade higher. One of my dear friends is the best at finding the silver lining in every dark cloud and reminds me of it constantly. I can’t tell you how many times I have been told mind over body/matter. After nine months of repetition, a sticky note on my bathroom mirror, and changing my lock screen and home screen on my phone to quotes regarding this, I think it is finally starting to stick.
Anyone who has said that treatments are “fun” got very lucky. Chemo side effects differ in everyone, but many of us deal with a lot of the same things. The first and most prominent side effect that most people think of is hair loss. For some, this occurs after the first couple of treatments. Yes I was warned this would happen, but it was still shocking to see it actually occur. In going through treatment, I found myself asking questions to those who seemed to have been doing this for a while. It’s all true what they tell you. There will always be a morning when you wake up with strands of hair laying on your pillowcase. I, on the other hand, made it through almost three months before my hair started falling out. More importantly, I wanted to have control and for it to be on my terms. I had some fun playing around with different lengths and colors before ultimately shaving my head. Interestingly enough, hair grows back much faster than you think.
Chemo doesn’t belong in a normal person’s body. I can say for myself, and a couple of people can vouch for me, I am an entirely different person with chemo in my system. Being the stubborn individual I am, I didn’t want to add any more medication to my system than I started with. So naturally, bad days happened. The main point in this lesson is that you can’t pitch a tent and live there when they do. If that were the case, I would have never left my bathroom floor or bed those many months ago. Someone once told me that every bad day is really a blessing in disguise; you just have to find the blessing and lead with it.
If it weren’t for some of my best friends and family, I can honestly say I wouldn’t be where I am. The greatest feeling in the world is knowing that someone will be there, no matter the time, place, or circumstance. I don’t know many people who would sit on my bathroom floor until I fell asleep, stay up with me for countless nights monitoring high fevers and making sure I was okay every time I slept, offer to drive my car back to the apartment since I was one again stubborn and tried driving home, or picking me up from Denton with a two-year-old in the back seat because it is not a good idea for me to drive myself to Grapevine and no one is home to watch the baby. These people are truly some of my greatest friends and family. I will never be able to thank them enough for everything they have done.
I can’t tell you how many times I have told someone they don’t understand and have gotten frustrated by the number of questions that come alone with that phrase. If there is one thing I have learned, it’s that sometimes explaining what’s going on, whether they fully understand or not, makes all the difference. In my experience, you may have to explain things more than once for them to understand. Or they don’t understand health sciences to save their life, but they will always be there.
Every moment becomes precious to a person diagnosed with cancer. They never know what is going to happen or what path in the game of life they will end up taking. Living in the world of college students, we have a lot of unnecessary stress that weighs on our minds. All of that stress causes us to miss the good things that are happening in front of us. To all of us, every moment in life is precious. You can either spend your days worrying, or you can live in the moment. Your choice!
As strange as it sounds, I miss food. Before chemo, I had an appetite to eat food and wasn’t too picky about what it was. I have always had a desire to try new things. Once chemo started, all of that changed. These days, I have to force myself to get the nutrients my body needs to survive, if I can stomach it. A couple of my friends and I joke around about how exciting of a day it will be when I run through the door announcing how hungry I am. I too am waiting for that day to happen. Until then, I will continue to be a mouse munching on crackers.
It all goes back to mind over body/matter. It’s amazing the power the human mind has on the body. As a psychology minor, I’ve taken quite a few classes that have allowed me to see how the body reacts to what the mind is having it do. With chemo, you suddenly feel like you don’t have control over anything anymore. One of my greatest friends made an excellent point, to where I will quote her on it: “Did you know the mind can actually make you body feel like it’s pregnant? The mind can do remarkable things. You have control over your mind and attitude. Get in the mindset that everything will be okay. Deep down you believe it, so make your mind believe it, and you will have control again.” I’m not sure she will ever know how much that text affected the way I thought that day, and that it has driven me to be more optimistic.
Life is hard, there’s no denying that. Someone once told me that things in life only defeat us when we give up our hope and happiness, which is why this is the most important lesson of all. Number 10: “Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regret, so hold on to the ones who treat you right, and forget the ones who don’t. Always remember that everything happens for a reason. If you get the chance, take it. If it changes you, let it. Nobody said it would be easy, just that it would be worth it.” It’s only six letters, not the rest of your life. So don’t let it run your life like it is.
