Cracked Pot Meditations – Cancer Anniversaries

Meditation for September 2nd

Cancer Anniversaries

(Written in 2016) Tomorrow will be the second anniversary of the day I walked into the hospital with chest pains and was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. I looked up some forums about people dealing with the milestones, and most survivors were saying to take it easy because it’s hard.

(2025) Much of this blog still rings true eleven years later.

Relief

(2016) I am relieved that time has passed. I have this weird perception of time, like all of this happened years and years ago, while it happened yesterday. I feel relieved that I am not going through surgeries and chemo anymore.

(2025) It’s been eleven years, and this day still haunts me more than anything else. It has cemented my mortality like nothing else. Didn’t ask for cancer, so it scared me into an anxiety ball of nerves. I am relieved I have 11 years behind me, but I still feel the weight of it these many years later. I can’t have complete relief, for it’s not if I get cancer again, it’s when.

Fear

(2016)It reminds me that I’ll probably get cancer again and then die. I am scared that my tests next month will be negative and I will have to endure more treatment, poking and prodding. I am afraid of never being normal. I am scared that you are tired of hearing me talk about cancer. I’m going to die, but goddamnit, I want to die on my terms, not cancer’s terms.

(2025), that fear of the following test still grabs me by the throat. Even if someone goes with me and holds my hand, I feel absolutely alone in this world while I wait for the results.

Sad

(2016)Looking back at cancer and the treatment, I feel like I lost a lot. I lost a lot of myself. I keep thinking that this me that I haven’t felt in two years will be back, and I can get on with my life, but that me hasn’t shown back up. I feel sad because while a lot of other people have had cancer, and the people in my life are supportive and loving, I walk the cancer walk alone a lot of times.

I miss my wit and my head working better than they do now. I miss my body working. I feel like my body is broken and it’ll never return to its old shape—mostly because I am old now.

I miss my creativity before chemo took the edge off my brain. I sometimes get sad that I didn’t take full advantage of my creativity before it got softened by the poisons I had injected into my body to kill the cancer.

(2025) Much of my creativity, wit, and cognitive ability have returned, but it still feels like I can’t return to my old self eleven years later.

I still miss my body’s health the most. It’s maddening that I cannot move apartments without all my joints catching fire, and it’s depressing that I cannot enjoy the outdoors like I used to.

Anger

(2016) You better believe I am angry. I get angry that I had to deal with this at all. I get angry that I worked really hard to build a life that I was living before I was diagnosed, only to have it completely shattered for no reason at all. A lot of other parts of my life that have been negative have been the result of my bad decisions and not my body completely betraying me.

I get angry at the hippies who tell me that all I needed was a particular kind of berry or a belly full of THC butter, and I would not have had cancer or needed the treatment for it. I get angry at the libertarians who want to take health care away. I was among the lucky ones with insurance and am looking at thousands of dollars of debt. I get mad at the people who casually dismiss cancer as anything serious. I get mad when people complain about small things. I get angry at myself when I complain about small things.

Anger is easy. This is what I feel over the sadness and the hurt. Cancer really fucked me up, and I’m still trying to get through. I have an appointment in October to see if I am in remission. I feel angry that I have to continue to watch for cancer popping up.

(2025) I still get angry. I’m working at a health insurance company because I must choose health insurance over passion and fulfillment. That is how our system works, so I am angry that the dream of being whatever you want is a lie.

I still get angry at hippies and Make America Healthy Again people who believe that made-up shit works, but don’t blame them when you see how much the pharmaceutical companies choke anything that affects their bottom line. So yoga fanatics spreading deadly misinformation and CEOs charging murderous amounts for their drugs make trying to stay healthy a fuckig joke.

Tired

(2016) I am tired a lot of times. This is beyond the physical anguish my body has had to endure with the chemo, surgeries, and medications, but just a down-to-the-bones exhaustion that I feel every day. I work very early in the morning, so I think deeply in the dark before sunrise. My job is very physical, and I feel so beat at the end of my shift. Yesterday, my eyes were rolling into my head; I was tired after work.

I never feel like I’ve gotten the rest I needed after these last two years. In some ways, I have started to get on with my life, and in other ways, I feel stuck in recovery.

(2025) Eleven years later, I still feel tired and like I’m still recovering. I might just be old now, and the fall from youth was a sharp fall down a cliff.

Survived

(2016) I survived. I survived a reality that most people never experience. Being sick sticks you into the now, and no amount of past, future, or fiction will help you escape that. I am now two years away from that fucked up day at the hospital being told that I have a fatal disease, and that removing a testicle, pumping poisons into your body, and then scooping out guts so that some lymph nodes can be cut out will save your life – maybe – and I survived all of that.

Sometimes, I feel like a goddamned hero for surviving that, and other times, I feel like I went to the hospital and did precisely what the doctors told me to do—I just showed up and endured.

Two years ago, my life changed. I experienced reality and pain like few do. Now, I am back to being ungrateful and annoyed all the time.

(2025) Eleven years later, and I have still survived. I keep going to doctor appointments, I keep taking my cymbalta to ease the joint and nerve pain, and I keep trying to live a good life.

If there is one piece of advice I would give someone beginning their dancer journey, it is to accept all the help, and if you aren’t getting it, ask. But the absolute darkness, the worst time, is after it’s all over. That is when you should stay and take care of yourself. You will have experienced reality like few have, and it’s hard to return to an everyday life after that kind of experience. So, go to therapy, ask for help, and you might not be able to be alone, but don’t feel lonely. Ask for help, even if the cancer was eleven years ago. The journey is never worse,