4 Year Cancer- FreeAnniversary: Why I Never Celebrate

Today is my 4 year anniversary of being a cancer survivor. Even as I write this, it all still doesn’t seem real. People have asked me: “How will you celebrate?”  and the reality is, I never really have.

It is such a weird feeling; it isn’t like I don’t want to celebrate, but it also feels uncomfortable to celebrate. I still have ambiguous feelings around everything I went through.  In some respects, it is so personal that I honestly can’t go “there” every year. And at the same time, most people forget it is something to be celebrated and honored.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a strong support system. But most of the time (even family and friends), no one really remembers these anniversaries/milestones. Sure they remember birthdays, marriage anniversaries, etc.  but this remembrance is different- it kind of just comes and goes and slips on by. Why is that? My knee jerk reaction is that it’s because it is hard to acknowledge. I mean I (myself) barely honor my yearly clean bill of health so am I supposed to expect others too? But I think as survivorship continues (at least for me), I realize if I don’t “look” sick, if I have a smile on my face, or I am projecting a sunny disposition people choose to forget these milestones, struggles, and journey. They think “oh she is ok, she is over it” or “look how well she is doing now”. And although I am doing better now and I feel better, there is honestly nothing in this world that can erase the memories from my brain around the trauma I faced. There is no one that can wave a magic want over me and declare me “cancer free forever”. The reality is, it is a constant battle, constant thought in the back of my head, constant worry, and constant reminder of “you aren’t normal” or “you have been through the shit”.

But, the irony is, I am so incredibly grateful, incredibly happy, and I am so incredibly lucky to be able to say I am 4 years cancer free. I try not to take one minute, one breath, one moment, or one memory for granted. Which is really really hard to do day-to-day.

Every anniversary that has come and gone for me felt different. Usually, I kind of go numb and just push it out of my head, I know this is a coping mechanism I use. I don’t want to relive the experience, I don’t want to reimagine it, I don’t want to think about the dark path of not only treatments, but recovery again. I don’t want to remember the feeling of complete “out of control-ness”, fear, anxiety, and panic. The truth is, it is difficult to go back “there” and remember what this journey is all about. It is such a dark and heavy chapter.

However, today, on my 4 year anniversary and for the first time in awhile, I am not thinking back about my diagnosis, treatments, smell of the hospital, beeping of the chemo machines, and loss of identity. I am thinking about how far I have come in 4 years. Totally cliché, I know. But the honest to God truth is, if you would have told me 4 years ago, as I exited the hospital, that within the next 4 years I will have children, travel to most places on my bucket list, quit my corporate job to take a “break” (I worked throughout my cancer journey), that I would be building a home, and starting my own business of integrative health coaching to help people recuperate from cancer..

I would literally say you are bat shit crazy (respectfully)!

 It isn’t that I didn’t believe things like this could happen, I was just so beaten down by cancer and the heaviness of it all that it was hard to imagine what good could come of it. In my survivorship, I dealt with an immense amount of anxiety, loss of identity, 2 reoccurrence scares, and this sense of questioning my purpose and next steps in life.

So today, in honor of myself (so weird to say), I want to say out loud that I am PROUD. What I am really proud of myself for is taking this insane journey and turning it into a passion project; a chance to actually LIVE my life and be present, to experience joy, motherhood, heartache, good times and bad. All of it is a gift. And I realize that some people won’t ever be able to have this gift. The last 4 years have taught me so much because I am doing the work to heal, doing the work to accept my new normal, dealing with anxiety, facing my possibilities of cancer returning, and still showing up every day for my family. That is what survivorship means to me. That is what affects me to the core. Taking something that destroyed me, and really seeing the value, lessons, and privilege in it all.

I will never be the poster child for “CANCER SURVIVOR”, I don’t want the attention and to be honest, it is really hard sometimes to be so honest and put myself out there. But I will say, if you experience these milestones/anniversaries and go numb, if you don’t want to acknowledge them, and you want to just shut out the world- that is ok. That is part of it all.. and some people will celebrate to the absolute fullest, which is also ok. We all deserve to be gentle and kind to ourselves and accept wherever we are in the moment, in our journey, in our health, and in our recovery. There is no faking cancer survivorship.

One last thing, I realized family and friends do not know how to acknowledge, treat, or react to these milestones. They freeze up as much as I do sometimes; They think “what do/don’t I say”, “how do we celebrate”, “what is she feeling”, or “I don’t want to bring up the past”, etc. They are just in the dark as we are half the time. It doesn’t mean they don’t love and support us, and it doesn’t mean they don’t acknowledge what we have been through. It simply means it was hard on them as well and they have no clue how to even support or communicate that.

I hope this blog helps at least one person today, one person that may be struggling, coming up on an anniversary and feeling mixed emotions, etc. That is why it is more important NOW than ever to have a community of recovery, survivorship, and support to guide us through the rough patches and hard moments.

Thank you for listening!