I was eavesdropping and couldn’t help but smile when I heard my husband tell one of his friends, “I’ve got a pretty good case of melanoma,” as if he had a cold or the flu, rather than a potentially life-threatening diagnosis. We’d just received the news hours before and this moment brought some much-needed levity. What we only knew in part in this moment (that my husband had malignant melanoma), we would know in full one month later (that he had Stage IIIC, regionally metastatic, melanoma). Over the last four months, this is what I’ve learned as a cancer bystander.
1) Everyone lives under the burden of death, whether we know it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not. We rarely contemplate our own mortality because we’re too busy trying to escape it.
2) PET scans give a whole new meaning to the Imagine Dragons’ song, “Radioactive.”
3) The rarity, and gift, of living in the radically now. Several months ago, during winter quarter, one of my classmates commented on the significance of “living in the radically now.” As we were one day post-cancer diagnosis, I was particularly struck by her phraseology. She could’ve said, “radically living in the now” or “living radically in the now,” but she didn’t. She’s an intentional speaker—she doesn’t use words flippantly—thus, I knew her emphasis on the “radically now” was deliberate. I don’t necessarily know what she intended, but this is my best guess: the “now” is radical because we so infrequently live in it. We often spend copious amounts of time contemplating the past and daydreaming (or worrying) about the future, rather than enjoying the present. This sometimes-fixation on both past and future robs us of the profundity of the now. Yet, when a cancer diagnosis comes down the pipeline (or any news that creates an existential crisis), the now is all you have, as tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.
4) Cancer is the great equalizer. It doesn’t discriminate against race, religion, gender, age, socioeconomic rank, or health status.
5) Life is like the game Chutes and Ladders. Sometimes you’re going up, sometimes you’re going down.
6) Cancer is a liminal space. I’ve learned a lot of big words in my PhD program thus far, liminal being one of them. It was a favorite of my professor who taught my first seminar. Liminal refers to being in an intermediate state, phase, or condition. I’ve come to realize that cancer is such a state. It’s the space between “something’s not right” and diagnosis; between diagnosis and the first (of many) doctor visits; between drinking radioactive dye and the first PET/CT scan to determine metastatic disease; between surgery and prognosis; between monthly immunotherapy infusions and trimonthly scans; between denial and acceptance; between hope and reality; between life and death.
7) An otolaryngologist is a head and neck specialist (a big word I did not learn in my PhD program).
8) Cancer is a hierarchy, with skin cancer at the bottom of the totem pole. Most people see it as a lesser cancer, until you tell them it’s gone internal (though, even then, some people fail to grasp the seriousness).
9) Living with cancer is a practice. Knowing how to live with a life-threatening diagnosis requires constant recalibration of expectations, priorities, and relationships. Early on, my husband and I didn’t know whether to cancel plans or make them; to celebrate his birthday or prepare for his funeral; to invest in the long term or throw caution to the wind; to continue living like nothing was amiss or throw daily pity parties for ourselves. As I said in #6, cancer is a liminal space and navigating it involves humor, openness, heartbreak, and becoming master tension dwellers—those who can dwell well in uncertainty. In teaching us what it means to live with cancer, God has continually brought me back to Jeremiah 29:1-7 (New International Version).
Jeremiah 29 is a letter, which Jeremiah writes to the exiled Israelites in Babylon. For the Israelites, exile was tantamount to death. They’d been removed from their land, their temple, their customs, their very existence. They were dwelling in a foreign land, with foreign people, who had foreign customs and worship practices, seemingly cut off from God’s presence and everything else that gave them identity, purpose, and life. In such a disoriented, grief-stricken state, it’s little wonder that the Israelites were unsure of what to do or how to live. Yet it’s in this place of death that God speaks words of life.
“Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.”
The Israelites had hoped for a short-term exile, but in Jeremiah 29, God tells them to hunker down for a 70-year stay. These directives are motivated by this longer sojourn, yet, more importantly, they’re a reminder that life is still found amid (what feels like) death.
Cancer is a type of exile. It often feels like we’re living amid death. Yet, it’s been in this very place, that God has spoken words of life.
“Pursue your studies, continue flight training, make plans to travel, invest in your home, rejoice in your friends and family.”
Like the Israelites, we too are hoping for a short-term exile. However, even if it’s a longer-term stay, God has lovingly shown us how to continue living.
