Wednesday, May 10, 2023
Cancer's giftings
The day before Thanksgiving 2017, I learned I had breast cancer. A few weeks before that, I’d been in for my regular MRI. When the nurse called with the results, I was shocked to hear they’d found a suspicious spot. It all felt so routine to me before that call: every six months, I’d go in for an MRI or mammogram. After that, we’d schedule a return visit in six months. Until a tiny spot changed that routine.
It was truly a tiny little spot of cancer. So small that when I went for a mammogram pre-surgery, it was invisible. The tech showed me the screen - even with the tag placed in my body to designate the cancer, it was not visible on the mammogram. All that to say: we caught it early. That was a gift.
It might sound strange to say a cancer diagnosis brought gifts, but it did. I was diagnosed days before my 45th birthday, putting me in a higher risk category. This made no material difference in my care, but it put me in a different classification for insurance purposes (which sadly matters a lot). Being diagnosed at 44 instead of 45 was a small thing, but made me feel like God was looking out for me in little and big ways.
Perhaps the biggest gift was the simplicity of my treatment at the time: a partial mastectomy followed a few months later by radiation. In terms of cancer treatment, this is as just about as easy as it gets. Avoiding chemotherapy and its brutal assault on the body is a gift I’m still grateful for.
But here’s the thing: even getting off “easy” with my cancer has had ripple effects on my life. It’s a little bit like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.
My breast cancer was estrogen positive so I had to stop taking birth control immediately. That birth control was mitigating a uterine condition that flared up and ultimately required a hysterectomy. My family has a history of ovarian cancer, so the hysterectomy had to be a total one. Which meant immediate menopause with no hormone therapy to ease symptoms (because of the aforementioned estrogen positive cancer). This has felt like a gradual cascade in changing my body from what it was to what it is now.
My body evidences these ripple effects, mainly through weight gain and gray hair. One is harder on my ego than the other, but both are the price of living in my postmenopausal body. I wouldn’t go back and not have the hysterectomy if I could choose that. I felt the worst I’ve ever felt in my life prior to that surgery. I had no energy. I was severely anemic. I had trouble living my daily life. That surgery returned me to relative health.
There’s a saying you’ve probably seen about being kind to everyone because we’re all fighting unseen battles. What I long for - for myself and all of us - is for us to apply that same lens of grace to bodies.
My 50 year old body looks more than five years older than my 45 year old body did. In many ways, my body lived through more than five years in that time span. Should I be ashamed of that journey or grateful to my body that it brought me through? Should I starve my body and whip it into shape or be grateful for the things it can do now that it couldn’t prior to the hysterectomy?
My relationship to my body is a complicated one. There are things my body is good at (balancing) and things it’s not so good at (ping-pong or anything requiring eye-hand coordination). I don’t want the body of a 30 year old because I’m no longer 30. It’s ok for my body to look its age, for it to have a different shape than it did ten years ago.
Cancer took away my blissfully ignorant belief that my body would maintain its health and youth. Cancer also took away taking my body for granted. I learned my body is good at healing. I learned to use my body while I can.
Why Didn't I
from Kinship: A Collection of Poems
Why didn't I love the body I had
when I was in my teens and twenties
When my stomach was flat
and my waist was small
Why did I want to be a cheerleader
when I could bike and walk
when my mind was sharp and quick
Why didn't I appreciate what it could do
instead of worrying over how it looked
Why didn't I love the body
that bore my children
that carried them
from conception to birth
Why did I despair over
the changes wrought instead of rejoicing
Why did I want a flat stomach
when my rounded one was evidence
of life and blessing
Why did I wait so long
to be aware of being in my body
of feeling my legs carry me where I want
of noticing my breath come fast and hard
of having the ability to hike and swim?
Why did it take the loss of blood, hormones and a womb
to see all my body has birthed?
Not just my daughters
but me.
My body testifies to who I am
and where I've been.
My grey hair speaks of the years
and tears
My sturdy legs of miles walked, hiked, run.
My wide hips and soft belly of
seasons come and gone.
Why didn't I love my body as it was?
I was young and blind.
I saw what it wasn't instead of what it was.
I listened to voices not my own.
But now–
Now I am older and wiser.
I sometimes long for previous versions
of this body
But mostly
I want to care for it with sleep,
nourishment and play.
I want to thank it for everywhere
it has brought me.
I want to love it for what it can do
and be grateful for the testimony it bears.
I want to not look back and wonder
why didn't I?
Book Corner:
What I’ve Been Reading Lately
Via Audiobook:
Emotional Labor by Rose Hackman
I finished this book up midweek. It felt like a difficult book to listen to because it presented such huge truths that are easy to overlook. I think every woman should read this book - especially straight, cis women. I didn’t finish the book feeling like I know how to mitigate the unequal distribution of emotional labor, but I feel like my eyes are open in a new way.
Via Public Library Loan:
Homebodies by Tembe Denton-Hurst
This novel tells the story of Mickey. She’s a Maryland native working her dream job in NYC at a magazine - until her world turns upside down. She heads back home to reset and comes to understand herself and her home differently. On the surface, Mickey and I share little in common, yet her story caused me to look at my own story differently.
Weyward by Emilia Hart
Weyward is the story of three women - one in the 1600s, one in the 1940s and another in present day. Each of these women have an affinity for nature. An early scene describes the way a character can hear every creature on a tree as she approaches it. (How cool would that be?!?) The story and characters drew me in the moment I began it and I’ll likely have finished the whole thing by the time this newsletter publishes.
Via Home Library:
Hildegard of Bingen by Fiona Maddocks
My brother lives in Germany and sent me this biography of Hildegard. Maybe his ulterior motive was to persuade me to visit because I definitely now was to see her monastery. I’m learning lots from this book. Hildegard was the tenth child in her family and was tithed to the church at age 8. That alone had my mind reeling for days.
Devotions by Mary Oliver
What better poetry is there for this time of year when the grass grows like it’s on steroids? Mary is a beloved companion for my morning coffee.
May your week bring you unexpected gifts - though hopefully not the cancerous kind.
Thank you for the gift of noticing beauty in the unexpected places of our lives.
Beautiful --- ❤️