Almost two weeks ago, on July 8, I celebrated sixteen years of being in remission for my leukemia. That’s something I’m immensely grateful for and something that blows my mind. It’s been such a long time and my family didn’t think I’d make it this far, so I’m proud that I get to celebrate it. But it’s something I struggle with everyday.
If you look up the word survivor, it states the obvious and says “a person or thing that survives.” The definition more fitting for me is “a person who continues to function or prosper in spite of opposition, hardship, or setbacks.” I think for a really long time after my thyroid cancer, when I was just a person who had survived and was too young to understand all the consequences, I was prospering. I was bragging about my story, and proud of myself for surviving. I considered myself brave, strong, a fighter. But in the past couple years, especially in the past year, I feel like I’m just functioning. I’m living despite the opposition, hardship, and setbacks. But I don’t feel like I’m prospering anymore.
I’m realizing things I didn’t understand when I was younger. I’m feeling emotions I don’t think I ever really processed. I think I was too busy fighting the disease that I never felt it. And now I’m feeling it all.
After my thyroid cancer in 2011, I kept thinking about how much my life sucked, how I had it so bad. But my mom constantly reminded me to be grateful that I was alive, and my body was working, and my brain wasn’t letting me down. I had a lot to be grateful for, and she reminded me of that everyday. And so slowly, I came to realize just how great my life was, despite my history. I realized my story was one to share, to lift others up, and that I had a great life and could be a successful person.
Something that helped me realize this was a book called Soul Surfer. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s about a girl named Bethany Hamilton who suffered from a shark attack at a young age while she was surfing. Her story got made into a movie. I read the book a couple times and left feeling grateful for what I had been given. I realized that my story was something that made me who I was and that even though what I’d been through was difficult, I learned a lot of lessons at a young age that most people don’t learn until much later. So I convinced myself that my life was what it was and that was a good thing in the end.
But I think I let that shadow my feelings. I let myself be so grateful that I didn’t leave room for other emotions. At any point that I felt sad about my life or angry or ungrateful, I immediately reminded myself that I shouldn’t feel that way. I was lucky, end of discussion.
But what I’ve realized over the past year is I’m allowed to feel like life sucks and is crappy and I’m allowed to feel sad and angry. But I haven’t come to terms with that. Because I’ll be really sad or angry about something related to my stress attacks or mental health or my cancer, and my mind will immediately switch to those who suffered through the Parkland shooting, or the attacks in Sri Lanka, or to the hungry and homeless people in Africa. And I’ll feel guilty for feeling bad at all.
So I’m feeling all the emotions I never felt before. I’m processing it all now, but I won’t even let myself be immersed in these feelings fully because then I begin to check myself and silently scold myself for even feeling this way at all.
And what I’m realizing more than ever is this is something I’m going to have to deal with for the rest of my life.
I always had moments where I would cry or have an angry fit because I was just so sad or mad that my life was what it was, that I had to go through the crap I had to go through. But they were always just moments, and I would fall asleep or distract myself, and the sadness and anger would fade away, and I’d move on and be grateful.
More recently, however, those moments have arisen, and I’ll move on, but the feeling is lingering. The realization that this sadness or anger isn’t just a moment, but a constant in my life is something I’m struggling with. I’m grappling with the fact that my medical history and the emotions it brings up is something i’m going to have to deal with forever.
I am always going to be furious that I had cancer and continue to have medical and mental health issues because of it. I don’t have anyone to blame it on, so I blame it on the only thing I know, and that is God. I have to be mad, because it just sucks. I’m always going to have a part of me that is extremely angry that this is something I have to deal with. I am never going to be free of doctor appointments and checkups and medications. And before, I would just accept all this as my life and move forward. But right now, I’m just super mad and sad and I’m trying to figure out how I can feel these legit feelings, these feelings that I believe I have a right to feel, but still lead a happy life.
How do you keep going when you know something you hate is always going to be a part of your life? How do you accept the emotions that come with that?
In my last post, I described how I used to be grateful for what I’d been through because it made me who I am. I am no longer grateful, because like I said before, “the pain I feel daily, the sadness I feel for things I can’t control, so not worth the life experiences.” And it pains me to say this because my whole life would be completely different if it weren’t for my medical history. Like I said before, it taught me life lessons. The story of my life I told in my application is a big reason I believe I got into the school I did, and I wonder if I hadn’t been through what I had, if I didn’t have my story of living through cancer and still fighting and excelling in academics, would I be going to Cornell right now?
But all of this, even this amazing school, and life lessons, and matureness that I own, I would give it all up in a heartbeat if it meant I never had to feel sad or mad about the pains I’ve been through. And this right here is really hard, because I can’t just give it all up. So how do I live with it?
Words for Thought 