This is something that I NEVER talk about. The people who know, know. For those who don't, I don't want to tell you. However, as a part of major self-discovery exercises, I've decided I can't be all that I'm meant to be if I don't embrace this part of my history.
In the spring of 1994, I found an enlarged gland in my neck. I didn't think much of it until I didn't want to go to school one beautiful April day. I told my mom I had a sore throat and used this gland as proof. My mom took me to a doctor who was astute enough to know this was something more than a spring cold. For the next few months I took steroids and antibiotics and even saw a ENT specialist, but nothing made the gland disappear completely. In July, the specialist walked in the exam room and told me I had cancer - Hodgkin's disease. It was easy to treat and had a high success rate for remission; however, I would have to see an oncologist. The doctor was very calm about this. I was too at that moment. It wasn't until a week or so later, when the oncologist said I had Stage 2A and would have to undergo chemotherapy and radiation, that I lost control.
My dad cried. In fact, he cried so hard my mom called the Baptist preacher from my uncle's church to come to the house to console him. We're Episcopalians so that is something. I wasn't there when the preacher came. As soon as my dad started crying, I left the house. I ended up at my friend Elizabeth's house. She and her mom let me casually tell them what the diagnosis was and what the treatment would be. Then they left it alone, and Elizabeth and I watched a Pauly Shore movie. I don't remember which one, but it was just what I needed. I didn't want to go home because I didn't want to see my dad crying anymore. Something profound changed in me when I saw him crying. I don't remember if it was a conscious decision, but I shut down any process of sharing negative thoughts related to my cancer. I didn't want to add pain to my family, and certainly never wanted to make my daddy cry again. Looking back, I think this was a terrible option on my part. I closed myself off to protect others, and any many ways it has been to my own detriment.
If I've told you before now that I had cancer, then there was a reason. Either it was appropriate to the conversation, I said it as part of a joke, or I was forced into saying it. I promise it didn't come out because I was ok saying it out loud. For me, the diagnosis of cancer was a humiliation. When I think about it now, I still have feelings of shame, embarrassment, and disgust. I somehow felt like I let myself down by getting sick. I somehow failed by getting sick. I don't know if any other cancer survivors ever feel that way, but I hope they don't.
Once someone asked me if I would be able to talk to other young people who had cancer, if I would be able to mentor them. I said no. I don't like young people with cancer. I don't like seeing a disease steal days, weeks, months, life from young people. It brings back all the feelings that I have of shame and failure. I have not been the person who is diagnosed with cancer and decides to live her life to the fullest, treasuring every day. I have been the person who cowers away from my own dirty secret. It has affected so many aspects of my life. I am changing that now. You are reading the memories and feelings I had and still have from that traumatic year of my life. I don't know if it will mean anything to you, but I hope by venting this, I will finally come to a peace agreement with myself.
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