Today I was editing a business story, and within the article, there was a mention of the someone’s death. As I Googled for more information about the business, another article revealed that the death was caused by cancer. There was an ache, a discovery of a tumor and spreading cancer, followed by chemo and radiation, which failed in this case.
It was sad and unfolded in a few paragraphs. It seemed abrupt and unfair, as cancer often is.
I thought about why cancer is so feared and reviled. It sneaks up on you. Symptoms sometimes build up for months, but they seem like nothing. It seems as if all of the sudden you’re no longer someone with a weird bump or a twinge of pain, you’re someone with cancer.
Then your life is stolen. Often, this is piece-by-piece, with time at doctors’ appointments and in machines and hooked up to bags of chemotherapy drugs. There are the days spent not feeling well or time sleeping. Also stolen are the things you can’t do, whether you don’t feel up to certain things or aren’t supposed to do them. Time not spent in the sun. Time spent not traveling. Events missed, because you’re not sure what’s going to happen. I’d love to, but I have cancer.
After it steals your energy, it often goes for your hair. Some people lose even more to surgeries, parts and pieces that won’t grow back.
Your “normal” life is stolen and it’s replaced with an often-unsatisfactory facsimile, a watered-down version. Chunks of time go missing to hospital stays. Sleep is sometimes constant because of drugs and fatigue and then elusive because of worry and stress.
But some people don’t get their lives back at all. This story was a sad reminder for me. It put things in perspective.