Ten years ago upon receiving my diagnosis of breast cancer, I was frightened and confused. However, I also remember feeling relieved, which was really weird. I was no longer waiting around for the generational curse of my family’s cancer to creep up on me. As any person who shares their body with cancer knows, the feelings around it can surprise you.
When I was first diagnosed, I chose to relax and put my faith in the doctor at the time. After all, my oncologist had prefaced my treatment, “No worries. We’ve got this.” Initially, my aggressive treatment worked. After a chemo, radiation, and a double mastectomy that was one medical mishap after another, I was cancer free. As a lifelong learner, I attended as many conferences as I could find. I learned about how cancer isn’t just a disease in the body, but a shift that affects every area of one’s life. But about two years later in 2015, everything came back much worse. I was given three months to live. That wasn’t going to work for me. The regular “Plan A” hadn’t worked for me. Time for me to make a “Plan B.”
Given how extensive my cancer had spread—including a pancake sized tumor inside my skull—I realized that this wasn’t a “fight” I could win. I couldn’t just have surgery to take the cancer out of my bones and blood. I needed to learn how to livewithit.
My approach going forward was a giant shift in perspective. I started dancing with cancer, taking steps back and forth:
I’ve followed these ideas for the past nine years. Now, another unexpected set of feelings is coming up. Last month, I went to one of my regular three-month checkups that I have with my oncologist. She told me I was NED (No Evidence of Disease). My first reaction was denial. Nope. That’s not possible. I’ve had metastatic breast cancer along with chronic myeloid leukemia for the past ten years. I’ve been through numerous treatments. Too many to count. There’s no way that I could be NED! Me? A woman with metastatic breast cancer in her organs, blood, many bones, and inside her skull? Who’s been to the hospital every month for scans, injections, and blood work? It really didn’t make any sense.
I’ve spent a lot of these past ten years on cancer. Diagnosis. Remission. Recurrence. Lethal prognosis. A resolve to search the globe for every kind of treatment that might work. Thousands of dollars and hundreds of hospital visits. Thoughts every day about how I must write my calendar in pencil, not pen. Coexisting and cancer coaching. Surfing the waves of complications and side effects.
But now? It feels like another page is turning. It feels too momentous for me to take in clearly. I’m so used to looking at the numbers on my blood work and feeling my body to see if there’s something that I should be worried about. In all honesty, cancer is part of my persona in some ways. I’m a cancer coach. I belong to a lot of organizations that I contribute to.
In fact, in some small way, I wonder if my value to the cancer world has changed. Instead of being the woman that survived for ten years with lots of cancer everywhere, I’m now the woman who had cancer that was able to be done. Gone away. Does that hurt my credibility as a cancer coach? As a thriver? As a motivational speaker? Because I got rid of it? I don’t know. But it’s something that crosses my mind.
Who am I without cancer? So much of my life and identity is tied to hospital stays and how I help the cancer community. I live my life grateful for today and unsure of tomorrow. Who am I, now that I can dream of meeting my grandchildren?
So, for the moment, I tentatively believe my oncologist. And I’m trying to decide where this news fits in with my world.
Find Lindsay’s dance with cancer at:
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Lindsay McDonell is a speaker, sought-after cancer coach, and celebrated author. She is also an eight-year thriver with metastatic breast cancer and chronic myeloid leukemia.
Lindsay McDonell is a speaker, sought-after cancer coach, and celebrated author. Lindsay shares the secrets of how to regain your power and use your curiosity to put fear to the side and maximize your chance of surviving when faced with a cancer diagnosis. Lindsay is Project LEAD certified with the National Breast Cancer Coalition, a certified integrative oncology navigator with the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, a You Can Thrive coach, and a CancerChoices guide. She is also an eight-year thriver with metastatic breast cancer and chronic myeloid leukemia.
Originally published on The Patient Story: https://cancerchoices.org/what-to-do-when-things-go-better-than-expected-finding-my-new-normal-with-ned-ten-years-later/
