Elephants and Tea - June 2022 - 27

COVER STORY Dear Cancer...
Dear Cancer,
You have changed me in more ways than I
can count.
First, there was the big change, the
news of your existence falling from the
sky, scorching the earth of my body, and
breaking apart my safe little world. When
you arrived, you changed so much. You illuminated
the fragility of life. You belittled
my belief that a quiet death in my eighties
was all but guaranteed. As the safety bubble
around me popped, my fear of wasting life
rattled me to the marrow of my bones. It
took all I had not to run away, only there
was nowhere to go. Before I even knew of
your existence, you were changing me from
the inside out. Cells dividing and diverging
into branches that burst through the meat
of my breast.
When I began the treatments to get rid
of you, there were the obvious changes, the
ones I had been expecting-the hair loss
and the nausea and the insatiable fatigue.
But there were also changes I didn't even
know to expect, like fevers and mouth sores
and restless, never-quite-satisfied, shallow
breathing. You changed my body temporarily
and permanently, stripping me of my
period, the monthly blood a promise of my
ability to create life. You took my breasts,
and with them, the potential to feed my
future children from my flesh. You robbed
me of all the ways I felt like a woman-the
things that made me feel like an attractive,
living, breathing thing. Most of all, you
changed my hopes for the future. My plan
to spend my hard-earned savings on a house
with my husband-rather than treatment
costs and IVF-then fill that house with
chubby, giggling babies.
Since I learned of your existence, I imagine
your branches spreading to every crevice
of my body. I obsess at the image of your
Cancer, you are the great
paradox of my life. You
have taken so many things
from me, and yet I am
thankful to you for sparing
me, and in doing so,
teaching me a lesson. You
forced me to grow out of the
ruddy filth of the trauma.
branches in my bones, eating away at them
until they are honeycombed, a mere breath
away from crumbling into dust. But in the
three years since your arrival, I have lost my
oldest friend and my newest friend to brain
metastasis, so now I imagine your branches
coiling into my skull too, circling ever tighter
until no ounce of my humanity remains.
I would like to tell you a secret, only it's
something you must already know: my
whole life I have been a person who is afraid.
Perhaps all of us are. Before you, I was afraid
of so many silly, pointless things. I was
afraid of not being good enough, and afraid
of trying to be but falling short. Afraid of
being seen and afraid of not being seen.
Afraid of being " crazy " and afraid of being
" normal. " But it all came down to one big
thing, didn't it? I was afraid of myself. Then
you arrived, and I was afraid of you, too.
It's funny, because aren't you just a part of
me? A part of me gone wrong. I don't know
how to accept that. The fear I have of you
when you are only a part of me.
There are other ways you have changed
me, though. These were subtle at first. A
prideful tear on my cheek as I sat on a
beach in Maui after finishing six rounds
of chemo. A greater awareness of the song's
birds sing at dusk and then again at dawn.
A slow building, steady understanding that
maybe I am capable. Maybe I am worthy.
Maybe I am deserving of this life that's been
gifted to me.
If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be writing
this. I wouldn't feel the need to sit down
and type my thoughts on a screen, black
and white permanence of an impermanent
moment in time. I wouldn't believe my voice
is important-powerful and needed in this
bittersweet world. I would have just stayed
right where I was, in a job that pushed me
to panic attacks in the staff parking lot,
too afraid to take the leap from the known
into the unknown. I would have stayed unsatisfied,
afraid of wasting my finite time
on Earth, but never afraid enough to do
something about it.
Cancer, you are the great paradox of my
life. You have taken so many things from
me, and yet I am thankful to you for sparing
me, and in doing so, teaching me a lesson.
You forced me to grow out of the ruddy
filth of the trauma. Even after all the ways
you have changed me, I am still here, still
breathing, still dreaming about a better
tomorrow. There are so many changes-but
oh, how I am trying to let the bad ones go.
EMMA VIVIAN IS A WRITER, AYA ADVOCATE, AND YOUNG CANCER SURVIVOR. SHE BEGAN
BLOGGING IN 2018, AFTER BEING DIAGNOSED WITH AGGRESSIVE BREAST CANCER AT THE
AGE OF 29. SINCE STARTING HER BLOG, SHE'S WORKED WITH UCLA HEALTH TO WRITE AN
AYA CANCER GUIDEBOOK AND HER WRITING HAS BEEN FEATURED ON STUPID CANCER,
ELEPHANTS AND TEA, AND FABFITFUN. WHEN SHE'S NOT WRITING, SHE WORKS PART-TIME
FOR THE UCLA AYA SUPPORT PROGRAM. SHE LIVES IN PASADENA, CALIFORNIA, WITH HER
HUSBAND AND HER PUPPY/LAND-SHARK, FLYNN.
ELEPHANTSANDTEA.COM
JUNE 2022
27
http://www.ELEPHANTSANDTEA.COM
Elephants and Tea - June 2022

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