MY LIFE Matters: TNBC Patient Voices Issue 2022 - 17

A POEM TNBC
My Name is
Melissa and I
Have TNBC
BY MELISSA WARD
I live for the day when this is all over-
when cancer becomes nothing more than a three-day cold, when researchers say,
we finally have the cure!
When cancer cannot take any more of my family, friends, and loved ones
away.
I live for the day when this is all over-appointment after appointment, scan
after scan, treatment after treatment, surgery after surgery, and appointment
after appointment . . .
I live for the day when they say, " Your cancer is gone, " spoken with absolute
certainty that triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) can never return, that
cancer will never live in your body again.
I live for the day when a doctor says, " live your life " and knowing it will
be a long life. I am in this one life, and I am trying and I am fighting. I pray
for grace and compassion as I coast between all my doctor and medical
appointments.
I live for the day when cancer can no longer cause my loves the pain of seeing
me broken. When I can let go of the fear that my cancer will return and
take its revenge, biting me in the butt for kicking its ass just six months ago.
I live for the day when my fellow cancer saviors join with me in speaking
their truth. My truth is that every day, I am not on the mountain top and
there is this thing that sometimes haunts me, but I gotta stand strong. I have
to appear like I am OK, but in my mind and body, the war rages on.
Days with six to eight hours on a machine . . . days that take me to this
unknown place.
I am just living for the day, but when that day is over, I live for the next day.
I am living now, was I ever even living before cancer came along? Thank
you, Cancer, for showing me that I must enjoy every moment in life. Until
the day that TNBC is no worse than a cold, and has a remedy and leaves no
scars. I have today.
I see the day that TNBC is no more, the cancer will be gone from our lives
and no patients will be faced with the words: " It is an aggressive cancer. "
And it's coming. It is coming. That Day.
My name is Melissa. I pray for that day.
MY LIFE MATTERS
TNBC PATIENT VOICES ISSUE 2022
17
I am living now, was I ever
even living before cancer
came along? Thank you,
Cancer, for showing me
that I must enjoy every
moment in life. Until the
day that TNBC is no worse
than a cold, and has a
remedy and leaves no scars.
I have today.
MY LIFE Matters: TNBC Patient Voices Issue 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of MY LIFE Matters: TNBC Patient Voices Issue 2022
