Celebrating National Cancer Survivors Month
This year I learned June is National Cancer Survivors Month. I ended active treatment (for me, that was the end of primary surgeries, intravenous chemotherapy, and radiation) at the end of May 2021 so it perfectly coincides with my official cancer-free anniversary. 3 years on and I’m feeling terrific!
Being a survivor is daily work. Diet, exercise, medication, meditation, mindfulness, sleep, and stress-reduction are incredibly important parts of my routine helping me stay cancer-free. It can sometimes be a lonely road. Unless someone has walked this path themselves, it’s difficult to understand how it feels. My body does not look nor feel the way my pre-cancer body did. It never will. I’ve had to make peace with a new normal, scars and all. I miss my pre-cancer body and I’m grateful for the one I have. We can simultaneously carry mourning and gratitude. I carry them every day.
What I never lose sight of, not for a single moment, is that I’m extraordinarily lucky to be here at all. Even luckier still to be living a life I love and to be healthy. 2024 thus far has been challenging for me — personally, academically, and professionally. The world is a difficult place. My corner of the world is difficult, too, albeit for very different reasons. And still, I’m finding and cultivating beauty, wonder, joy, and love every day, in my work and in my life.
It’s a beautiful coincidence that this morning Brian Andreas, one of my favorite artists, posted this image that he created called Superpower. I’ll be buying this one to hang in my bedroom. It’s me. My superpower is waking up every day constantly amazed at being alive. Long may it continue.