check-up days aren't really fun

I had intended to write the last entry of this blog on January 2^nd, the one-year anniversary of my last day of chemotherapy. As far back as November I’d been looking forward to January 2nd, by December I was brainstorming ideas for a party or a fancy dinner to commemorate it. That was the day that was supposed to end this blog journey, it was supposed to be a triumphant end. The one-year point would mark the moment that his changed from a fresh and raw pain to a memory of something that happened once, a long time ago. I wanted that, but it didn’t happen. 

I didn’t throw a party or have a fancy dinner or write an ending to this blog. It suddenly felt strange, “off” somehow, inappropriate to celebrate.  The more time and distance that I put between myself and the end of treatment, the less I feel like the prototypical spunky survivor.

It’s true I’ve spent a great deal of time, most of it documented on this blog, looking on the bright side of things. I wanted to be a good patient, a positive force, the kind of silver-linings cancer survivor that garners praise for being “motivational” and “an inspiration”. I still feel that way, most days, and I am really quite grateful that my positive attitude held strong when I most needed it to. But there are other days, lots of days, that I am not thankful for my experience or grateful for my good luck. I’m angry that I lost so much time, frustrated that I haven’t been to heal my shattered self-confidence, bitter, anxious, sad. When I do have a bad day, an angry-frustrated-bitter-day, I can usually figure out what it is that triggered it. I still get impossibly frustrated when my hair won’t do what I want it to and I don’t have the option of throwing it up into a ponytail.  I still don’t feel like my body is entirely my own.  I still get overwhelmingly anxious at my oncology check-ups.  I still have dreams where I’m not done with chemo. And I’m still really, really not OK with the fact that this happened to me

I guess it’s getting better. There are gradually less reminders around me, more days when I don’t think about cancer at all. The truth is, I’d love to throw a party to celebrate the end, but I am less and less sure when that day will come. For now, my cancer-story feels like annoying little shadow that follows me around, invisible to anyone else but me, and celebrating anything right now would feel fake, forced, hypocritical. It will happen someday, I hope, but not quite yet.