For some reason, I never expected to learn something new after having bone marrow cancer for six years – but I did. Most of the “enormous” challenges I experienced did not last anywhere near as long as I thought they would.
We usually don’t expect to hear something like that when we’re in the midst of our own personal struggle, whether it’s your diagnosis or a loved one who’s diagnosed with cancer. Every challenge you experience during the process of dealing with cancer—whether it’s your diagnosis or a loved one’s – seems so much bigger. Each of them seems more permanent. It’s as if each of them is etched in stone instead of written in sand.
However, what I’ve discovered is that it’s not always the challenge that is weighing us down; it’s often the word associated with it. Cancer.
The Way That Words Change the Way We View Challenges
Consider the challenges you experienced last week that were completely unrelated to your health. You may have had a difficult conversation at work. You may have had to navigate a disagreement with your teenager. You may have been concerned about paying an unanticipated bill. All were significant challenges and difficulties, but you likely went through them without allowing them to reside in your mind for very long. You acknowledged them, managed them, and continued on with your life.
However, add the word cancer to any of those challenges and observe how the way you perceive them changes immediately. Fatigue becomes “cancer-related fatigue.” A bad day becomes “a bad cancer day.” Immediately, that challenge establishes roots, and your mind grasps onto it and will not release its hold on it easily.
I am not minimizing the struggles you are experiencing. The challenges are real. The fatigue is real. The fears are real. However, I am saying that many of the challenges I have experienced while undergoing treatments have had a limited lifespan. Each challenge arrived, required my full attention, and then—occasionally rapidly and occasionally surprisingly—they disappeared.
Courage to Move Forward
To continue moving forward when you cannot envision what lies ahead requires a specific type of courage. This type of courage is not the dramatic courageousness we typically visualize in movies or media. Instead, it is quiet and less noticeable. It is the courage to awaken each morning and face another day when the previous day was difficult. It is the courage to hope when you are unsure whether it is safe to do so.
This type of courage does not imply that you are not fearful. It implies that you continue to move forward despite being fearful.
Take One Step at a Time
In addition to developing this courage, I have also found that the key to moving forward while carrying your fear is not to conquer it or eliminate it. The key is to find a way to continue to move forward while carrying your fear. You do not have to be fearless. You simply need to be willing to take the next step.
One hour at a time. One day at a time. One step at a time.
Those Who Show Up Matter
There is another important lesson I have learned. While your medical treatment plan may seem to be the most significant factor in determining the outcome of your cancer battle, it is actually the people who are present and supportive during the journey who ultimately provide the greatest support. Those include:
Your friends who send funny memes at 2 AM on a Tuesday when you’re unable to fall asleep. Your family member who sits with you during infusions without feeling obligated to speak. The stranger in the waiting room who looks you in the eye and nods because he understands your pain.
It is not merely that these relationships make the journey easier to endure. These relationships remind you of why you are enduring this journey.
As I reflect on the most difficult moments I have endured since my cancer diagnosis, I do not recall them as solo events. I recall the nurse who held my hand. I recall the friend who brought me soup without being asked to do so. I recall my partner, who cried with me and helped me laugh again. The presence of others during those challenging times transformed those challenges from mountains that I needed to climb alone into pathways that I could walk alongside others.
You Do Not Have to Be Strong on Your Own
You are not designed to be self-sufficient. In fact, you were never meant to be. There are people around you who care deeply for you and want to help you through this journey.
Compassion-Based Self-Care
Walking away from challenges is not solely based on pushing through or gritting your teeth until you reach the end of the road. Walking away from challenges involves choosing to treat yourself with the same compassion that you would choose for someone you love.
What does your body need today? What does your spirit need? Is it rest? Is it a short walk outside in the fresh air? Are you permitted to cry, laugh, or feel nothing whatsoever for a little while?
While the typical definition of self-care during cancer includes things such as bubble baths and face masks (and while those are wonderful as well), self-care during cancer is more specifically defined as the intentional decision to respect where you currently are. While simultaneously remaining open to the possibilities of where you may be headed. Self-care is the intention to remain focused on potentiality, without denying reality.
Possibilities Exist
Here’s what I want you to know: the challenge you are experiencing right now will eventually have a lifespan. It may not appear to you right now that it will ever come to an end, but the majority of challenges do either pass, transform, or at least become more manageable with time.
Whether your healing occurs in the form you desire, better days are possible. Whether you experience joy, laughter, peace, or purpose, all of these exist and are still possible.
You do not have to see the entire path ahead of you. You simply need to trust that one exists and then take one more step into the light that awaits you there.
