Diagnosis: Afterparty

I’ve been thinking about how to say goodbye to you. I anthropomorphized you because it gave me something concrete to fight, but it turns out it’s also making this easier to write. Truthfully, I don’t have as many ill feelings as you’d expect me to have. 

I’ve only known about you for a little under six months, but you’ve called this place home for probably ten years. Tomorrow, your time is up. Upon eviction, please vacate the premises in their entirety—quite frankly, you’ve been a terrible tenant. You trashed the place, invited your entire family over without permission, and redecorated my liver. Rude. The movers will be here tomorrow at 7:00 AM. Bring everything with you.

I don’t know where your next stop is (other than a pathology lab), but I thank you for your service in letting me know something was horribly wrong, for finally making enough noise that you couldn’t be explained away anymore. Left to my own devices, I would’ve continued convincing myself nothing was really wrong. But because of you, I’ve learned how to listen to my body better than ever before. You didn’t have to be so dramatic about it, but I’m glad you weren’t very aggressive about it either. Thank you for reuniting me with writing—something I’d almost entirely abandoned. Thank you for being spectacularly bad at surviving chemotherapy. That was incredibly considerate; eight rounds of chemo and you’re barely recognizable. Thank you for shrinking so much that my recent colonoscopy team almost missed you. And thank you for making three world-class surgeons look at you and collectively say, “Yeah… this is resectable.” That can’t feel great. Respectfully, that’s embarrassing.

But let’s not get carried away with the gratitude. You don’t get credit for what happened next. You didn’t show up for every seven-hour infusion. You didn’t overcome all of the side effects that come along with chemotherapy. You didn’t sharpen your optimism enough to use it like a sword. You didn’t run on lungs that felt like they were on fire. You didn’t make me stronger. I did. You didn’t survive chemotherapy. I did. I refuse to thank you for the person I’ve become because that’s my work, you were just the assignment. Because of you, I learned what my body can endure and how to treat myself like someone I love. I’m wiser, more disciplined, and I’ve grown in ways I never thought possible. I can still laugh in an infusion chair, chase running PRs during chemotherapy, love more fiercely than ever, and somehow find joy in the middle of all of this. Those lessons belong to me now. You don’t get to take them back when you go.

Let’s not entirely sugarcoat this goodbye either—you certainly took a lot in the process. Six months of certainty. My entire newlywed year. Long runs. My hair (even if only partially). The ability to make future plans without an asterisk. The carefree assumption that every ache or pain isn’t something more serious. The illusion that I’m invincible. And worst of all, you made everyone I love carry a weight they never should have had to. It wrecked me to watch everyone deal with a fear that I couldn’t take away from them. That’s a feeling I never want to experience again, nor do I wish it on my worst enemy—not even you.

Try as you might’ve, there were things so far out of your reach that you never had a chance at stealing them. My marriage. My family. My friendships. My optimism. My sense of humor. My confidence in my own body. Running. DJing. Drag brunches. My career. Writing. Spreadsheets. My future. Your biggest mistake was thinking you were fighting just one person. You underestimated how many people, not just all over this country, but literally all over the world, that were standing behind me.

The funny thing is, I don’t think I ever hated you. And I don’t think about you enough to hate you now. You’re just another problem that’s about to get solved. In my second blog post, written just 40 hours after diagnosis, I said cancer felt like a silly little health thing that would get taken care of by a simple checklist of doctor’s appointments. Looking back, that’s exactly what you became. Turns out you were never much more than a really inconvenient to-do list. Fifty-eight doctor’s appointments later… here we are at what I can only hope is your finish line.

I’ll admit I am a little nervous you’ll leave something behind: a microscopic goodbye gift of sorts. I’d be lying if I said that thought doesn’t cross my mind. It does. And I’ll spend the rest of my life under surveillance, making sure you didn’t. But I’ve spent the last six months refusing to live in futures that haven’t happened yet and I’m not about to start now.

You got ten years. I plan on getting a whole lot more than that.

You’ll spend the rest of your existence as a specimen in a pathology jar. I’ll spend mine figuring out just how fast I can run and how much fun I can have. While this isn’t the end of my cancer journey by far, this is the end of chapter 1, and unfortunately for you your character dies before chapter 2 even starts.

Anyway, I have surgery to get ready for. Enjoy the jar.

— Katrina