Happy Life

Well, here we are, it has officially been two years since I was diagnosed with cancer.  Above all, of course, I am just glad to be alive.  Alive and well.  Though that feels like an odd thing to say at the ripe age of 31.

Two years ago, on June 21, I was admitted to St. Anthony's Hospital in Westminster, CO.  I knew I was sick, I knew I had what looked like a cancerous mass in my chest, but I still had no idea what I was in for.  No idea that I would not return to my job for the next six and a half months, that I would never return home to my apartment (save one brief moment to gather a few remaining items), that my life as I had known it was absolutely over.

I don't dwell on it as much these days.  What I've been through.  It's amazing how quickly we can move on from something so enormous and challenging.  It's almost as if it never happened.  Except I am still taking maintenance chemotherapy.  I am still dealing with the side effects.  It has been two years, and I don't really know how it feels to not have chemo drugs in my body anymore.

But even at that I don't think about what I went through very often.  It's not very fun to contemplate.  It's scary, and it makes me feel like my life is more fragile than I want it to be.  Thinking about the six months I spent in and out of the hospital, on narcotics every day, sick and lonely and grumpy and frustrated, thinking about that just makes me feel like I'm living on borrowed time.  And that is one of the most unsettling and uncomfortable things I've ever experienced.

It's fascinating at the same time, to me anyway.  That I came so close to losing my life, that I survived, that I have come so far, and that my life is largely back to normal.  I hoped for this to happen, and it has, and I feel very fortunate.  Humbled and grateful to be here.

I'm also tired.  I am so very tired of chemo and I am so ready to be finished with it.  I know it sounds terrible, and it is, but it's no different from any challenging thing.  You face it and you go through it and you do the best you can do with what you're facing.  Just like anything else, anything you have faced.  It's just that it's lasting so freaking long!  Two years.  Good grief.

I don't think I even understand all the ways this experience has affected me.  Changed how I think and how I see myself, my place in the world, the world around me.  It's has made me both more appreciative of certain things and more detached from others.  It has opened me up in some ways and closed me off in others.  It has changed me, for certain, and for good, and I believe for the better.  I like to think that anyway.  I think I like myself more - and I probably like you more - for having gone through this.  And I think that makes me a better person, maybe happier, but definitely just more ok.

I really don't mind talking about it with people, sharing my story.  It's not fun to dwell on, but telling the story isn't the same thing.  I think it's given me a way to express vulnerability that I didn't have before, and that makes me a more relatable person.  We all have it, it's just finding a way to access it that can be difficult for some; it was for me.  And it's taken some of the fear out of life while adding in other fear.  Sometimes when I think about things in that way it's hard to believe how balanced everything is.  You know what I mean?

As many of you know I am getting married this fall.  Just three months from now Denise and I will tie the knot and I couldn't be happier or more excited.  When I was lying in a hospital bed dreaming of having my life back this was the thing I dreamed about and wished for the most.  So I think it will feel like a culmination and a celebration, having overcome and made it so far.  From the darkest and most difficult moments of my life to the most joyful and happiest.  Pretty cool huh.

Happy summer to you all, happy life.  Try to remember, if you're worrying about it, well, just enjoy yourself instead.

Love,
Chris