#036. Moving On After Cancer

Finding the inner strength

People say everything changes after cancer, and it’s true even if it doesn’t happen immediately. In the five awkward years after surgery to remove half my thyroid and the tumor inside it, I was stuck in this weird healing purgatory. It’s a metaphorical liminal space where you’re not sick anymore, but also not quite well.

I didn’t feel healed. So I just kept going to the doctors, chiropractors, acupuncturists, nutritionists. Still doing cleanses, getting bloodwork, hyperbarics, sound healing, yoga, breathwork, hot springs, meditation, workshops, dance, alkaline water, vitamins. Psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, colon hydrotherapy. I did it all.

People were confused as to why I was still spending so much time and money on that stuff when I no longer had cancer. “You’re already healed”, they’d say.

Of course I wanted to move forward and not have to depend on anything for my health and well-being, but something felt like it was missing and the future felt scary. “Will the cancer come back? Will I ever be strong and fast again? Will I ever be confident in my body again? What if it stays like this forever?”

Never in a million years would I have thought that I, a health-conscious health professional would get cancer. It changed me. I felt far from the me that I knew. Deep down I knew I was looking for something within that even I had yet to understand.

Mads Schmidt Rasmussen on Unsplash

⋅ Leaving Healing Purgatory ⋅

Imagine that you are on a foggy path and can’t see where your foot lands let alone the path in front of you. That’s what healing purgatory feels like.

Especially in the beginning, it’s hard to keep going on your own. You may need a guide, someone who’s been there too, or at least who believes you can get there. They beckon you to take their hand as they say, “While you may not know what’s ahead, all you need to do is take another step.”

Then with each step, a light within you grows. For me, it wasn’t “the light at the end of the tunnel” as much as “the light within” that made each step a forward step.

So what is the light within? It’s commitment to self. Whether it is solitude, therapy, dance, meditation, a nap or a “No”, each action (or inaction) is a tiny step that strengthens one’s courage and desire to experience an unknown future, rather than shrinking away from life after illness.

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” ― Albert Camus

One day, that light was bright enough for me to let go and lead myself. As is the case with all of us, at some point, no one can lead you but yourself because your life is an answer to your deepest yearning. And mine was this, “Yes! I want to know what it means to live fully after cancer! Yes! I want to find out what the ultimate ending to my story! Yes! I want to experience heaven on earth! Yes! As cheesy as that all sounds, I want to live up to all the cheese!”

⋅ Epilogue ⋅

Anyhoo, cancer taught me so much about myself and what matters to me. Turns out - I don’t really want to be living in an ashram in Indian, but I do still enjoy traveling under the tourism bubble, being with my loved ones, and generally trying on new experiences to learn about myself.

So two weeks ago, I decided to start a new chapter of my life by submitting my resignation letter at the non-profit community center where I’ve worked for the past eight years. I’m finally moving forward to start my online business.

The chapter of my life that started with a school clinician telling me to get a bump checked out, ends with me keeping the “good” half of my thyroid and me being in remission from Stage 2 Papillary Thyroid Cancer for five years. The odds that the cancer will come back are very low, like p-value less than 0.05 low.

I may feel like I got tossed and turned around while cancer and surgery deconstructed and reconstructed me, but I’m HERE! And I feel luckier than a four leaf clover.

⋅ Gratitudes ⋅

Thank you dear readers for reading my heart on paper. Thanks to the Great Magician in the Sky. Thanks to all the healers, helpers, family, friends, sweet boyfriend, and to Thyroideous-Rex, aka T-Rex, The Tumor. And also thank you to me, yes me.