People always assume there are two options when it comes to cancer. You either achieve remission or you die. Thankfully, modern medicine has increased the number of people achieving remission. What if I told you though there is a third option. An alternative that, up until I’ve lived it, I didn’t know it existed. That is what if you lived WITH Cancer.
See, cancer lives just down the hall from me. It is always there, always lurking, like a bomb about to go off at any moment. Cancer lives within my 12 year old’s brain. We are living everyday WITH Cancer.
I get asked all the time by people how my son is doing. On the outside, right now, he looks happy, healthy, almost normal. We are not currently on any cancer treatments. We are in a pause which, many assume, is remission, but it is not.
By definition, remission is not being able to detect the cancer on a scan. Literally when they look at your tests, your scans, your body, there is no cancer.
We finished radiation in March 2023 and we’ve had three scans so far. His tumor is stable and not growing currently, but it is still there. Still visible on the scans, still glowing on the computer screen.
I can remember like it was yesterday, the day our doctor told me that our son would probably never achieve remission. He had student doctors in the room with him. We were about 3 weeks into radiation. He casually told them “the field is just too big, we will not be able to achieve remission”. Imagine the gut punch that was. So much so that I gave a little nervous giggle (like what did he just say). It didn’t help I was by myself too. How stupid of me to think I could go to the oncologist alone? I’ve learned better now that I need help along this journey. Now, no one goes to the oncologist alone. It was there it hit me, maybe there is a third alternative to cancer.
So, here we are living that third alternative. We are living each day with cancer in our lives. Which, by the way, they do not write a handbook on how to handle. It has changed the way we all live. There is not an area of life that it doesn’t or hasn’t affected.
Strong as a Mother 