When you get cancer, everyone expects you to be this fighter. The truth is, you’re already fighting, fighting to survive. Just that most times it’s a quiet fight. But they don’t see it. Going to the hospital, taking chemo, surviving surgery, bearing the unpleasant and painful side of the treatment – these are all fights, battles that only your caregiver sees closely. Everyone else sees the balding head, blackened nails and clothes that hang loose. People expect you to thrive because they want to tell your cancer story to their friends over cocktails. They want to tell how brave their friend has been. Second-hand sympathy/martyrdom, I call it.
It’s enough to just skate through, to just be, when you have cancer. It doesn’t have to be this big story of how you thrived and lived despite having cancer. That’s too much pressure and frankly unrealistic. Most of us just want to nap, watch our comfort shows and talk to friends who cheer us up.
So don’t give in to this unfair narrative of being a thriver, you’re already a survivor and that’s more than enough. You don’t need to climb Everest to prove to the world that cancer can’t stop you. Taking regular showers is our Everest, it is mine. If you want to climb Everest, by all means do that. But not because the world expects you to do something heroic. You’re already a hero.
My Dear Moody 