The
decision to return to Auburn before my chemo treatments were completed was not
one I made lightly. I knew from the very beginning that any number of things
could go wrong from me simply not feeling well enough to do well in my classes
to getting seriously sick over 300 miles away from the doctors attuned to the
details of my condition. There is often a fine line between moving forward with
a reasonable sense of confidence and just being flat out stupid, and I wanted
to make sure I was not crossing that line. After many conversations with my
doctor, however, it was clear that there were certainly risks involved, but not
to the point that it would be considered a complete abandonment from my senses
to go back. Knowing that, I felt good about getting my toes back in the water
and making the first steps towards becoming a real-life functioning person
again. I hadn’t considered how hard leaving home would be until I was loading
the last of my things into the back of my car in the driveway. The last few
months had been nothing short of a reliving of my pre-college life of living at
home and completely relying on my parents to take care of me, perhaps even more
profoundly than before. And now it was like I was leaving home for the first
time all over again. I had to remind both myself and my parents that I would be
returning every two weeks for the next month and a half anyway, so I think that
at least helped soften the transition.
The person who opened the door to my
Auburn duplex five hours later was not the same person who had walked out four
and a half months earlier. Somehow the rooms felt more open, the air seemed
easier to breathe, and the insidious itching that had seemed to inhabit every
nook and corner of the place had vacated the premises. When I lay in bed that
night, the same bed I had spent countless sleepless nights, the profound beauty
of what it is to be able to simply rest and feel a set of soft sheets beneath my
fingers without feeling like I was lying on a nest of angry ants washed over
me. Sometimes it’s only on the other side of something horrible that we can
truly and profoundly appreciate the little pleasures of life, but the hard-earned
lessons are ones we don’t soon forget.
One
of the stipulations that my doctor and I had agreed upon before deciding I
would return to school was that I would wear a mask to my larger classes in
order to avoid at all costs getting sick while my immune system was in such a
sorry state. Part of me wondered if anyone would recognize me between my lack
of hair and surgical mask which covered my lower face. I’m not usually one to
be overly-concerned with my appearance, but when the time came to actually walk
into my first class, anxiety bloomed inside me like an unwanted weed. Not only
did my inner middle schooler continually whisper that everyone was looking at
me, I suddenly had the irrational fear that the professor would ask me to stand
up and explain to the class why I felt compelled to wear a mask. Would people
not want to sit next to me? Would they think I have some infectious disease?
Despite myself, I had a flashback to the first day I walked into the cancer
ward at Vanderbilt to begin my treatment. I remember seeing person after person
wearing a mask and unconsciously feeling like I shouldn’t sit right next to
them, almost as if they were really wearing a sign that read “Stay back.” Now, I
felt like I was wearing the same sign.
Thankfully,
reality proved much more understanding, and most people talked to me as if
nothing were out of the ordinary to begin with. In fact, as the days went on, I
sometimes I forgot I had anything on my face at all. Unfortunately, every two
weeks served as a reminder of my condition when I had to return home for
another round of chemo. The headaches, nausea, and lack of energy became
relatively normal during those final six weeks, but some days proved more difficult
than others. On those days, I had to rely on those closest to me to push forward
and take the next step, even if that was only a word of encouragement or simply
sitting and watching an episode of Breaking Bad with me. Six weeks doesn’t seem
long in theory, but there were times when I thought it would never end.
But,
it did.
February
14th (yes, Valentine’s Day) marked the last time I walked into the
infusion center to receive chemo treatment. As always, I spent the majority of
the time reading a book or listening to music, anything to pretend I wasn’t
there so I could just push through to the end. As the nurse was hooking me up
with my final saline drip, I looked up to see my parents, sister, and nearly
every person who had been a part of my treatment walking into the room carrying
balloons, a sign, and even chocolate-covered strawberries to celebrate the
moment. I was so caught off guard that it took me a moment to realize what was
going on. This place that was normally a quiet, soft-spoken area where I came
to essentially do my duty and move on was now filled with bright colors and smiles,
with so many of the people who had been with me through the highs and lows of
this crazy ride. I’ll spare you any unnecessary emotional sap, but suffice it
to say waterworks were definitely involved and my heart felt about ready to
burst for all the love and appreciation I felt. This center at which I had
spent the last several months has a bell hanging in the hallway that leads out
of the building, and it’s a tradition for a person who has gotten their final treatment
to ring it on their way out. I can say with absolute certainty that ringing a
bell has never given me the level of satisfaction that it did that day.
As
much as I wish finishing chemo meant an instant return to normal health and a chia
pet-like regrowth of hair, that was not the case. In fact, for the next two
weeks I dealt with side effects as severe as they had ever been, many times to
the point that I had to step out of whatever class I was in to either get sick
or simply gather myself. I quickly realized that the push was not over even
though it seemed like it should be by all rights. Time seemed to slow down,
almost painfully so, as I woke up each day hoping this time I would get up and
feel completely well. As week followed week, however, I finally began to notice
an overall improvement in the way I felt, but even more exciting than that was
the steady appearance of an unfamiliar sight in my bathroom mirror each
morning: fuzz. Though unimpressive by any normal standard of follicular
activity, the unmistakable return of my hair seemed like a physical mark of the
transition from the hope to the reality that things were going to get better. I
used shampoo for the first time in months simply because I could, even if it
was a bit excessive for the meager pelt I was sporting. I also didn’t mind that
my new addition seemed to induce the compulsion in others to pet my head like a
dog. It proved difficult not to do the same myself since my new hair was
noticeably softer than before.
As
great as all this improvement felt, I knew that the PET scan I had scheduled
six weeks out from my final treatment would be the real decider as to whether
or not this progression back to “regular” life could continue or if there still
remained a battle to be fought for the right to live in my body. Of course,
given the enormously positive results of my first scan two months into
treatment, we didn’t expect anything other than good news, but even a small “what
if?” feels impossible to ignore completely. Somehow or another, the time
finally came that I found myself sitting in a room alongside my parents,
waiting for the doctor to arrive and deliver the news. I tried to not let
myself get prematurely excited, but when I saw the smile on my doctor’s face as
she walked in, relief washed over me like water on a parched throat. She then
proceeded to show us how the mass in my chest, originally over 13 centimeters
in diameter and engulfing one side of my heart, was now a meager few
centimeters and showing no sign of cancerous activity. After letting the beauty
of that news sink in for a few moments, we began to discuss how to move forward
from here. My doctor explained that I would come in to be checked again about
every six months for a couple years, and then we would reduce the frequency to
once a year for a few years after that. If I still showed no signs of relapse
after that time, it might even be possible that the term “cancer-free” could be
used. As for the advice she gave me for moving forward, I’ll never forget it: “Just
live your life completely normally. No more restrictions.” In all of medicine,
I am confident that there exists no better combination of words to hear.
As
my parents and I left to go celebrate with some Five Guys’ burgers, I finally
let my tired mind accept what I had wanted to be true for so long. I didn’t
have to push, to put my head down and only hope for the end of another day; I
could just be. I’ve had a lot of great burgers in my day, but the one I had
that afternoon may have been the best yet.
