Surprises and blessings

I’ve decided to postpone my second “inheritance” post in favour of something more up-beat. Here it is …

My friend Brenda (read her book) wrote me a note saying everyone she knows who lives through cancer is a happier person for it. I was grateful for that thought. It was heartening to imagine this life-altering experience might bring positive change and not wall-to-wall disaster.

Happier? Let’s just say I’m not there yet, but even at this early stage, I get it. It felt catastrophic to get a cancer diagnosis, but it was also a relief. I was in a burning house. The diagnosis meant the firefighters had arrived. And they were (and are) really good firefighters.

There is a special sweetness, a luminosity in the good moments that happen in the midst of what in many ways has been the hardest time of my life, the moments of love and human connection most of all. I’ve always felt actively happy in my marriage … not just not-unhappy. My feelings of love and respect for Rolf have always been inextricably entwined, but over the past few months I have felt more profoundly than ever what great stuff my husband, and our home, are made of. Just sitting together on the couch or across the breakfast table makes me feel good. And that's huge.

The whole question of connection in my life has a context. Thirty years ago, during another tough period, I realized I needed to a stand when it came to the people I was close to. I actively said "no" to some relatioships. It was hard. It still is. But saying "no" delineated space for the web of connections that surrounds me now. I never take those connections for granted. Still, to feel this much love and support coming toward me from friends and family has been literally awe-some. Being so raw, so depleted of inner resources has given me a chance to feel how powerful and essential it is to have love and support from people I trust. All the more so because I know if this had happened thirty years ago, the story would have been very different.

It’s remarkable how good it feels to do ordinary things. Creating mini-routines among the wall-to-wall disruptions. Solving problems, finding strategies to keep doing the things that make me feel like myself.

I’d rather not repeat the circumstances, but I would happily bottle the burst of pleasure I get from overcoming the tiniest, practical challenge.

And some days, I just feel good. For no apparent reason. Just like some days I just feel bad for no reason, when things are peachy-keen on the outside. I have never felt so clearly how distinct emotions can be from circumstances.

But back to the firefighters. Princess Margaret Hospital is astonishing! Last month, we visited my medical oncologist, Dr. Eitan Amir, for the first time. I could feel the clouds of worry and dread dispelling as we walked through the front doors, and things only got better when I met the confident, competent team who are going to look after me. Wow. These people are smart. If anyone is going to shepherd me safely through the challenges of treatment and prevent a recurrence, these people can do it.

It is a special place. Everyone I’ve talked to agrees. Why? How? The first thing I noticed was all the people. So many. They come to PMH either because they have cancer or are close to someone who does. Cancer arrives in so many forms in so many different lives. Yet I think it’s safe to say no one wants to be in this situation. This place is full of people in trouble in one way or another, and the people who help them.

Every doctor, staff member and volunteer I have talked to has been – not just caring and competent – but actively excited about helping. It fills me with admiration that they spend their days (and nights) looking after people who are going through some form of catastrophe. And making things better for them.

The hospital is a hub for the research which is making this disease less lethal, less fearsome, the treatments more effective and less draconian. The excitement is palpable, and contageous. I felt a burst of energy when I entered the space. But there's a lot to that energy, I think. This is a place where human vulnerability, mortality are right out in the open, not hidden or hived off, as the world outside often encourages us to do. I’ve never felt so clearly the extent to which shame and denial trap and sap energy that could be used to do so much good in the world.

But I want to return to my diagnosis if you don’t mind. I’ve said versions of this before, but was a powerful experience, and I keep looking at it from different angles and finding new revelations in it.

When I heard I had cancer, I felt momentarily eclipsed. It was a matter of seconds, if that, but it lasted long enough that I could actually sense the process of reassembling myself. What came first? I’m a writer. It’s who I am, not just what I do. But even that idea was stripped down to something more essential. I’m a storyteller.

I felt my connections with the people in my life in terms of sharing this news with them. First, my husband. I would bring him into my now-changed world because I share my world with him.  Then the confidantes I am blessed to have around me, because telling them would make it real for myself. Because they’re part of me. I imagined those connections branching outward. I realized those two elements are connected. That’s all storytelling really is.

Let me tell you why that was such a good feeling. Being closely identified with writing has felt like a burden to me – let’s be honest – for a couple of decades.

I was late making the transition from ardent journal and letter-writer to someone who sends their work out into the world to be accepted or rejected. To be judged, by strangers. I don’t know why, but the possibility of failure had to become part of the picture, even though I’ve never been entirely sure what ‘failure’ means.

But the writing world is getting worse and worse for the people at the heart of it. Writers, I mean. The treatment has been getting more disrespectful by the year. You have to be a big seller to warrant basic, golden-rule behaviour in many cases, and you probably don’t even get it then. Even rejections are to be prized. Most of the time, what goes out into the world is ignored. There’s a pressure to self-commodify, to create a personal brand.

I’m not here to complain about that. Well, maybe a little. But my point is that feeling closely identified with writing is not an easy way to be, in this climate, and I’ve made myself miserable by turning against that aspect of myself.

I could also see that none of it is my problem. The publishing world keeps changing – and not at all in the right direction, but I am who I am; I do what I do; I just have to keep going.

With the help of a great team of doctors, I will.