This picture was taken a week before I found out I relapsed (in 2010). I thought I was living my best life. I couldn’t have had a better outlook after fighting cancer. I truly felt like I was on top of the world and that nothing could bring me down. I had the mindset that I faced the biggest evil and fought death and won to just have it all taken away from me in a matter of seconds.
Let me back track to my initial diagnosis. I hadn’t been surprised. I had all the unexplainable symptoms and knew something was just not right. So I didn’t feel as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of me when I was told I had cancer. But I did feel that when I was told I relapsed. I felt like a failure. I thought I was strong. I thought that I could do anything because I beat cancer.
And when I didn’t, a piece of me died. I wasn’t giving up hope for another chance. But that other chance had to come from someone else, a donor. Someone who had healthy, strong cells to fight the battle for me. It made me feel then, and even now, that I am the weakest link. That I am so weak I can’t even fight cancer which I literally can’t. My donor cells are fighting my cancer producing cells.
Sometimes I feel like I’m just a host of another person. I may look like Dee. I may talk like Dee. But am I Dee? Who am I? Can I get her back, even if it’s just a glimpse?
Cancer is a life changing thing. The battle is brutal. And when you come out of that battle, you do become someone new. It changes you. And how it changes you, is an individual thing. My initial victory I felt like champion. But after my relapse, I felt weak, and still do. I’m constantly fighting. Always in warrior mode. Not because I need to fight cancer but fight what cancer has left behind.
And what it has left behind is someone I don’t even really recognize.
