Cancer makes people uncomfortable. Talking about cancer makes people uncomfortable. Yet at this point there are more people who know someone personally who fought with cancer than ever before.
It’s scary as a notion, this word “cancer”. The diagnosis, even when it should be spoken with clarity and conviction, it is whispered even by some doctors, ever hopeful or in denial, especially if they know the patient personally.
After we caught Conrad’s cancer early and dealt with it efficiently, I was paranoid about myself getting breast cancer right before moving to Romania. It was a stressful time, and that took its tool physically and mentally. I even went in for a checkup. This website it amazing though. I didn’t not know 90% of this “know your lemons”
Maybe it’s a gene passed on, maybe it’s a type of stress that surfaces as cancer, nobody knows. For us cancer decisively closed the door of procreation and motivated us to reassess our lives, get uncomfortable, pull our sleeves up and act today because tomorrow is unpredictable. So we took the plunge to adopt. Looking back I see it al as a gift.
At times I wished it was me who was sick, because the feeling of powerlessness watching someone in pain seems worse to me. The scariest part is the first short chapter of getting such terrible diagnosis and sharing it with a very empathetic family. Once you start rolling with the punches and don’t ask the “why us” question, the days roll with surprising normality.
And I was reminded of a good saying I read as a teenager: “get familiar with God’s voice when it’s quiet and peaceful, so when the storm hits you are still able to distinguish His voice.”