More than a Date on the Calendar: Marking Cancer Milestones

Firefly Sisterhood is delighted to share a guest blog from Susan Pettit, one of our Firefly Guides.

Do any of you, as breast cancer survivors, mark important dates during your cancer experience with thoughts of how much cancer has taken from you? How much cancer has given you? The yin and the yang of the intersecting emotions: in one moment you are celebrating survivorship, the next, you are a puddle of tears. The date—your date—forever etched in time when life stopped, if even for just a moment. Did it take your breath away? What does that date—of hearing the word “cancer”—reveal for you month after month, year after year? What other dates during your cancer experience carry meaning and significance?

Firefly Sisterhood gathered reactions to these important questions from women in the breast cancer community, women willing to bravely walk down memory lane, women from a more recent diagnosis to those further and further away from their significant date. But will it ever be just a date?

• “My date was December 21, 2012.  The holiday spirit of jubilance and joy was plentiful everywhere. In a few days I would gather myself to make the drive to face my family.  Cancer invokes silence.  2012 was silent.  The elephant in the room was never addressed.  Over the years, the date has released feelings of gratitude and grace. But in other years – it’s been a painful reminder of how much cancer taketh away.  I still grieve the battlefield wounds, the physical and emotional scars and the unfortunate trauma cancer triggered permanently for my on-going health.  I desperately seek my “new normal” on an on-going basis and chasing that positive state of being can be elusive and tiresome.  But the sun always rises and even elusive turns into chasing moments of beauty, gratitude and a dancing pink sky.  Cancer – you may hold me hostage from time to time – but I always break free.”
• “My cancer-versary to me is the day I started kicking cancer’s butt and became a fighter, whether I liked it or not.”
• “I celebrate that day, the surgery, the bra burning party, the head shaving party, the day my friend posted on Facebook and even the day the bandages came off and I saw my new look.”
• “On December 8th, (the date I was diagnosed), the floor dropped and the world stopped. As earth shattering and scary as it was and still is sometimes, I’m a better person because of it! No one really knows what’s next right? That’s the thing about life. While I’m a 3 year survivor, positive most days, I still have moments of fear, what-ifs, and unknowns. Sometimes I could let the anger rise that it (cancer) even happened in the first place, but I wouldn’t know what I know now or be who I am today!”
• “I can tell you exactly where I was when my phone rang (and I received my diagnoses). Fast forward a year . . . my family gathered in our new house . . . for lunch and my husband started to cry. I asked him if he was ok, and he said it had been such a long hard year and it felt good to finally be home. Suck it cancer we got this date back!”
• “Sometimes cancer makes you selfish. I wasn’t relieved, I was pissed. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy that the cancer was out. But I knew this wasn’t “the end” . . . There is this unrealistic expectation that cancer patients need to be positive, brave and fight. We need to stay strong for our friends and family and any crack in our armor makes us look weak. Who cares if we are weak.  Cancer f—— sucks. There are good days and there are bad days. We need a chance to talk more about our bad days. Anniversary sounds like a celebration. Heck, look up the definition: the date on which an event took place in a previous year; institution was founded, couple was married, romance began. All of these are happy things that should be celebrated. I am not going to celebrate my cancer dates. I will recognize them and work on acknowledging the emotional impact of these dates. But I don’t think I will ever celebrate them.”
• “Eleven years ago, I was bald, sporting several new scars and burns but extremely happy to be done with chemo and radiation. NEVER did I expect to be the 1 in 8 women to be diagnosed with breast cancer, especially at the age of 38.”
• “My dates are branded into me and I can nearly list every surgery date by memory. The emotions run high and I often go into panic as they near.”
• “I do something special for myself on (the day I was diagnosed) every year. That day changed my life forever. The celebration may be as simple as taking the day off work or as big as a spa day.”
• “I try really hard not to sugar coat it. I mean I’m all for the positivity thing, but I think being honest about it all helps with the reality of the situation. I felt bad for a long time afterwards . . . because my chemo treatment tried to kill me. I felt like a failure because I wasn’t the brave little soldier as so many breast cancer patients are portrayed.”
• “(On the date of my diagnosis) I started a tradition of going out to lunch where only pleasant things could be discussed. No work, no unhappiness, no anger, no sadness, just pleasant talk and looking toward the future. . . . I’m more focused on seeking what I need and want from life in all areas of my life which makes the cancer now a much smaller part of my life than it used to be.”
• “I’m over 7 years out and still remember those dates. I continue to celebrate with mixed emotions!”

Whatever emotion your date invokes in you, we hope you honor all of them.  We see you, we hear you and we thank you for sharing your stories.