COVID has Shown Us What It’s Like to Have Cancer

I've spent the last 24 months of my life dealing with breast cancer, and the last 12 months dealing with breast cancer AND Covid.

And I have come to see that COVID has shown us all a little of what it's like to have cancer.

It seems unfair anyone should have to know something of what it feels like to go through cancer if they're healthy and NOT diagnosed with cancer.

After all, in the past two years, I've been through a double mastectomy, DIEP Flap reconstruction, hysterectomy, and 13 total surgeries; I've been through chemo and cold-capping to save my hair, and I've been diagnosed with the BRCA1 genetic mutation. No one should have to endure so much.

It also feels like I greatly empathize with all who have struggled through COVID quarantine and those who are still struggling to make sense in this post-COVID world, because I understand how hard it is. 

How is COVID like dealing with cancer? 

See if any of this sounds familiar to you:

• You feel isolated from the world, going through something both personal and universal, but no one around you quite experiences it in the same way.

• Your work is put on hold, your family is put on hold, your life is put on hold for an unspecified amount of time.

• You must rely on the help and strength of others to get you through because you know you cannot do this alone.

• You also feel threatened by being around other people because you could get sick more easily than ever before.

• You become a germaphobe (when you never where before), seeing every surface or person as potential bacteria that could make you extremely sick or potentially kill you. 

• You quickly find out who your true friends are, because they’re the ones reaching out even if their lives are stressful and hard to manage, too. 

• You quickly find out who your true friends are NOT.

• Anxiety and fear are daily companions, reminding you that at any moment you might take a turn for the worse or receive a threatening new diagnosis, on top of everything else you're dealing with.

• Family time becomes everything as you face daily uncertainty.

• You’re also stressed and frustrated with your family, whom you love, but who are a source of great worry and stress at this time.  And they are frustrated with you.

• Your kids struggle more than you thought they would, dealing with huge losses, emotions, and fears they're not equipped to handle, and needing just as much emotional support and help as you need, and all while you're feeling vulnerable and not at your best. You also know how you handle things right now could make or break it for your children. (No pressure.)

• You’re on social media more, because this feels like the only way to connect with people when you’re stuck at home just trying to survive. 

• Or, you’re off social media more because you can't take all the negativity or because you just want to focus on your family and what matters most.

• Pondering your own mortality becomes a daily part of life, thinking about those who’ve gone before, re-processing past trauma, and re-experiencing grief from past losses--because it’s all linked to the trauma and grief you’re experiencing now. A "positive diagnosis" of the threatening illness isn’t necessarily a death sentence, but in very real and present ways.., it could be. 

• You stop wearing makeup, normal clothes, a bra, or doing your hair, because you're home all the time; stretchy pants and baggy shirts become your go-to.

• Financially you’re drained, not being able to work like usual, with all your resources going toward simply preserving life during this unpredictable and uncertain time.

• You gain weight because you can’t move like you used to or even exercise like before, you’re eating more or different than ever.

CLICK image to WATCH VIDEO from 2 days after my DIEP Flap Rconstructon surgery

• You’re not sleeping because of the fear and anxiety keeping you awake up all night wondering about this and that and the other, and your family in the mix. Or, you feel like you’re sleeping all the time because you have no schedule, no routine, and you’re so totally exhausted from seemingly doing nothing all day and it doesn’t quite add up.

• You don’t have the energy you used to because it all seems to be going just to surviving this time.

• All these things last longer than you ever thought possible. You have to constantly reassess how you’re doing and what you need to be doing to deal with everything you've been through, and to heal.

• At some point you realize you're going to need to find a new normal, but you also realize you’re still in the middle of it, with more months than you ever thought possible to come. 

• You know your life will never be the same; even when you go back to “the new normal," you’ll forever be changed by this profound life event.

• If you’re able, and if you’re wise, you’ll reach out for mental health and emotional support from family, trusted friends, community, faith communities, online support groups, and even professional help. You don’t realize at the beginning but soon come to see just how taxing this is for your mental and emotional health not just your physical state

• In time to come, you will see that this is loss. This is grief. And if you don’t find a way to grieve now, as you go, and even if you do grieve as you go, eventually, when you come out of this life-altering experience, you’ll find a pile of emotion you haven’t dealt with yet--a pile of un-dealt-with trauma, fear, anxiety, stress, depression--and you’ll want help to deal with it. Otherwise, IT can become your new normal.

Of course, the hardest trials in life can also bring great Blessings. 

Do you recognize any of these "positive" changes that are similar between COVID & Cancer?

• If you’re open and allow it, this will turn you toward your God, your higher power, your truest self, and you will want to become her. Best case scenario, these things turn us all to our higher power, our higher self, to our common humanity. 

• You develop depth of understanding and compassion--for yourself AND others--and begin to see others' suffering as being like your own. You can care better for yourself, empathize in greater ways, and serve more profoundly.

• Things you might have taken for granted before you now don’t.

• Petty concerns you had before are (hopefully) no longer concerns.

• You didn’t realize how good you had it before--even when things seemed a little tough. Now, you do.

• You wake up more deeply grateful to be alive each and every day.

• You count your blessings more fully and dearly.

• You value life more than you ever did before, because now you know it could be taken away in an instant.

But guess what?

The beautiful part is most of you do NOT have cancer and most of you never will. Just like most of you did not get COVID and never will. 

And that means, you most likely have your health, and that is something to be completely grateful for, to never take for granted.

We Can Choose to Grow 

We may have had to quarantine for a time.

We may have had to wear masks that were uncomfortable, and put off plans we'd been looking forward to. 

We may just BARELY be beginning to see the light at the end of this year-long COVID tunnel. And It may have felt really dark until now. For many, it may still feel dark.

But trust me, we can handle whatever this "new normal" after COVID will be, my friends.

We can handle resuming some sense of normalcy, and we can handle the fact that it won't be exactly the same as before.

We can handle parenting through such challenging times.

We can handle protecting ourselves and our families by making decisions that are best for US.

We can handle taking care of our mental health challenges that have come on because of COVID by reaching out and letting help in

And even more than just "handling it?" We can CHOOSE TO GROW through it, and not just GO through it.

How do I know? 

Because if I can handle cancer and all it brings for TWO years now and grow through it, too; and if my warrior sisters and I can handle cancer treatment AND COVID, then YOU CAN handle life after COVID. 

As I tell myself often, "You're doing better than you think you are."

I am. You are. We are. We are all in this together, and we are going to be just fine.

Share your COVID quarantine and "life after COVID" experiences below. What's helped you get through? 

What have you been learning? What do you still need help with?

And cancer warriors, share your expeirences of cancer AND covid, life "after,"

and what you're learning and/or

need help with, below.