Returning to the scene of the crime- The Cancer Center
Exactly nine years ago, I was a newly diagnosed Osteosarcoma patient being wheeled into the OR for a limb salvage surgery meant to save both my leg and my life. I cried so hard in pre-op that I needed extra sedatives. Then my arms were tied down to the OR table while I was still alert enough to feel some serious panic - If you're claustrophobic, you understand. What followed was the longest two weeks of my life. For much of that time, my pain was only controlled with Dilaudid, a medication 2-8 times stronger than morphine. My wound became infected, my margins weren't clean, and I missed my best friend's wedding. Looking back, I hardly recognize the person I was at that moment, a shell of the woman I am today. Not because I was sick but because I felt so hopeless, so afraid.
In comparison, my amputation surgery and hospital recovery was a breeze. I required very little pain medication, and it felt good not to fall asleep mid-sentence. Physical therapy was almost effortless, and I was released after three days. It felt like I had lived a whole lifetime between those two surgeries, despite only being five years apart. I'd become much more powerful and knew how to advocate for myself. To say your skin gets thicker during your cancer journey is an understatement.
Today, I am finally healthy. I have been cancer-free for over three years and am finally getting the hang of this prosthetic. When I got the news that my Aunt, who had previously been battling colon cancer, was having a procedure to help life feel a bit more normal again, I knew I wanted to visit her during her five-day inpatient stay at the hospital. Little did I know, I would walk into the same cancer center and take the elevator up to the all too familiar tenth floor for the visit. As I stepped off the elevator, I took a moment, looked around, and felt the last nine years of my life come full circle. Here I was, cancer-free, unafraid, feeling grown up in more ways than age could ever define. And the same Aunt who held me as I cried in that pre-op area so long ago, having been through her own fight with cancer, was now also cancer-free. We sat by the window reflecting on it all, feeling more thankful than we ever expected to be inside that building.
In the past, I've written about all the little signs from the universe and how I try to soak up the small moments because you only get so many, but this was no small moment; this was something I won't soon forget, and I can only pray more cancer patients will get to feel it in their lifetime. When you're in the thick of it, the worst of it all, remember that one day you might get to walk back into that place, knowing you are free from what once haunted you.
