We’re working on it!
There is a lot of communication from organizations and institutions that are committed to advancing research and supporting those impacted by cancer. So many survivors who are advocating and so many organizations that are doing amazing work. One email that caught my attention was from April Stearns, survivor, founder and CEO of Wildfire Magazine.
I related with what she said and responded, “I love that you shared the experience you all had in the hot tub. It's so interesting you said what you said because I almost say the same thing. When someone says you're a survivor or it's over now right and I just say I'm taking it day by day!”
Here is her email:
it's October: Breast Cancer Awareness Month. From inside the breast cancer community, awareness means different levels of comfort in terms of sharing our personal experiences publicly. Being advocates can mean opening ourselves up to uncomfortable questions. I'm thinking of a conversation that happened this summer when I finally (after 10 years!) figured out how to answer the most common of all breast cancer questions. Maybe my answer will resonate with you. If so, feel free to steal it!
But you survived! You're all good now, right?=
For 10 years now, I've encountered this question again and again anytime a new person learns of my cancer history. I've always struggled with how to answer. It is true, I've survived every day since diagnosis so far. I am one of the lucky ones currently NED (no evidence of disease). But I've been here for 10 years of friends facing cancer recurrences and sneak attack de novo Stage IV diagnoses. My relationship with cancer is definitely not "all good now."
And I know all my friends in the hot tub tonight grapple with this, too.
I think of the burn scar again. Though it is dark now, I know it is there, just beyond the hot tub, a physical representation of loss and survival. I picture the still-standing redwood trees among the many fallen trees. Burned but still standing, the living redwoods are sending out new shoots of green growth, struggling to overcome the trauma of the fire. They will always carry the fire's scars.
And I think of the magazine I publish for the young beast cancer community. Four years before the 2020 wildfires threatened my California community, I titled my magazine "Wildfire," and not by accident. The daughter of a wildland firefighter, I saw parallels between fire and cancer. I wrote this inscription for the first page of Wildfire Magazine and each and every isssue carries it:
In nature, a wildfire is one of the most devastating natural forces. It burns hot and fast, and leaves little behind but ash and char. Or so it seems. Very soon after the fire passes through the forest, life returns. Shrubs and weeds that clogged the first floor have burned away, leaving space for new trees, grasses, and flowers to emerge and flourish in the sunlight that can now reach them. Habitats are created, bringing new insects, birds, reptiles, and mammals. A cancer diagnosis can feel like a wildfire, our bodies becoming this new, fire-clarified landscape. For some, cancer changes utterly everything. For others, cancer brings greater clarity and purpose. And some of us are still searching for what life after a cancer diagnosis will look like.
I look at the stranger in the hot tub, her question of survivorship hanging in the steam between us. Are we all survivors now?
I look from her face to the faces of my friends. Friends I only have because of what we've been through, all our innocence stripped away by cancer. Friends who have taught me so much about survival. I open my mouth & I tell her the whole truth:
“We’re working on it,” I say.
We are working on surviving each hurdle... surviving each loss... surviving each win. We are working on buying time for science to advance cancer treatment. We are working on making sense of cancer, working on finding each other and belonging, and working on writing brave new endings for our stories. We're working on surviving each day we have after diagnosis.
https://www.wildfirecommunity.org