It is just minutes after sunrise. My sneakers pound the creaky boardwalk suspended above the protected dune habitat. I hear the waves long before I see them. As I crest the dunes I am met with a peaceful and beautiful view. The white sand of the beach stretches out before me. Golden rays of sun reflect on gentle waves. I can immediately feel my stress levels drop an octave. This morning I am thinking about gratitude after cancer.
Gratitude is a word that gets thrown around a lot after a diagnosis of cancer. You are bombarded with messages from friends and acquaintances alike…”at least you have new boobs” or “at least you didn’t die”, they say. Internet authorities tell you to “be grateful”, “change your perspective” on your illness, or to “reframe” your emotions.
I happen to think that these platitudes are actually just toxic positivity masking as gratitude. These hollow recommendations are simply putting a falsely positive spin on a terrible situation for the comfort of others.
This morning, I am thinking about real gratitude. The kind that you can’t feel without surviving something truly horrible. It fills you up from the bottom until you re overflowing. It wraps around you like a blanket. It warms you like a golden sunrise over the ocean.
As I gaze out at the ocean I am overwhelmed with a tremendous wave of gratitude. Six weeks ago I stood in this same place at sunset and as the sun sank below the horizon I said goodbye. That evening I turned away from this view with tears in my eyes believing with every ounce of myself that I would very likely never see it again. And now the winds have changed, the sun is rising, and for the first time in a very long time, I am genuinely hopeful. And swell of relief eases my mind.
Hope is a rare feeling for me. The night that has overtaken my life has been so dark and so long that hope was not a luxury I could afford. And then after many losses and much heartache, this week I was finally gifted a win. Instead of losing this place it will now become a more permanent fixture in my life.
And for that win, I am grateful in way that I never could have been without the losses. The fight for life has left me feeling emotions with a depth I have never experienced before. My post-cancer world is a new and vivid technicolor. The highs are higher and the lows are lower.
In critical care and in medicine in general we very rarely get wins. Especially since the emergence of COVID, most of our patients’ stories have sad or tragic endings. As an intensivist you spend your career fighting and for the most part losing.
Even if a patient does survive a brush with death they are often left permanently debilitated or dependent on machines. This may be considered a “win” by some but I personally can’t feel triumphant knowing what a life dependent on machines looks like and the suffering it will entail.
Every once in awhile, though, you get a real win. Someone who beats the odds and goes on to have a full and normal life. That person may never even know who you are or how hard you fought for them but knowing they are out there in the world living, loving, and being loved makes the constant fighting worth it. Wins are rare and when they come around you hold on to them for a long time. It’s the only way to make it through the losses.
I was my surgeons’ win. I could see it in my breast surgeon’s eyes when she told me she got all the cancer and I could see it in my reconstructive surgeon’s eyes when I told her how beautiful my new breasts were. In oncology there are few happy endings. My surgery was considered curative. I would go out and live a normal non-debilitated life after. A happy ending was not guaranteed but at least possible. After many losses both my surgeons needed a win. I am grateful for many reasons that I could be that for both of them.
Now, having survived many personal losses, the appreciation for the win is almost overwhelming. My gratitude is deep and genuine. This win means much more than it ever would have without many months of tragic suffering for contrast.
Though I am still searching for my happy ending, I am alive and healthy-ish. Though the journey is unbearable at times I am still fighting my way forward.
And now, clocking my first win, hope comes a little easier. I am under no illusions. My journey will continue to be difficult. Things will probably get worse before they get better. Even this win will add stressors to my life. Like it or not I know there will be more losses to come.
But for now, I will put those fears out of my head. Instead, I will put one foot in front of the other, walk on this beautiful beach, and take this time for myself. As the waves crash and the gentle breeze rustles my hair, I step forward and lose myself in swells of gratitude, relief, and hope.
