This is cancer!

Cancer is... 

• Waking up to find hundreds of hairs on your pillow and being scared of the shower because the hair just won't stop falling out. 
  
• Drinking water and electrolytes nonstop and still feeling dehydrated all. the. damn. time. 
• Reading the same paragraph over and over and over and not absorbing any of it. 
• Thinking your brain will never be clear enough to finish your dissertation. 
• Wondering about what you would be doing in that moment if you didn't have cancer. 
• Saying to yourself, "I have cancer." and it still being weird. 
• Wanting to call your Mami but not wanting to have to answer the question about why you're not having babies yet. 
• Sore throats and stuffy noses on the first day of summer. 
• Feeling an added responsibility to imbue meaning into things because the precariousness of life has been revealed to you. 
• Going from never napping a day in your life to not being able to keep your eyes open by 3 pm.
• Being bored.
• Doing the dishes and feeling like you just ran a few miles. 
• Trying to reconfigure your priorities when you have long been defined by your work, but you no longer have the stamina to actually do it consistently. 

Cancer is also...

• Going out for breakfast AND lunch on a Saturday.

 

• Your husband gently stroking your head until you fall asleep when the headache feels like it won't ever go away. 
• Buying pretty Moschino silk scarves at Century 21. 
• Your mom's perfect couscous boulettes made on demand. 
• Karen sending you her head covers from the other side. 

• Your brother, who lives across the country, saying, "I've got the even treatment weeks, and Jeremy's got the odd ones!" 
• Elana coming over for Shabbat, buying a Carvel cake that wishes you a happy birthday, and saying that you're starting a new chemo week tradition. 

• Mrs. Farwell sending a care package with just the most spot on head scarf and CBD coffee in it. 

• A long and lovely phone call with Therese. 
• Goldy fitting you in for yet another haircut (a GI Jane buzz, likely). 
• Waking up early on a beautiful Sunday morning and walking your compost up to the farmer's market. 

• A ribeye steak when your iron counts are low. 
• Kathrine Skyping with you from Copenhagen to digitally walk you through a meditation session. 
• Joking about cutting your hair to look like your bald father's (/Bernie Sanders/Larry David). 
• Cherishing the forthcoming off week.