On January 18th, 2019, I had my last radiation treatment for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS): breast cancer. Along the spectrum of breast cancer diagnoses, it is truly the “best” diagnosis one can hope for.
Regardless, it rocked my entire world.
When you are treated for cancer, the first day after your last “active” treatment is your “cancer-free” day. After surgery and 20 rounds of radiation, four months after my diagnosis, I celebrated my first cancer-free day. My skin was charred and leathery, and my body and spirit were so, so tired. But, five years ago today, I woke up and started to put the pieces back together.
The last five years of passive treatment haven’t been much more forgiving, unfortunately. Hormone therapy to mitigate the return of the cancer dragged me through the early stages of menopause in my early forties, only to have to repeat the entire process again now, a few years later. I have gained and lost significant weight several times in the last five years, as my oncologist and primary care physicians changed medications in an effort to keep me cancer-free while not also increasing my risk of heart disease and other cancers. I am perpetually too hot or too cold, too sleepy or unable to sleep at all. On any given month, I don’t have any expectation for how my body will show up. I have simply had to learn to have grace and appreciation for where I am every single day: I am here and cancer-free.
The five-year threshold is a milestone along any cancer journey. At five years post-diagnosis, the likelihood of invasive recurrence drops and long-term survival rate increases. It’s difficult to capture all that has happened in the last five years of my life; cancer seems merely a backdrop from this view.
And though my breast cancer journey will always be a backdrop in my story — always coloring the way I see the world — I’m ready to turn this page and close this chapter. This year, I’m celebrating the New Year a little late and ringing in the next five years cancer-free.
One response to “Happy New Year: 5 years cancer-free.”
[…] work across the street from the cancer center where I received my final radiation treatment just over five years ago. Every day for twenty days, I walked up to the corner and crossed the street. I checked in, went to […]