Three Years Later: Life After Cancer Treatment
To quote the Grateful Dead, “what a long strange trip it has been.” Three years ago today I was officially discharged from cancer treatment five years early. Yes, cancer treatment can last that long for someone who is early stage, and yes it was equally as tough of a decision to “quit” treatment as it was to agree to start it in the first place for me. While life continues on as it has since ending treatment, I recently had to say goodbye to my friend Lora Gene who went through treatment parallel to me. She passed away from cancer after a very quick two years as a stage IV cancer patient and is proof positive that you can do all of the “right” things and still die from cancer. Her death is also a gentle reminder to me that I am very lucky to still be here.
Non-Cancer Life Updates
Since my last post, a year ago, I have transitioned back into a traditional full time job and set a lot of my passion projects to the side for a few months. After spending a year writing constantly for my website/brand “The New England Hiker” I was thoroughly burnt out. In May of last year (2024) I suffered a partially torn quad muscle that took a month to properly diagnose and my 2024 summer was spent doing almost no exercise and a whole lot of reading. I have continued working on my memoir and poetry and tried my hand at a few freelance writing gigs that pay really well but the lack of followthrough from the companies (and the content I was writing) just didn’t make it worth continuing with the relationship. In late August, an opportunity to take on a full time job that would give me time to still devote some of my attention to my passion projects arose and I jumped at the opportunity. After not working a traditional job for four years I was worried about how I would handle things but after a short transition period I have found that the consistency of being required to get up and go to work has done wonders for my mental and physical health.
I still write just not as often. I still read a ton (over 50 books a year) and I still want to publish a few books but I realize now that I am most productive when I have explicit expectations to be somewhere every day instead of relying on intrinsic motivation to use my time wisely. Furthermore, I found that with a self employed job title, it’s really hard to focus on one specific “job” and not get distracted by all of the other “jobs” you still need to do. For example, I spent a large amount of my time during 2023/2024 writing for my website, The New England Hiker, and had to put a lot of my non-hiking related writing on the backburner because I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to do both forms of writing every week. I also struggled with being distracted by doing things like cleaning up around the house before starting work for the day, or only working 3-4 hours a day at writing and then taking the rest of my “work day” to exercise. It was really hard for me and I applaud anyone who can be their own boss and work from home successfully.
In terms of hiking, after finishing the guidebook in October, 2023, I was so burnt out on hiking that I was very unmotivated to hike most of the last year. Stack on top of that my injury where I couldn’t hike for a month during the summer of 2024, and you get my first year since 2016 having a mileage total under 500. It has been almost a year since my injury and I still have to be careful because it turns out I’m not designed for hiking. My knees are deformed and chronically injured. My back has a slipped vertebrae as well that has slipped further and I need to limit my pack weight because of it. And although it has been nice to slow down and get really into some new forms of fitness (running mainly) I am chomping at the bit to get back on the trails this spring and summer.
Cancer Updates
This September I will be “No Evidence of Disease” for five years straight, a huge milestone in cancerland. As I continue to try and heal some of the trauma I’ve experienced due to my diagnosis, I’m also trying to see life as lasting more than six months at a time and going back to full time work is just a small part of that process. Sometimes I feel like I am being pulled in two different directions. In one direction, I want to give myself permission to relax and see life stretching out into the future for another four decades. In the other direction, I feel intense pressure to squeeze everything into six month blocks of time between scans. Finding some balance between these two juxtaposing philosophies about life is what I need to focus on. I need to allow myself permission to not feel as though I have no future and throw caution to the wind; to plan for a retirement. At the same time, I want to remain cognizant of just how quickly everything can change and not put things off for a future that isn’t promised.
My scans have all come back clean and all signs point to continued good news, but I am still hesitant. I am trying to trust that everything will be ok each time I go in for my scans but it’s still hard. But as distance grows between me and “cancer girl” who was in treatment, I am finding that I am able to start focusing more on processing what I went through and taking care of the body I am residing in. It’s still hard, but life is hard with or without cancer.
Since September I’ve taken a huge step back from writing (or creating) in any capacity because I needed a break. I’m hopeful that over the upcoming year I will find a steadiness and a stronger pull to create and write things that have nothing to do with hiking lists or the best places to propose to someone. Taking the pressure off of myself to earn a living with my creative passions has reminded me that writing is more than just a way to make money, it is therapeutic and how I process life. So, here’s to spending the next year settling back into a writing routine and continued growth as a human being (who happened to have cancer).
