As I perused the obituaries in the Citizen, I used to always be jarred when I read that someone had died after a heroic, or courageous or valiant battle with cancer. How could someone fall back on war terms to highlight how a person was engaged with life right to the end? I remember thinking that if I were ever diagnosed with cancer, I would never let such vocabulary describe my dying. Let my obituary writer be aware!
Well, on July 8th 2015, I was diagnosed with cancer, a stage 4 colorectal cancer with metastasis to my lymph nodes, my liver and my lungs. This diagnosis, especially at so advanced a stage, came from left field. How could my immune system have been overwhelmed so radically while I was going about my life full throttle? How could food intake limitations henceforth set boundaries on my most reliable hearty appetite and my total enjoyment of the most varied culinary menus? Treatment was immediately set in motion with great commitment on the part of my oncology team (surgeon, radiologist and chemotherapist) to guarantee me two years of quality of life before my demise. I was left to hope that such were God’s designs for me as well.
As I started my journey through the cancer care process, I began to hear war language directed towards the cancerous cells in my body. They were the invaders, and the strategy was to attack, blast, destroy, etc. How could I conceive of a battle field being set up within my own body, and with chemo as a weapon of choice at that? Where did my own immune system, however compromised now, fit into this scheme of things? I decided right from the beginning that I would not battle cancer, not use war terms but rather would try to shift the perspective of cancer care vocabulary. I would strive, with God’s grace, to just live with cancer, and live with it well.
From the onset, I informed my oncologist that I would not be putting all my eggs in the chemo therapy basket as if my immune system had totally abdicated its natural responsibilities. Rather, I would seek the help of complementary therapies to boost it, give it a better chance to continue to perform its God-given function in my body, albeit an aging body. More help came from the tremendous flow of loving, prayer-filled energy released by my CSJ community, my family, former colleagues and friends. I never thought my life mattered to so many. I did have and continue to periodically have chemo treatments when the cancerous cells threaten to colonize new territories but, in my mind, these treatments focus primarily on helping my immune system hold its own, not on defeating cancerous cells.
Cancer is not my enemy; it is simply now part of my life’s journey. It brings its own share of anguish and pain but it is also the bearer of gifts which, as I seek to unwrap them daily with God’s grace, help me remain totally engaged with life as it unfolds for me at this time.
Nicole Aubé CSJ