When you get diagnosed with cancer, they usually call you with the news, but thanks to MyChart, some people get a message that their biopsy results are in and click to find out that something is growing in their body that might kill them. The breast clinic did an initial biopsy on me which they said was benign, but a radiologist wasn’t convinced, so they did a second one. That’s when they confirmed the tumor.
The rhythms of cancer are like the rhythms of a country. You cut out the tumor, then poison the body to try and keep it from coming back. Then you radiate the body until it burns. Then you choke it with medication which, in theory, also keeps the cancer from coming back.
But sometimes the cancer isn’t really gone; it’s just lurking, waiting for its window of opportunity. A team of people is intently focused on preventing that from happening, but they can’t always outsmart a thing when its entire purpose is to metastasize.
I’m neither a historian nor a pundit. I wouldn’t even call myself an activist. I’m just a middle class person in California clinging onto a job teaching kids how to write because I still believe writing will give them an opportunity to exercise their agency. And in 2016, I believed that too, and I’ll still believe it tomorrow when I walk into class.
But I also know this country has always had racism and sexism built right in, and that they’re always there, waiting to metastasize.
And on top of that I now also know that sometimes, the treatment to control a tumor works. But you have to live in uncertainty waiting to find out. Sometimes you have to wait the rest of your life.
And I also know that ultimately, what has saved me thus far wasn’t just medicine, but people.