Tuesday, November 18, 2014

No Evidence of Disease?

This week I found out that I have "no evidence of disease."  The four words all cancer patients want to hear from their doctors.  I am so grateful for that, but just because the physical evidence is gone, the emotional toll the "disease" has had on my body is still there.  How do the doctors look for evidence of that?

Don't get me wrong, I am beyond ecstatic that I am "healthy;" though I use this term loosely as I recover from my stem cell transplant.  However, there is a part of me that knows I will always have some evidence of the disease of cancer.  Cancer took over my mind, body, and soul.  Though my physical body is evidence free, my mind and soul can never be returned to they way they were before I got cancer; therefore I am not truly evidence free.

I have said it before and I will say it again, cancer changes every person it touches.  That doesn't just include the survivor living with cancer; everyone in their social circle is changed in a way as well.  Many of my friends are healthy, young adults, they now know someone their age with cancer, who has had a stroke,  This makes life real because death becomes real.  Reality, it sucks.  It makes people grow up.  

So though my doctor says I have "no evidence of disease," I believe that there is, and always will be, evidence of cancer in me and those around me.  It is evident in the way people have changed how they talk to me.  It is evident in the ways I have seen kindness from others.  It is evident in the way I view life and death.  It is evident in the strength that I now know I have and the strength I saw others have that I didn't know they had.  

In my opinion, everyone who battles cancer and those that love and surround the fighter will carry evidence of the disease with them.  Cancer changes everyone.  How one chooses to display how cancer has changed them is what defines them.

A person can be angry with the world for what cancer put them or their loved ones through or a they can be grateful for the lessons cancer has taught them.

What ways will evidence of disease remain in your mind, body or soul? 


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