Living the Cancer Experience From the Inside Out

In this post, collected through our story portal, Elizabeth reflects on her experience with cancer, first as a patient, then as a family caregiver, within just a few years.

 

Cancer has come full circle in my family.

In 2021, I was diagnosed with stage 1 IDC [invasive ductal carcinoma]. My cancer experience was amplified by being mid-pandemic, witnessing my teenaged kids and husband try to manage all the difficulties of the pandemic along with the impacts of my cancer.

We had so much support from neighbors, family, and friends, but that support was at a distance due to Covid. 

I'm now doing well overall, but in the last month, my [young adult] daughter has been diagnosed with lymphoma and my father [has been diagnosed] with colon cancer. I'm feeling stretched to my limits emotionally most days, thrust into the role of caregiver for my daughter as she was just beginning to step into her fully adult, independent life.

Since I've lived the cancer experience from the inside out, my daughter's and my father's diagnoses are also re-igniting many of the feelings I dealt with during my own diagnosis.  

However, I'm also feeling that my own experience with a cancer diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship is giving me strength and insight as a caregiver. It’s helping me help my daughter as she navigates it all. I already feel the bond we'll have through this shared experience as something deeper and separate from our pretty close mother-daughter relationship.

Each day, as I try to stay within the limits of what's happening in the now — versus imagining what the coming weeks will hold — I continue to wonder at the circular habit of the universe. [I think about] how I will be a much stronger and calmer caregiver than I could have possibly been had I not lived cancer from the inside out. 

I keep reminding myself that our family has been doing really difficult things for five years — and we're still here, mostly whole, stronger for it, and ready to keep going.