Whankfulness

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Some women in my support group were talking last week about feeling like we have a lot to be grateful for and a lot to complain about. One said that on the anniversary of her diagnosis, she was happy to be alive, and to get to watch her sons grow up - but frustrated to still be in pain from her surgery, and to not be done with chemotherapy. Another said that she was simultaneously grateful for and exhausted by her daily radiation therapy. Personally, I know I'm fortunate to be triple-positive, because it means I can benefit from Herceptin and Perjeta and tamoxifen - but it's hard not to be jealous of the triple-negatives who had six cycles of chemo and were done - when my treatment will go on for years. I suggested that we could call this feeling "whankful" - whining, but thankful.

It's a funny word that gave us a laugh, but the ambivalence that it describes is very real. This is the paradox of cancer - you know you should hate the disease and love the treatment, but it's hard to do that when the disease feels like nothing (though it would be deadly if left untreated), and when the treatment feels like a disease (though it will save your life). You know you're one of the lucky ones, that your disease is treatable - and yet, there's nothing about cancer treatment that doesn't suck. Really, it sucks! It just does. So I think it's completely valid for a cancer patient to feel angry, not just to have cancer, which is bad enough, but also to have to endure so much pain and suffering in the ironic attempt to keep the cancer from causing you pain and suffering. It's a huge insult added to a huge injury.

Yet I myself don't feel angry, not at all. I can't not wish that I never got cancer, because of what it has put Seth and Ike and other loved ones through. But I also can't regret the soul-growth it has afforded me, the compassion that I believe I will feel for the rest of my life toward others in this situation, the clarity that I now have about what matters and what doesn't. I think I am a better person now than I was a year ago - and for that I am truly thankful. No whining necessary.

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