Karen Cohn is a retired center college particular schooling trainer who was recognized with follicular lymphoma in July 2020. Compensate for all of Karen’s blogs right here!
There’s a well-known quote by Friedrich Nietzsche that claims “That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” I’ve follicular lymphoma, a type of blood most cancers that’s thought-about very treatable, however continual and incurable. I used to be recognized in July 2020 and declared to haven’t any proof of illness, generally known as remission, in December 2020.
This concept comes up in most cancers remedy lots, the concept surviving most cancers — and notably, surviving most cancers remedy — makes the affected person a stronger particular person. There’s plenty of poisonous positivity that may come up along side that concept, and it may be very arduous to take care of. However the fact is completely different.
I spend time, maybe an excessive amount of time, on Fb, partly as a result of I used to be recognized through the COVID-19 pandemic and needed to isolate much more than most individuals. Whereas paging by Fb the opposite day, I discovered the reply to that quote, that mentioned the next:
“Trauma doesn’t make individuals stronger. It damages their nervous system. It hijacks their digestive tract. It retains the particular person in a relentless loop of hypervigilance. To inform somebody they’re stronger due to trauma is to disclaim what it has value them to outlive.”
This struck a chord with me. It resonated with me in a approach that answered each one who ever instructed me any variation on that quote, those that instructed me most cancers was a studying expertise and those that instructed me that nevertheless arduous remedy was, I’d come out the opposite facet a stronger particular person for the expertise. Largely, these are the identical individuals who instructed me that they don’t perceive why I didn’t simply revert to the particular person I used to be earlier than prognosis, why I didn’t simply step again into the identical area I occupied earlier than prognosis.
I’m not the identical particular person I used to be earlier than. There are some issues I can determine. For instance, I’m much more involved concerning the threat of communicable diseases than I used to be earlier than I used to be given most cancers remedy that tanked my immune system. Minor signs of sickness or age (which, at 58, are themselves turning into identified with extra frequency than I’d like), particularly people who in any approach resemble the signs of my most cancers, depart me nervous for days till they clear up or another apparent trigger seems, corresponding to sickness.
Am I stronger than I used to be earlier than? I don’t know. In some methods, perhaps. I do know that I can survive a most cancers prognosis and subsequent remedy. At the very least the remedy I used to be given, which was, relative to such issues, fairly delicate. In different methods, the trauma may be very obvious, in my response to even minor adjustments in my bodily situation and in my stress stage any time I get routine testing for monitoring (I’m nonetheless getting annual CT scans). Despite the fact that I’ve no discernable signs, the week between the scan and getting the outcomes is nerve-wracking, a syndrome known as scanxiety. A few of it’s getting higher over time and a few it isn’t; figuring out that the type of most cancers I’ve is susceptible to relapse at random occasions. It’s much less frequent as time goes on, however nonetheless a definite risk, which doesn’t assist with that.
However I do know that listening to that quote, or something prefer it, doesn’t come near being helpful.
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