I have cancer.

Sometimes you just need to rip off the bandaid when delivering that kind of news.  And it’s not the “good” kind.   I have stage IV, metastatic breast cancer (mbc), for which there is no cure.  I will be in active treatment for the rest of my life, however long that may be.  I am coming up on my five year cancerversary, which is a big deal.  The five year relative survival rate for someone with mbc is about 22%.  Living this long is an achievement, and It has to do with luck and science; not so much with me and what I have or haven’t done, aside from seeking treatment.  Seeking medical treatment is the best decision I ever made.  Every day, I thank my lucky stars - and science.

The last five months have been the hardest part of my cancer journey since the first five months.  The first five months were full of impossible news and impossible medical decisions.  The first five months were a leap of faith into a medicalized world I never wanted to be a part of.  Then there were four years of ups and downs, but a lot of pretty normal life stuff.  Being relatively stable in my disease for a long time has allowed me to be a mom and a wife and a “normal” person.  Then Covid-19 hit.

Y'all, I am struggling right now.  Writing this post has been mission impossible for weeks.  We are still very much in quarantine here in Tennessee as Covid cases continue to skyrocket with little to no meaningful response from our government.  They’ve asked us to take the “Tennessee Pledge” and be “Rutherford Responsible,” but it turns out, Tennesseans aren’t that interested in either.  So I'm on month five of just banging around the house.  I'm an introvert, so it was cool for awhile, but I'm sick of banana bread and I want to see my family and friends.

Watching everyone go on vacation and eat in restaurants and carry on like everything is normal with not a mask in sight while people like me are dying makes me want to break things.  People are demanding that kids not be asked to wear masks in school, which means my kids won’t be at that school for a very long time. It is heartbreaking.  It feels personal and like a slap in the face.  How can we honestly be friends if I can’t expect someone to do the bare minimum to protect me and my family?  While I am thanking science, many are ignoring it.  This is a hard lesson for me.  

One of the greatest pleasures of getting older is my growing ability to say, "Screw this.  Remaining in this situation isn't good for me.  I'll figure out my own way." I recognize the huge amount of privilege that exists for me in many of these situations, but setting boundaries and shunning abusive and oppressive situations when we can may help set a precedent and can benefit everyone in the long run.  I have spent too many hours in terrible jobs and relationships and situations because I didn't want to upset the situation or the system.  Screw that.  Right now I'm at a point where I want to flip the table that is my current life and find a new way. 

I don’t know what that’s going to look like.  It’s not the first time I’ve walked away from everything and started again.  This time I have a family to consider.  How do we break things all the way down and build them up again while maintaining the mental health and safety of our children and our spouses?  Is working through the situation a better choice than flipping the table and walking away?  Only time will tell, but the solution will definitely include radical honesty, inclusion in decision making, and a collaborative, creative new way.

Do you know who’s been feeling like that for centuries?  Black people.  That’s right.  So I try to find the grace and the courage to keep my shit together and carry on the best I can, because this is just a taste of the everyday injustices and dangers black people have been experiencing since they were brought to this country.  “Freedom” isn’t being stripped by mask mandates. Freedom is being stripped by the continual erosion of our civil rights through things like unidentified men in camo grabbing people off the street and shoving them into unmarked vans to be detained at unidentified locations for undetermined lengths of time, because they’re protesting police brutality and the murdering of Black people in this country.  This is worse than cancer or Covid-19 to me.

Black Lives Matter.  We shouldn’t have to experience suffering to want to end it.  People shouldn’t have to die for us to see it.  My mask protects you.  Your mask protects me.  Say it as many times as you need to and then take that basic philosophy out into the world.  We’ll see you there.