The below piece was published yesterday on The Huffington Post and is featured in the Healthy Living section as part of the HuffPo's Generation WHY series focused on young adults with cancer. I'll be contributing regularly here, so please become a "fan" or follow me from my Huffington Post page to get alerted to my postings on the news website. This first piece is focused on how blogging has helped me get through the difficult times and accentuate the positive ones that have crept in along this wild adventure.
Thanks for checking it out!
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As a writer and blogger, rather than unraveling at the words my oncologist is speaking, I am able to think about what a juicy story nugget his uncomfortable delivery makes. Once, he was telling me that despite the intensive, debilitating treatment I had just endured, the cancer was back and rapidly spreading. Instead of crying, I focused on the way he bit his bottom lip when delivering difficult news and at the prominent crook in his nose, which looked as if it were broken and re-broken after too many hockey fights.
I focused on his crisp baby blue shirt -- the only color I'd ever seen him wear. I wondered what his closet looked like, imagining hangers upon hangers of stiff collared shirts of only pale blue in checks, stripes and prints hung above a shelf of folded khakis and a row of boat shoes, the makings of the outfit that unfailingly peeked out from under his white lab coat.
As my transplant doctor detailed the risks of infertility, hair loss, permanent organ damage, and, oh yeah, death, I faced, I watched him swing his stethoscope in circles between his fingers, a nervous habit he leaned on when answering my pointed questions about survival rates and statistics. Focusing on these future narrative details saved me from breaking down at the reality of what was happening all around me.
