A little cancer update, and maybe just some honesty about this strange place I find myself in.

One of the hardest things about having cancer is that you lose, at least to some degree, the luxury of putting your mortality on a shelf and going about your life.

Before cancer, of course I knew I wasn’t going to live forever.

We all know that.

But it was abstract enough that I didn’t have to think about it very often.

Cancer takes it off the shelf.

You learn how to live your normal life while also carrying this other thing with you.

You work.

You make plans.

You laugh.

You worry about your kids.

You think about Christmas and dinner and work and all of the completely ordinary things that make up a life.

And somewhere in the background, there are labs and scans and numbers and appointments that can suddenly feel like they hold your entire future.

The Strange Place After Treatment

Right now, I’m in a particularly strange part of that experience.

There is a funny place cancer patients enter after treatment and surgery where, from the outside, it can look like you’re done.

The chemo is over.

The radiation is over.

The surgery happened.

The cancer was removed.

So people understandably think:

She’s better. She’s cured.

But as the cancer patient, you know that if the day ever comes when you really believe that yourself, it may be much farther down the road.

My surgeon was able to remove all of the cancer he could see and achieved clear margins.

That’s a very good tick in my column, and I don’t minimize it for a second.

My surgical pathology also showed some high risk features that we have to take seriously.

That’s a bad tick.

My imaging has not shown metastatic disease.

Very good tick.

My first postoperative circulating tumor DNA test was positive.

Bad tick.

And one of the things I’m learning is that the good ticks and the bad ticks aren’t interchangeable.

They don’t cancel each other out.

They simply exist together.

That’s where I am right now.

I Don’t Have a Map Yet

I don’t have a neat path to follow yet because there isn’t enough information to know what the next path should be.

And anyone who knows me knows how much I love data.

Give me numbers, studies, spreadsheets, percentages and a plan and I can work with that.

Right now, I don’t have enough data.

I have another circulating tumor DNA test coming up, followed by a PET scan and genomic testing of my tumor.

Those pieces will start filling in the picture and help my doctors and me decide what comes next.

Maybe the next set of information is reassuring and we continue watching closely.

Maybe it tells us we need to do more.

If we need to do more, I’ll do more.

I’m Also Living My Life

In the meantime, I’m healing really well from a very big surgery.

I’m getting stronger.

I’m working.

I’m creating.

I’m planning things months and years into the future because I fully intend to be here for them.

I’m also scared sometimes.

Those things can exist together too.

Cancer has taught me that being strong doesn’t mean never being afraid.

It doesn’t mean turning every difficult thing into an inspirational story or finding the silver lining before you’ve even had time to process what happened.

Sometimes strength is simply getting up and continuing to participate fully in your own life while carrying something very heavy alongside you.

Maybe It Never Goes Back on the Shelf

I don’t know that I’ll ever completely return to the person who could put mortality back on the shelf and forget about it.

Maybe that’s okay.

Because while cancer has made me painfully aware that none of this is guaranteed, it has also made me incredibly aware of how much of it matters.

My family matters.

My friends matter.

My work matters.

Morning coffee matters.

Making beautiful things matters.

Laughing until something hurts matters.

Ordinary Tuesday afternoons matter.

Another Christmas matters.

Another birthday matters.

Another year matters.

Somewhere in the Middle

So that’s where I am.

Not cured.

Not dying.

Not finished.

Not defeated.

Just somewhere in the middle, waiting for more information, healing, living my life and taking the next thing as it comes.

And for now, that’s enough.