By: Angela Campos, Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
No one dares speak your name. Not even the doctor, who calls you a malignant mass. As if that would make the news less shocking. MAL-ignant, Mal, Male-Bad. That’s what it means, something bad. I wish I didn’t know what it means. That I had no concept of Latin roots, of Romance languages, and did horribly on the verbal section of my SATs. As if magically, not knowing what that word meant, I could continue to live in ignorant bliss for another minute, be cancer-free for another minute, and live worry-free for another minute. As if the world were in slow motion for another minute.
Once that minute passed, I completely missed the rest of what the doctor said as I snapped back into my new reality. “Umm, can you repeat that?”
I began writing everything down in a notebook, as if I might be tested on this conversation later.
As time goes on and treatment starts, I still can’t bring myself to say your name, the C word.
No one around me either, not even my medical team. “I’m sick.” “I have lymphoma.” “I have Hodgkins.” “I have a malignant mass, I’m going through treatment, through Chemo.” But when I try to utter your name, I hesitate. I don’t want to upset myself. I don’t want to upset them. So, the word becomes taboo.
The opposite of love, the opposite of good, the opposite of light. You bring hate, sadness, darkness-night. You have power, power I wish you didn’t have. Power to make the strong, stoic people around me sad, the power to make me drop to my knees and wonder what I did to deserve this. The power to make me question every life decision I’ve made so far and will make in the future.
As time passes, I’m told, “Treatment was effective, the mass has shrunk, we believe what’s left is scar tissue.” I look at my doctor and ask, “So… is it gone?” To which he replies: “Well, we have to monitor you for the next few years, and the more time passes, the less likely a recurrence.”
It’s not the absolute, definitive answer I was waiting for. And while I’m not complaining, I know I’m one of the lucky ones, I’m grateful, I don’t like that “it” still has the power. Lingering in the shadows. In people’s whispers as I enter a room or am introduced to someone new. The word I avoid at all costs becomes stuck to me like glue as if part of my identity, but I don’t want it to be. It is not me.
I’m tired of feeling powerless and feeding the negativity and fear. The more energy and time I spend thinking of you, you grow, like the Boogie Man. I’m tired of giving you the power; after all you’ve put me through. I’m tired of looking over my shoulder to check if you’re still there. Of you becoming synonymous with my name and identity. I have cancer, I had cancer, the more I say these statements, the less control you have over me. Cancer, you are no longer in charge. I will say your name till you are no longer the big bad wolf and you lose your power over us, over me, because I never want to feed into your malignant nature and your malice ever again. I have cancer. I had cancer.
But cancer doesn’t have me.