We all celebrate, commemorate, and acknowledge a variety of significant dates in our lives – birthdays, weddings, graduations, holidays, and anniversaries of all types, from work-related and relationships to home ownership and personal milestones such as weight loss, quitting smoking, or even book publication.

Today is an anniversary I never thought would ever be a part of my life, one no one wants, expects, or anticipates.

What I Will Never Forget

Today is the day I learned I absolutely had cancer, that the mass in my lung wasn’t a blood clot, infection, or misread of a not-too-clear scan. I had no idea what to think or feel – I hardly remember doing either at the moment my doctor called and told me the news no one ever wants to hear.

I just heard from my doctor with the results of my chest CT.

I have lung cancer.

I don’t know anything further, referrals for pulmonology and oncology will be forthcoming, hopefully tomorrow, and everything is one step at a time. Please don’t expect any fast responses from me anytime soon. You can private message me if you wish, I don’t know where I will or won’t be.

Facebook Post, July 25, 2024

I honestly cannot remember my doctor’s exact words, but I do remember I was sitting at my office desk, just trying to breathe and to mentally process her words. I remember asking if there was any possibility this was in error. I remember being told that no, it was pretty definitive. I remember the agony in her voice as she said it.

The next few months were a blur at the time and remain a blur to this day. Appointments, scans, insurance arguments, procedure authorizations, medications, the smell of disinfectant, needles, notifying my work clients, surgeries, time in the hospital, chemotherapy, aftereffects, phone calls, questions, confusion, and above it all, disbelief.

Already a Year – Only a Year

Even now, the idea that I have lung cancer is incredible and unbelievable. Yet I’ve seen the scans, had the treatments, felt the effects – I know no one has lied to me or deceived me in any way, it did really happen.

Say again?

I had lung cancer.

In more ways than one, I will have this disease for the rest of my life. Even though now, one year later, there is no evidence of disease in my body by any blood test or scan we are able to do, it just never goes away.

I will continue to have blood tests every three months and scans every six months for at least another 18 months, perhaps 32. After that the schedule will lessen, but this will be with me to the grave.

The anxiety will never go away, but I hope in time it won’t be as prominent in the forefront of my thoughts as it is today.

Even after 365 days of knowing, I always go back to the idea that before that phone call, I felt fine. Today, I feel fine (side effects and aftereffects notwithstanding), but I can’t help but flinch at the shadows in my brain, the intrusive thoughts of what might be lurking.

I hope to climb out of those shadows in the weeks and months to come, but cancer is an evil bitch that just doesn’t want to let go. Shadows can’t exist without light, however, and today, I just have to embrace what was, what is, and hope for what will be.

If you would like to help Be Your Own Birder climb from the shadows, the 
Cancer Treatment Recovery registry has been updated with items to help physically,
mentally, and emotionally. No expectations!