There’s a lot of rejoicing when treatment ends. But then the next challenge begins: returning to “normal life.” Survivors speak about what it’s like to return to their old lives when they’re no longer the same people.
“It sounds crazy but at the time I almost wished the cancer wasn’t over because I didn’t know where to go next ” says Tzipi Caton who was sixteen when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“Of course I was happy that I was better but I didn’t know what to do with myself. I went back to school after being sick for six months and found that the world had gone right on without me. I couldn’t follow the classes. The other girls were talking about sales and shopping — everything seemed so shallow. I couldn’t bring myself to get back into the trivialities my classmates were obsessed with but on the other hand I was very lonely.”
Tzipi who wrote about her experiences in the book Miracle Ride was fortunate that Hodgkin’s is a very treatable form of cancer that left her system eight months after the initial diagnosis. Yet the repercussions of the disease still affect her. Even today seven years later she is reminded of her battle with cancer on a daily basis.
What Am I Living For?
There are over ten million cancer survivors in the United States today according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Over half of these people have been cancer-free for more than five years. With increased medical knowledge and better treatments and detection in place survival rates are up by almost 15 percent. Yet as many former cancer patients will tell you surviving cancer is just the beginning. Then comes the next challenge: trying to return to your old life but as an entirely different person.
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