Cancer is a Liar

"Enjoy your daughter."

These haunting words came from one of my dearest friends. She had just told me that her leukemia had returned. She had reminded me how important it is to enjoy the blessings in my own life.

Our conversation reminded me how naive I still am about cancer.

I thought she had beaten the disease. I thought she had done enough to become a survivor. I thought that everything was going to be OK. After all, her brother participated in her bone marrow transplant. And he was a 100 percent match.

What are the odds of that?

Again, cancer fooled me into complacency. I thought she was in remission. That's what her doctors said. But cancer is a liar.

I should have known better. I should know that there is no cure, that cancer is ruthless, that cancer's insidious path knows no boundaries. That cancer is one cruel, ugly son of a bitch.

This February has been mild weather wise, but it's been especially dark and wintry to me. I teach my students that, in literature, winter is often the symbol of death. The month started with the deaths of Rachel Cheetham Moro and Susan Niebur. That would be enough to send anyone reeling. In fact, that sent all of us in the blogosphere reeling.

That same week, a friend of mine had to put her very ill dog down, and I stopped by her house to say good-bye to the dog I've known since he was a puppy15 years ago. More grief, more sadness.

And then a few days later, I find out through a beloved co-worker that her husband has melanoma that has spread into his lymph system and how they were going to "fight" and "beat" this thing called cancer. Uh huh.

And then, only a couple short weeks later, my friend tells me that her leukemia is back. So on leap day, February 29, she took her leap of faith -- with her first chemo infusion in awhile. She has to be hospitalized for at least five weeks. Luckily, her sister is also a perfect match for a bone marrow transplant.

Deja vu. That's exactly how her first treatments went, but she has a rare, aggressive form of leukemia.

I am distraught.

Did I say cancer is a liar? I won't be fooled into complacency this time.

I have been out of the blogosphere loop nearly all of February because of all these tragic happenings. I just can't seem to focus on the writing at hand. I remember losing my friend Faun to breast cancer, and thinking how I never wanted to go through something like this again.

Now the losses are like a major car pileup on an icy freeway.

With the exception of my journal, I often have writer's block. I can't express the depth of sadness, the abyss I find myself in.

It's getting more and more difficult to push through the sorrow. I know death is part of living, but why do so many people have to die young from cancer? Why is there no cure for this disease? Our society is all talk about eradicating this disease, but we don't walk the walk.

My friend who is now suffering from leukemia treatments in the hospital is such a good person. I surround myself with positive, good, kind folk -- in person and online. My friends are first-rate people, and now I feel I'm losing them one by one. It makes me feeling pretty beat up.

I promised my friend that I would enjoy my daughter, and thankfully I'm doing that. I have a renewed appreciation of the mischief in Ari's eyes and her smile and the wonder that is my child. Dear Ari: Momma loves you.

Dear blogosphere: I'm finally back.

I'm writing a book titled Calling the Shots: Coaching Your Way Through the Medical System. Please feel free to subscribe to this blog by clicking the orange subscribe button. I am a professional writer and have published numerous academic and magazine articles, as well as an essay on my breast cancer experience in the anthology Voices of Breast Cancer by LaChance Publishing. I can be contacted at bethlgainer@gmail.com and gainercallingtheshots@gmail.com.