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| Nine Crows |
I have the great privilege of saying that this month, almost a week ago on November 9, I marked my 9th year living with a late stage metastatic lung cancer diagnosis. Also, that date just happens to fall during Lung Cancer Awareness Month. And I happen to be writing this post during a little break in the action at the LiveLung Survivor Summit for patients and care partners in Charlotte, NC.
Usually, I make it my business to post the news that I am still alive and (mostly) well on or quite near my cancerversary day. But y'all, in all honesty I've been busier than ever, and though I noted the date in my mental calendar, I didn't manage to get any words down until today!
Mostly I've been showing up for LCAM events and hosting one of our own with our local LiveLung chapter in Nashville, featuring a visit from organization founder Dusty Donaldson. I wish I'd been better about taking pictures, but below is one of us all in front of the LiveLung Skan Van. Dusty drove 12,000 miles around the country in that thing last year, and this year made a circuit of visits to LiveLung chapters in the east. It's wrapped with a CatSkan logo and information about the importance of lung cancer screening for early detection, which makes for a great conversation starter. Can I get a witness?!
I'm grateful to work with LiveLung as a State Coordinator and Chapter Facilitator. It is an honor to support members of the lung cancer community as we walk this world together. Most days I walk around mad at cancer, about the way it screws up lives and then takes them, about the people it harms. And while there has been so much progress just in the 9 years since I was diagnosed, people are still suffering terribly and dying from lung cancer. (If you'd like to help support a vision for a world in which no one dies of lung cancer, I have information on organizations that need research funding here:
Donating to Research)
But as I witness the many cancer stories -- patient, caregiver, medical provider -- I fall in love with these magnificent humans, all managing the disease as best they can, as it twists their lives into tavern puzzles of hope and despair, pain and comfort. The work is not just about treating and curing this dumb disease (which is not one disease, but many). It's about the people, all up in the mess of it, working their own lives while taking time to lift each other up when they're able, and to be lifted when they are not.
All of us know someone touched by cancer. None of us wants to join that club. But so many of us end up there that I wager it's more ordinary than we think, especially when we are walking through it. Yeah, it's life with cancer, which is different than life without it. Mostly, with lung cancer, it kinda sucks.
But some days it doesn't, at least not totally. Like when some good folks throw you a lovely party just because you're still alive and being fierce. They designate a month to contemplate where we've been, where we are, where we are going, time to measure the journey in lives lost and lives spared. And while a focused month isn't a lot, and your disease is with you for the other 11 months, every damn day, and awareness months are generally a weird concept, it's good to have the excuse to turn up that fierceness a little bit. Walks, fundraising galas, 5Ks, and pushes for research funding and maybe some extra compassion for the brain fogged among us all have a place.
So you go to the retreat. You listen to the stories. You sing a little karaoke, maybe do the sound bath, the drum circle, write in your new journal. Hang out with the other living-with-lung-cancer folk and their allies. Hear some inspiring words from brilliant researchers. Talk about protocols for, gasp, survivorship. You even get to go the the farmers market and be surrounded by flowers. And it ain't so bad.
