If you or someone you love is diagnosed with cancer of any kind, it is devastating. I experienced breast cancer myself, lost my husband to cancer that had metastasized and three years later lost my sister to glioblastoma. I am grateful if you have never had that sort of experience (whether cancer or other disease), and, if you have, I feel for you. In light of the recent news of Joe Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis and some of the public response to it, I wanted to share my own experience with cancer.
Cancer very often sneaks up on you. In my case, I had mammograms every year from 28 to when I was diagnosed at 47. But at that one appointment, despite my vigilance, they found something that had spread to my lymph nodes, meaning it was stage 3. I had a bilateral mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation, followed by 10 years of tamoxifen. My husband, who had just then completed cancer therapy with no visible remains of cancer, helped me through it.
My husband was vigilant. He exercised, ate cleanly and had annual colonoscopies to ensure that if his cancer returned, he would find it early and be able to treat it. But he went in to the doctor one day with pain from what he thought was a hernia. It turned out to be cancer that had metastasized into the lining of his stomach. He died in the hospital within three months despite the doctor attempting treatments to combat it.
My sister was vigilant. She was a skilled nurse anesthetist and paid attention to her health. She had some headaches, which wasn’t unusual, but something didn’t feel right. She went to her doctor’s office and it did an MRI but didn’t find anything. A year later, she was diagnosed with glioblastoma. She had brain surgery a week after diagnosis, but it had grown so fast that it was in parts of her brain that weren’t operable. She died a year later, which is roughly what glioblastoma patients and family are told to expect.
I tell you about my experiences because I want you to know that it is sadly ordinary that you don’t see cancer coming. People get diagnoses of cancer when they have been healthy and don’t have any signs, until that minor ailment turns out to be something more, or when they’ve tried to do the right things to catch it early. When it happens, those people and their family and friends are facing something shocking and overwhelming. Let’s show them kindness and care when they most need us to show our humanity.
Chandler is a retired lawyer and lives in La Jolla.
