“On this day three years ago…” an innocuous push alert read. Truth be told, I love looking through the memories on my phone. I’ve even managed a thousand-day streak—one of my greatest commitments in a life increasingly governed by technology. For all the unwanted influence my phone and social media have rooted in daily life, this small ritual—a brief glimpse and reflection into a life so loved, so coveted, so lived—is one of the few digital habits I truly cherish.
And on today’s small scroll down memory lane, there she was: big bright eyes, high rosy cheeks, smiling back at me. A quick snap of a couple at a makeshift drive-in on a mild October night in Blue Island, just starting to find their way. Texas Chainsaw Massacre was on the screen, and life was so simple. At least relatively so. I stared at that girl, and I missed her with every piece of me.
I sat and studied that photo, finding it hard to believe she was ever me, let alone only three years ago. My heart breaks for the couple in the picture, and for all that the smiling face next to mine has had to endure. It hasn’t been easy for him, either. I haven’t been easy.
So many plans and so much potential live inside that one photograph, that single moment in time. Plans and potential that would fade into the background months later, when a few words spoken in a hospital room sent that life veering drastically off course. Do they still exist? I am so desperate to claw my way back to them, to that moment, to that girl. And I try every day, but it is so, so hard.
I don’t even look like her anymore. Contrary to popular assumption — or at least my own — I gained weight after my cancer diagnosis. I suppose three major surgeries in less than a year could do that. It isn’t uncommon to hear of weight gain after a nephrectomy. Combine that with rounds of steroids, various medications, autoimmune disease, and inflammation, and it’s easy to see the change. Everyone tells me not to worry, not to feel bad: you’re still beautiful. “It will come off,” they say. And slowly, it is. But explanations feel like excuses when you no longer recognize yourself in the mirror.
My abdomen is littered with scars and bruises that, even eighteen months later, never faded. My stomach is shaped differently now. And it still hurts almost every day. Scar tissue and pulling at the sites of old incisions, strange sensations in the area my kidney used to be. Sometimes an ache after a day of increased physical work, sometimes a sharp snap when moving in a way previously unregistered.
“Remission,” as they say – as though it means this is all in the past. Or, as those of us who live here understand, “no evidence of disease.” Except the evidence spreads across our bodies and through our minds daily, even as we learn to live with it. Grateful the cancer is currently, and hopefully permanently, at bay, yet far from the picture of healed and healthy the world seems to expect us to be.
In the course of a few hours my body became a landscape I no longer understood. Medications affect me differently, foods affect me differently. I had to re-stabilize my blood thinners which took months of constant tests and so many tears born of frustration. I had to change my immunosuppressants, start biologics, readjust my thyroid medications. Strangely I’m allergic to things I’ve never been allergic to before. And I am tired. So, so tired. It takes me days to do what used to take an afternoon.
And so I miss what was. The body I used to understand. The face I still recognize more than current reflection depicts. The hopes and dreams and plans of an expected life. And so I desperately try to claw my way back there. Each clear scan another hesitant hope.
I’m learning what works, albeit slowly. It might take a few days to do what used to take an afternoon, but I’m getting it done. Long gone are the days of crash diets and gimmicks; I’m learning instead to welcome new patterns of sustainability (though the snail’s pace of loss frustrates). I’m trying so hard to find my way, even as I struggle to handle the inevitable setbacks. Patience is a virtue I only possess until I don’t, it seems. But I am trying so very hard. I’ve never failed, and I promise I won’t. So bear with me. Things are messy, I know—but they’re also still beautiful, even when I don’t always feel it. I’ve found new hobbies, new interests, new joys. I’m excited about what’s to come, and I’m constantly setting goals. I’m ready to do this. I want to do this. I want every scrap of who I was that remains to be reclaimed—and I want more.
But sometimes, on a cold Wednesday morning, an innocuous push alert to a brief moment three years ago sets you back. And that’s okay.
North of Hindsight 