Relief

Relief is a common feeling – one can be relieved that they make it to work on time when the traffic is bad, or be relieved when a child arrives home safely 15 minute after curfew. We can get relief from a headache with a Tylenol or Advil, and relief from hunger by eating a meal.

But on Friday of last week, I learned what relief really feels like. It’s an overwhelming feeling that impacts every cell in your body – it’s like the world’s biggest sigh; or the removal of the heaviest load you have ever carried. As it passes over you, it incites you to cry huge tears of joy, and then makes you want to lay down on the floor to be absorbed into the earth. It is a freedom that I have never, not once, in my 51 years on this earth, felt so intensely.

Last Friday morning I had blood work and CTs of the chest, abdomen and pelvis. This was in follow up to scans 8 weeks ago that showed some abnormality in my right lung, which the radiologist and radiation oncologist suspected was the remnants of an infection, but they could not rule out an underlying malignancy. While I had a gut feeling that things were going to be good (because I have felt so good and have been taking pristine care of myself), I had received several “signals” throughout the day that perhaps that would not be the case. And so, as Bill and I sat in the waiting room for the physician to call us back, I could not help but be exceptionally worried, to the point of hands shaking, stomach twisting, room spinning.

But relief was mine when my nurse practitioner came through the waiting room and stopped to tell me on the sly that my physician was going to put me in a room to “tell you the good news, your scans are completely clean.” As the words left her lips, I can’t do justice to describe the intensity of relief I felt. This is a moment that I will hang onto for the rest of my life! It’s the perfect opposite of the moment when I heard the words, “It’s cancer.”

I am not naive enough to believe that this is the end of my journey – in fact, it is the beginning of the hardest part – survivorship. The constant temptation to wonder if something is going on, or if the cancer is back is sometimes hard to ignore. But I will take this victory with gratitude and in it find the strength to continue my efforts towards perfect health.