A healthy man wants a thousand things.
A sick man only wants one.
I’m reminded of this saying daily when I’m watching everyone go about their normal lives, with their normal wants, from my lonely planet. I moved to my planet on August 18, 2022, when I got the news, not from the radiologist, but from the MyChart update that suggested I check in for my oncology appointment for the cancer I didn’t know I had. It was the end of life as I knew it, and it was the moment I moved into an alternate reality, inhabited exclusively by a sick (wo)man.
The climate on my planet consists of flashbacks, self-blame, existential questioning, sometimes envy, and the low hum of hypochondria. Even if my body is now seemingly healthy enough to move back and rejoin the life I once had, I’m not sure I’ll ever fit in again. I’ve just seen too much, and I can’t seem to unsee it. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully trust my health enough to move back.
Sure, there are plenty of moments where I feel like one of the normal, “healthy men.” The ones who want a thousand things like bigger houses and cars and just more of whatever they already have. The ones who worry about all the meaningless things because they have their health! They’ve never wanted just one thing: to survive.
Most of the time, I feel too other. It’s hard to sustain relatability when you’ve faced the real fragility of life. When you’ve been engulfed by hopelessness and despair on levels that most people don’t know until they lose someone they love, or the day comes when they get that MyChart update too.
I share this because I imagine we might be circling each other on our lonely planets. Each one is uniquely characterized by our own little versions of grief and anxiety, but maybe not all that different from one another. It’s hard to describe unless you’ve lived on one, but unfortunately, I imagine most of us have. And I think it’s oddly comforting, every once in a while, to be reminded that maybe there is another lonely planet not too far away.
Yours truly,
Marcella
P.S. Know someone on their own lonely planet who might want to join? Share with them to help so they can join our orbit.
Hello friend… I love seeing your writing… Though of course I wish you didn’t have to write about this topic that you and I know all too well… And I think we’ve touched up on this, but it is so natural to all of a sudden feel an uptick and angst after treatment is done, because the “doer mode“ is over and now you just have to get to the living part of life and that seems less controllable than showing up for chemo and scans and tests etc. (as grueling as that is)… That said, like most things, it gets easier with time, I promise . And reading your experience, and the other people here still makes me so angry at how much the healthcare system is broken… As a physician, I can tell you that I know approximately zero doctors, who think that the patient portal giving patients access to every single one of their test results immediately because of the CARES Act is possibly one of the most egregious things that has happened. Of course you have the right to have your own medical records but to have them immediately after they have been resulted before your doctors or their offices have even had time to see them let alone call you is beyond ridiculous and serves no one… I’m so sorry to all of the patients who this has happened to. Love you and love that you’re on this platform! XO Shieva
I had a very similar experience finding out I had cancer. Instead of getting the call from the doctor or radiologist with my results, I got a call from the oncology office to schedule my app. One of the worst moments of my life.