As I was on a walk yesterday, briefly celebrating that I clocked a 30-minute mile without my cane, a thought popped in my head: I bet I can’t donate blood ever again. I don’t know why the thought came, but awhile ago I stopped questioning the random body-based musings that now swirl freely in my brain and just leaned in (I even signed up for an anatomy class online for this fall). So I googled it and right there in the American Red Cross eligibility.
If you had leukemia or lymphoma, including Hodgkin’s Disease and other cancers of the blood, you are not eligible to donate.
There it was in simple terms. Written right there for everyone to see. I have bad blood. And not the kind they write pop songs about.
It’s just another thing about myself that I’m learning in the after. When I started writing here a few weeks ago, I hadn’t intended to write so much about cancer. I actually wanted to write about anything but. My mind seems to have other ideas, though.
It turns out that after major illness, your entire world revolves around it. Cancer becomes your entire personality. It comes up in casual conversation. It comes up when you get a harmless common cold and can’t help but feel triggered. It comes up every morning when you get out of bed with a stiffness in your calves that you never had before. But mostly it comes up every time you look in the mirror.
In the last 9 months I’ve lost 90 pounds and gained back 40. I’ve been poked at with needles countless times to draw blood, take injections, and receive chemotherapy. Parts of my body have been cut open 4 times. I’ve been a collector of devices - a tracheal stent, a feeding tube, a PICC line, and a port (which is still a button that sits under the surface of my skin).
In a year’s time, I am unrecognizable to myself.
Body neutrality would be a gift. I’d love to not think about my body at all, but old habits die hard. When I put on a necklace, I can’t help but feel like it draws more attentions to my swooping scar. When I change my shirt, I can’t help but zero in on the puckered skin just below my sternum. In the shower, I can’t help but remember the phantom feeling of slipping my fingers through long strands of hair. It’s never ending.
But this is my new battle: reclaiming my body and changing the narrative my own mind is spinning. Instead of beating myself up for being weak, maybe I can remind myself that this body was literally poisoned for months and killed the tumor that made breathing impossible. Or maybe the pinked skin on my sternum can be a badge of honor because through that single hole, I was able to get my nutrition and hydration that kept me alive. Maybe the scar on my neck gives me some street cred and pairs nicely with the punky pixie cut I have these days. In the moments where I feel a deficit in my body, I can remind myself that it’s still doing a million times better than in the months I struggled with every little thing before my diagnosis.
Maybe one day, even for just a moment, I won’t think about any of this. For just a fleeting second, I won’t just be the me that had cancer. I’ll be laughing with friends and remember who I was before. Maybe, just maybe.
What I’m Reading: Funny Story by Emily Henry
What I’m Hearing: Why Sally Rooney’s Normal People is More Than a Love Story
What I’m Watching: Turtles All the Way Down
What I’m Smelling: Jasmin 17 by Le Labo