This is the part of my life, treatment, cancer journey– whatever you want to call it–that I just want to be left alone. I want to sit in my house crying because even though my treatment is working, the side effects of my treatment cause me more problems than my cancer does.

As patients we get this false hope that we will mend, improve, rejuvenate, heal. “Take this med for this long and it will work,” or “You’ll just feel crappy for this long, these are the side effects of this treatment and it will last for this long,” they say. “After treatment you will be back to normal and you can live for 5 more years.” 

FALSE HOPE. That’s what they give us.

They don’t tell you the percentage that the treatment might not work and that you will need more treatment because you were the 20% that got brain Mets. Twenty seven brain tumors that you acquire in less than six months that require you to sit through hours of radiation. Treatment that alters your mental status and makes you feel that you had your whole life taken from you. Only to try one more treatment that they thought would work but makes you gain over 120 lbs and makes your tissue feel like it’s turning into concrete. Not being able to move because your skin is too tight to do so. Hygiene becomes a difficult task and takes twice as long as it used to. Walking properly is a task that covers you with a blanket of pain and having no one believe you just because you are just one of the “fat ones” now. 

The depression has set in. Even though the scans are clear this is the worst I’ve felt since cancer became a part of my daily vocabulary. Also, people, just because the patient has clear scans doesn’t mean they are cancer free or they can go back to the way their life was before. It takes FIVE YEARS of clear scans according to an oncologist to be cancer free. One clear scan nearly means nothing. So please don’t ask me, when I can barely walk from my treatment, when I’m going back to work because I’m going to give you a look that is not very nice. 

Sometimes I think, “Is it really that bad? Would it be that bad to stop the treatment and just live the rest of my life without these side effects?” These questions cross my mind a lot and I’ve had these conversations with my doctors before. How much time would I have? Is this treatment necessary? Is there anything else we could do? People say. “You’re so young.” and, “Do what you can to survive,” but people can’t understand the consequences until they’re in your shoes and feel like absolute dog shit every day they wake up. 

I don’t want to live my last days like that. I want to be able to walk, and spend time with my family and friends without thinking how nice it would be to already be 6 feet under. That normalcy, healing, rejuvenation that we long for at the beginning of this journey will never come. We search for that, but we will never find it… because treatment is just as bad as the disease itself.