"Hope" is a nice word. It is the desire for a certain thing to happen, and I use it often. "I hope that you have a nice weekend." "I hope that you have a nice day." Hope. The word changes after a cancer diagnosis. In some ways, it is still a wonderful word, but in other ways, it is a frustrating word.
For example, if I were to say "I hope that my cancer does not come back one day," it kind of changes how one might view the word "hope." In this circumstance, the word "hope" becomes so passive and not such a nice word. Is that really all that I will have after treatment is over? Hope. I know that I am ahead of myself in this thinking. I still have many months of treatment left, and I am responding very well to treatment which is a great thing and does give me a lot of hope.
I also hope that the fear of recurrence does not play too much of a role in my life after treatment. I spoke with a 15-year TNBC survivor about a month ago to whom I am very distantly related via marriage. She was very open and honest with me, and it was refreshing to hear about her experience. She openly admitted that she lost many years post-treatment to fear, and I can understand that. She said that people expect you to be jubilant after treatment is over but that is often not the case. During treatment, you are actively doing something. You are fighting this horrible cancer. After, though, you are just hoping. Hope is scary in this instance.
I am already planning to seek out some counseling at some point in my journey. I am not sure if I want to add, yet another, appointment to my long list of doctor's visits, but it will need to happen. I think that counseling is a very good thing and can really help people cope with all kinds of things that life throws our way. I will need to work through my fear and figure out ways to handle it and not let it totally cloud my life. I owe that to myself and to my family.
Anyway, I don't want to get too dark or deep here, but these are things that I think about. How could I not, right? Pre-cancer, I would have never given such a second thought, but as I've said many times, cancer has changed me.
There was a segment on 60 Minutes last night about using immunotheraphy to combat cancer, and it left me excited about the future of cancer treatment. Researchers at Duke University are using a modified polio virus to combat glioblastoma (much like part of the Vice documentary that I posted about fairly recently). It is absolutely fascinating medical technology, and something that I hope (there is that word again) continues to do well in clinical trials and is made available to more patients soon. This technology and cutting-edge research does offer hope to those who, at one point, had none.
This post is a bit rambly, but it is where my thoughts are right now. I have so many mixed emotions about the word "hope."
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