Are We Out of the Woods?
At the end of last year, Spotify’s Wrapped informed me that I, in fact, am a Taylor Swift fan! I never would have identified myself that way had you asked me, but once I took a little time to review, I have fully embraced my inner Swifty. It also brought me back to a song that I heard on the radio at the time of its release and I have been listening to it much more in recent months. It is called “Out of the woods”
It was originally released around the time of my breast reconstruction (2015/2016). We had successfully had the second child we so badly wanted and fought through the original cancer diagnosis to be able to have. We waited until she was old enough to be able to manage having a mom out of commission for a little while (post op recovery)… and really wanted to put the cancer chapter to rest. It had been five years… we thought we were out of the woods.
Fast forward to the fall of 2017 (just months after having been discharged back to my GP and saying goodbye to the cancer centre) and I was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. I was given hope with chemo and surgeries to have the potential of a curative plan. We got to a cancer free state for a period and Ian and I could look at each other and think “are we out of the woods?”
Then in the spring of 2019 I had a recurrence in my liver which required another surgery. I went through a second liver resection and hospital stay with a quick recovery and we silently asked ourselves “are we out of the woods?”
January 30th 2020 brought the news that I had innumerable lesions throughout my lungs and we were now on a palliative or life-prolonging treatment plan. This begged the question “will I ever be out of the woods?” I had to accept that I will now live IN the woods.
I don’t mean to sound sarcastic or snarky when I say “the woods can be beautiful”. As with anything in life, the woods can be dark and scary at times but they also have beauty and joy and show God’s grace and artistry. There can be fun, friendship, sadness, pain, death and rebirth; new friendships and experiences.
There is a line in Taylor Swift’s song that says “but the monsters turned out to be just trees”. I feel like once I was able to digest that cancer and I would be life long partners I stopped looking at it as a monster and more like a tree. It is there. Sometimes it’s big and in my way and sometimes it’s just part of the background; in the landscape. I will never be out of the woods but I’m learning to live here, and appreciate it most of the time.
Currently I am 6 weeks into this clinical trial and feel fantastic. I have been at the cottage for the first half of July and enjoying running in my happy place. Running had been a challenge the past few summers while on chemo. Months of chemo and steroids made it arduous and uncomfortable. But now that I have been off traditional chemotherapy for almost a year (been on immunotherapies instead) running has been coming back. As of today, July 15th, I have run 101.5km in July. I am on track to repeat my 200km July of 2020.
As for my treatment, my first 6 week CT showed growth in the lesions of my lungs, however it is believed this is something called pseudo-progression. It is apparently common with immunotherapy and is caused by an inflammatory response in the lesions due to the “attack” from my immune system. The plan is to continue with treatment and rescan in August when we expect to see either stability or reduction in tumor size.
Until then, I need to remember to see the beauty in the trees and remember that I’m blessed to be LIVING in the woods (and running through them 😉).
I will leave you with the link to Taylor Swift’s song. I can’t listen to it anymore without crying. But they aren’t always sad tears… they are cathartic tears… and tears of thanksgiving.
I hope it doesn’t make you cry… it’s a really good song!
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