Dana Jennings, a New York Times reporter who has been writing about his treatment for an aggressive form of prostate cancer, has, at two years out, been writing about survival.
A week ago, he wrote about the small ways in which he has been feeling like himself. He wrote that his post-treatment depression is lifting, he goes for days without thinking of cancer, and his mood is generally brighter.
Today, in a piece headlined "Healing Physically, Yet Still Not Whole," he looked at survivorship from a more somber perspective, as though he had hit a pothole when taking one of his five-mile runs. Talking about the difference between recuperation and recovery, he wrote, that recuperation is just physical, and that in our fast-moving culture, a sign of recuperation is jumping back on the treadmill, never admitting weakness.
But for Jennings, true recovery is taking longer, involving excusing himself from the daily grind, taking a deep breath, retreating into "a chrysalis of healing." He wrote that he couldn't bear the thought of answering the phone. "I didn't want to hear my own voice. I wanted to sleep, wanted to be in the wind," he wrote.
Been there. But with a little distance (and better weather), I feel like Jennings does in his earlier piece: brighter, more hopeful, less focused on the whole ordeal.
I guess everyone defines "recovery" differently. The definition may even vary from day to day. For most everyone, it involves time. If you're hit once, it's devastating. There are more layers for people with "special circumstances." What about someone who develops multiple cancers? Or people who relapse? Or someone whose cancer is followed by multiple blows, such as the death or illness of a family member or friend?
I put myself in that "special circumstances" category, because when I was three-and-a-half years out from my first bone marrow transplant, I really thought I was going to be OK. I almost shrugged it off when people asked after my health, as though I couldn't imagine why they'd even ask. Then came two relapses and three more bone marrow transplants.
It might be harder to recover if you've been hit more than once, but you still have to try. If you don't, you'll probably stay under a dark cloud, and nobody will want to play with you.
