Secrets

I am a regular reader of PostSecret.  This website grew out of a project in which people were asked to write their secret on a postcard and mail it in.  The response was overwhelming and has now generated books, speaking tours, postcards from around the world, and a website. 

One recent postcard read:  Thanks to the chemotherapy, I'll never have kids of my own...it makes me feel irrelevant to the human race.  This note evoked an immediate desire to know more, to become engaged.  Of course, like all the secrets, this is anonymous, so communication is not possible.

Many aspects of cancer are poignant.  The fight often brings conflicting emotions--hope and despair, community and isolation, tears and laughter.  Becoming sterile or infertile because of chemotherapy may be the cruelest irony of all.  The treatment that may give you live takes away your ability to create life.

One reader of the secret sent in a response to the card:  The chemotherapy had the same effect on me.  I just remember that I wouldn't have had kids of my own had I died either.  Personally, I prefer life.

I am not sure how I feel about that comment.  I agree with it, but it doesn't feel quite right to me.  What is the cost of staying alive?  What price are we willing to bear?  These are questions every patient must face, and the trade-off is not simple or easy.

Another reader provided a powerful response that, to me, truly offers hope:  I felt totally alone and irrelevant for the first 11 years of my life.  Then a woman just like you (she had cancer as a child) became my foster parent and eventually adopted me.

As I read this I was reminded of consequences.  We cannot see the effect of our decisions--large or small--on the rest of our life or on the lives of others.  Cancer diagnosis leads to a cure.  The cure leads to infertility.  The infertility leads to adoption.  And the adoption makes all the difference to a lost and lonely 11 year old.  If the cancer had not occurred would this young child ever have found love, family, home?  Who knows. 

I do know this--we have no idea what the next chapter of our story will hold.  If we could see all the pain and struggle that lies ahead of us we would be shaken to the core.  If we could see all the joy and laughter we would go dancing in the sun.  Cancer, chemotherapy, childlessness--none of these is the final chapter.  Even when we die, as we all must do, the story will go on.  It will be told in the lives of those who have touched by our life, and for that touching, been changed forever.

Comments

[bogartkick]

Thanks for sharing to us this article, and I know chemotherapy is indeed necessary to reduce cancer cells. Great information!