The Good Cancer

Forced to Grow Up

My entire life I've been forced to grow up. I don't mean to sound like a drama queen or anything. It's not like I'm really exaggerating all that much either. My twin sisters were born when I was about two and a half and according to my mother I was just "a baby myself." I'm not necessarily resentful though. Although, at the time, I didn't talk to my mother for close to a week. I wanted to be the only child. I was mad jealous two new people were in my life. However, like everything else, I got over it and learned to love them, help take care of them, and of course boss them around. My point? I couldn't exactly be a kid with two younger sisters. I had to step up, even at the ripe ol' age of two and a half, and help out my parents.

I've always been mature for my age. I was potty trained earlier than most and pretty quickly according to my mom. I rode my bike without training wheels as soon as they were taken off. I walked to the bus stop on the first day of kindergarten all by myself. To say I am independent would be an understatement. I've always liked not only being alone but doing things on my own. If I ever set my mind to something, anything, I will see that it gets done. I was always in such a hurry to grow up. Now, looking back, I would do anything to have my childhood back.

Now, almost everyone would agree with me. The days of being a kid go by so fast and all of a sudden you're old and in the "real world" and just want things to go back to the way they were before. My circumstances are just a little bit different. It's not that I want to go back to my childhood, it's that I want to have one. The teenage years are especially rough. It's the time when you go through puberty and hormones are all over the place. You're supposed to hate your parents. You're supposed to have boy drama. You're supposed to have the opportunity to be a little crazy and make mistakes and learn who you really are. I didn't exactly have that because of this wonderful thing called cancer.

Being diagnosed with thyroid cancer, or any cancer really, at age thirteen is hard. Being diagnosed with cancer in general sucks, don't get me wrong. It just sucks extra hard when you're only thirteen. Instead of stressing out about boys, I was stressing out about radioactive iodine treatments, scans, and diets. Instead of hating my parents like every normal teenager, I couldn't. How I could I hate them for constantly shuffling me to doctor's appointments, for being there when I was puking my guts up, for being the first ones I saw before and after my surgery, and for finding some way to pay the bills when the hospital stopped accepting our insurance? How could I have the chance to be crazy and make mistakes and find myself when I was just trying to fight to stay alive?

Now that things have slowed down, it's like I don't know what to do with myself. I don't know what to do if I'm not going to the doctor more than every six months or getting scans or doing diets or radioactive iodine treatments. I don't know what to do with myself. I don't know what it's like to not stress out about if I'm going to be around a year from now. Of course there's still the chance it could come back, but for now...I'm virtually cancer free. I'm supposed to be happy, right? Happy that it's gone for now.

I always said that I was never angry. I always said that if I could have the opportunity to give it back, to not have cancer, I wouldn't change anything because cancer helped make me and shape me into the person I am today. Now...I'm not so sure of this. Maybe I am angry. Maybe I am angry that my teenage years were taken from me. Maybe I do wonder what it would be like if I hadn't had cancer. Maybe...maybe I would know who I am instead of desperately trying to figure it out when it seems to be too late and the "real world" is knocking, banging on the door. I was forced to grow up and now I want more than anything to have a normal childhood.

I never said no. I took it. I took whatever came my way, whatever was thrown at me. I didn't always want to take another radioactive iodine pill. I didn't always want to be quarantined for days. I didn't always want to go on another diet. I didn't always want to have cancer. I didn't want to always have to fight for my life. I never said no because if I did, I might not be here today. I might not be here wondering what my life would be like without cancer because I'd be dead from it. I thought I was proud to be a cancer survivor. Now...I just don't feel like I know anything. I thought I understood everything about my story but there are pieces I've kept hidden from even myself for so long and in writing this, they keep seeping out into the open.

I don't have all of the answers and I probably never will. Cancer is something not even scientists fully understand. There is more to it than meets the eye. I just hope that if and when I have kids, they don't have to deal with cancer. I don't think I could sit by and watch my child go through it, especially since I know exactly what it's like. Having cancer took a piece of me, a chunk of me away. I guess I thought it never really mattered that it was missing, or didn't realize it until now. I want so desperately to find it. I want so desperately to find me.