I am lying on a sterile table, covered in warm blankets and holding an awkward position. I have laid on tables like this for seemingly every type of scan over the past ten years. Most scans leave me isolated. Typically, I am in a room by myself being swallowed by the mouth of a giant off-white machine. This scan is different because there is a lady six inches from me, rubbing a small device around my bare breast as she searches for the best images possible. I just started a new treatment, so we need data that demonstrates my heart is strong enough to handle the potential side effects. This test doesn’t matter to me, it isn’t monitoring my cancer, it is just a hoop to jump through. Next week, I will do this all over again, except they will scan my lungs to ensure toxicity hasn’t settled there. Such is the rhythm of life with metastatic breast cancer.
As I lay here, I focus my eyes on the outlet on the wall. When I am being scanned, I prefer to choose a visual focal point. Today, this focal point helps me feel less invaded as I lie shirtless and six inches away from a stranger. I stare down the electrical outlet like a pro. I have a lot of practice erasing my actual circumstances and allowing my thoughts to take me somewhere else. Today, I think of this woman’s career. Perhaps twenty-five years of taking pictures in dark rooms with innumerable strangers. She has seen the first signs of cancer, the first signs of a baby, and thousands of typical hearts. This makes me curious about what sparks humanity’s obsession with what cannot be seen. I consider my own thought patterns and realize much of my thinking is a deep inquiry into what I will never see: changes occurring in my blood, heart damage, cancer growing and shrinking, bones aching with possible tumors or possible healing, toxicity in my liver, chemicals in my brain, and so much more. As I lay here, it occurs to me that animals do not think about the invisible. This intrigue is a uniquely human quality. Humans are enraptured by what is unseen. We explore space to see what hasn’t been seen. We use microscopes to see what cannot be seen. From the bottom of the ocean to the heart inside my body, we look for ways to see what could remain invisible.
We do not limit this to the physical world. We also search the future. However, unlike looking at my heart, looking into what cannot be seen in the future creates an uncertainty of it own. The uncertainty of time captures our thoughts, hopes, and fears. My thoughts are most often planning, solving problems that don’t exist yet, and creating new possibilities. My thoughts on the unseen changes in my body combined with my thoughts on the uncertainty of my future add up to be the vast majority of my mental energy.
If most of my thoughts are focused on what I cannot know, how is that working out for me? How does this preoccupation with the unseen physical and future self serve me?
In my B.C. Era (Before Cancer) I have always been a futuristic thinker. I rarely dwell on the past. If it happened five minutes ago, it is over, and I am ready to plan for the next event. I plan vacations for next year on the plane home from the vacation I am on now. Looking into the future is what makes me, me. Living with metastatic disease did not change my natural tendencies. When I look at the experience of cancer, I do not look at what people have said happened in the past; I am listening to what researchers are saying will happen in the next five years. I multiply what we know today to an exponential growth in knowledge over the next years, which produces a perspective in me that says, “I am part of the first generation of true cancer survivors.” I said that statement in 2018, long before I had any evidence of what was possible. Today, I believe this statement more than ever. I believe in the future. I love looking forward with irrational optimism and betting on possibility.
This future thinking comes easily when it applies to society. It can be harder to apply directly to my own life. I have been stuck inside a cycle of treatment side effects for as long as I can remember and I don’t see a time when they won’t define my abilities. And where am I right now? I am lying on this scan table, again! This is not the easiest place to focus my thoughts on optimism. Though I am confident the big picture will trend toward health and healing, what about me living out this unseen moment right here, right now?
Every person I have ever met with a terminal diagnosis, myself included, initially responded to their diagnosis with fear. Uncertainty triggers fear. When safety is gone, and direction erased, a void is all that can be seen, and it is terrifying. That initial fear attaches itself to day-to-day life because nearly every aspect of my stage four life is defined by uncertainty. Cancer continues to impact my daily actions, so uncertainty and fear also become a daily presence. Eventually, fear and uncertainty become synonymous because I cannot identify where uncertainty ends and fear begins.
When I was diagnosed with stage four cancer, I lived in a fear loop for three months. I spent my days dying well. A doctor’s phone call had erased my future. There was no future that I could see. There was no hope I could find. Stage four cancer equaled death. This is what I knew; this is what I understood. As I grappled with uncertainty and the unseen parts of my life, I lost myself in the darkness. Every assumed future–my daughters’ graduations, their weddings, retirement, trips, grandchildren- suddenly vanished. Every good thing I had worked toward was cut off mid-stride, and I found in myself no reason to go on. The void of purpose or plan, the crushing unseen, nearly destroyed me. Days kept coming despite the fact that every identity inside of me had died. The relentless ticking of precious minutes mocked me because I had days, weeks, and even months but I had no path on which to live them.
Then, one morning, I woke in despair. I sat on my bed without any reason to move further. I sat, frozen, not sure how to go on. In that singular moment, I learned something. Uncertainty and fear are not the same thing.
Though I could never escape uncertainty, I could escape fear. I could continue forward into the unseen. Uncertainty was now a defining characteristic of my life, but it was possible to live without being inprisoned by fear. Yes, every day would be uncomfortable. Yes, certainty could never be mine. However, life would continue. My life would continue, and I could begin again. I can embrace this as a new beginning rather than accept it as the end. Somehow, in the loss I can find a new set of possibilities. Life is here, today, now, and I will not throw it away. I am hurting and alone but even in this weakened state, I can create something new for myself. I will need to find a renewed sense of purpose, but because I have today, I can do just that.
Searching in the uncertainty and the unseen is an experience with which every person wrestles. Though I carry a higher than average weight of uncertainty, I can find comfort in the knowledge that I am not alone in this quest. None of us can control what we cannot see. We cannot plan for what has not been discovered. We cannot find comfort in knowledge that remains veiled.
While lying on the scan table, I turned this hour into a space for reflection rather than an uncomfortable invasion of my time and privacy. This choice reshaped my perspective, my relationship with the hospital workers, and my day. This choice also reminded me how I can always redefine my uncertainty. Uncertainty can trigger fear or turn life into an adventure. Choosing a mental framework that highlights the adventures hiding in my life allows me to retain my true self, even in the uncertainty of stage four cancer.
As the kind nurse takes my hand to lift me from my table, I regain my balance and take a step toward the door. I won’t know the results of this scan for a few days, but I smile as I walk out of the dark room. Living on the edge of the unseen, we rarely know what is ahead, but we keep walking in pursuit of a purposeful life.
