B.C.

You know, I have been seeing a lot of photos and posts online reminiscing about life a year ago — life B.C. or Before COVID — and how life might look in another year. One year ago today our schools shut down because of COVID and I went out to dinner with two friends as we joked it would be our last hurrah for a few weeks, a month or two at most. Did people really need that much toilet paper? And here we are 365 days later, still in the midst of this pandemic. We have loads more information and a vaccine rolling out, but dang, I never thought it would last this long.

For me though, B.C. doesn’t have anything to do with COVID; It stands for Before Cancer. Five years ago this month I was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer.

I don’t talk a lot about that diagnosis anymore. Maybe it’s because celebrating years out from diagnosis isn’t the same for someone with MBC as it is for someone with early stage cancer.

Let me explain. Those with early stage disease usually “celebrate” being done with treatments, or surgeries, or milestones that shows they kicked cancers ass. They celebrate that treatment worked and they can now return back to an almost normal life. Sure, there is trauma to work through, and bad days, and recurrence scares, but mostly you conquered! Wahoo! Seriously, you should celebrate.

For me cancer-versaries are such a mixed bag now. They are another day to celebrate life and being alive. I thank my lucky stars everyday for that. But it also, sometimes, feels like one more day closer to the end. I won’t ever celebrate being done with a treatment because moving on from a treatment means it has failed me. Remember, there are a limited number of treatments I will have in my lifetime. I won’t celebrate the completion of surgeries or radiation because both of those treatments for an MBC patient are a means to slow cancer growth, not to cure it. The farther I get from B.C. the more I realize life can never go back to what it was. There is no returning. It’s only right now and forward. There is an After Diagnosis or A.D. for me and I think that a pretty positive way of looking at MBC.

I was given an opportunity this week to reflect on my life B.C. It’s sort of strange to think about life like that; letting some traumatic thing be the center of your timeline. I had put career plans on a slow track in order to have kids and to be there in their early years. I wanted to be both a good librarian and a good mama, and ultimately the mama role would be my first priority.

B.C. Hannah was a bit more naive and less jaded. And before I was MBC Hannah was definitely one of those early stage survivors I described above. When my 1 year cancer-versary came up in March 2017 I had a lot of anxiety, a total body reaction, but also a reflective “hell yeah, I did it” thought process. I wanted to keep celebrating my cancer triumph for years to come. I always knew MBC could theoretically happen to me, but the likelihood was small. Stats were on my side, so in 2017 and the first half of 2018 we traveled and did all those things we were on track to do B.C. I began working again and was finding my way back into the library world. But when MBC hit, life paused again.

Honestly, I remember little from that time. I remember so many trips down to Boston, but life around year 0 MBC is hazy.

I can’t pretend that I am enlightened now and have these big wise life lessons to share. I think most days I strive hard for extraordinarily normal. It’s different than the normal I was trying to get back to after my first diagnosis. This normal is largely for my kids and is forward thinking. They deserve to have as many normal kid experiences as possible. They also get to have some pretty spectacular not so normal experiences too. But in my framework of day to day extraordinarily normal the extraordinary part is for me. It’s those little moments I try to appreciate that mean nothing to anyone expect me and probably my husband. It might be noticing the smell of my daughters hair after playing outside. Or maybe the way my son lights up as he discusses yet another chairlift. It’s hearing the same made up song being played on the piano for the umpteenth time and hoping that music will stick with my daughter forever. Or it could be appreciating how my son crawls the same way today as he did when he was 10 months old. At times complacency settles in, but it doesn’t last long. It can’t. I am reminded how very short and precious life is constantly. And I know I am not alone in these thoughts.

I think the reason why I bring this all up is because I hadn’t thought of life B.C. in a long while because I keep trying to focus on the here and now and some of the future. When I think about COVID I also try not to dwell on what life was like a year ago, except as a tool to say: we have come a long ways and there is still more to come.

COVID has given cancer muggles some insight into how it feels to live in uncertain, sometimes scary, and often confusing times. When you reminisce about your life B.C. think about how you want to remember this pandemic AND keep moving forward with a new knowledge of the world. It’s a rare gift, I think, to be given a B.C. and to know there will be A.D. (well in terms of COVID, and A.C.).**

I have lots of A.D. left to live. Lots of things I want to learn. And lots of growth to do. We have been in the same storm now, where is your ship going? What’s your A.C. going to look like?

**Now I am not saying cancer is a gift. I am saying the lessons I have learned are the gifts**