So the story goes...

Too often, cancer stories in the media end with finality - the main character has a clean scan, or is declared in remission, or - the most final of all - dies. Cue tears, whether happy or sad. Roll credits. 

Never have I seen a movie where a main character continues living with cancer past the end of the story. Or, one where cancer is only a footnote in a character’s personality, a fact of their lives but not the main plot line.

Show me a saucy tv comedy about girls in their twenties out on the town after cancer treatment. I want a Sex and the City-esque group of friends debating when is the right time to reveal to a date that they are a cancer survivor, comparing out of pocket cancer-isms they get from well-meaning family and coworkers, attending fundraiser galas where hijinx ensues. (Don’t make me write this myself.)

The killing off or curing of cancer patients in every book, movie, and show is a trend that I hadn’t even really noticed before, like so many cancer-related things. Now I can’t unsee it. And I realized that I’m guilty of it, too. 

I tried to wrap up this blog last year by tying it all together with a bow, one final “Yay! Clean scan!” post before I never needed to think or write about cancer again.

But the reality is my cancer story didn’t end with a clean scan. In fact, my "Not Dead Yet" scan wasn’t even fully “clean”, just "good"; I walked out of the doctor’s office that day with a “there are a couple spots we want to keep an eye on, but nothing I’m worried about. So you’re good to go! See you in three months.”

A “couple spots” might not have worried my doctor, but they haunted me. I packed three months of freedom full of travel, concerts, theatre, my friends, my family. But somehow there was still room for the ghosts of those little specks that showed up in my scan. 

In May, I had my follow up scan. “So the good news is those things we were watching? They’re nothing! Yay! But…” 

Why is there always a ‘but’?

“It’s a good thing we did this scan because there are some new spots showing up in your lungs. Let’s have you do a biopsy.”

Cut to: me in the hospital OR. Facedown on a plastic table, fighting off a low level panic attack while I waited for a laparoscopic biopsy on my lungs.

My body rebelled against being back in a hospital gown. I squirmed on the table, the IV coming out of my port poking my chest in the process. A clip on my finger connected me to a nearby machine that beeped along with my heartbeats. 

Beep, Beep, Beep. 

The sound triggered something in me that made me want to rip out the IV and run away like they do in the movies (scenes that I normally cover my eyes for and yell WHYYYY WOULD YOU DO THAT, NOOO!!!) 

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP

It was bizarre to hear the beeps speed up with my pulse. Can’t they just knock me out already? I tried to think it loudly, willing someone bustling around me to hear it and come put me out of my misery. No luck. I forced my attention back to inhaling and exhaling at a normal pace.

Beep, Beep, Beep.

I floated up above my body and let myself dissociate while doctors debated whether it was safe to do a biopsy. The speck they were after was so small. The location made it even more risky.

They huddled behind a glass wall looking at my latest scan on the computer, talking quietly even though I couldn’t hear a word anyway. Finally they addressed me through the microphone.

“Breanna? It’s not safe to do the biopsy today. We’ll need you to do another scan first. Sorry.”

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP

The machine protested with me in wordless anger and confusion. 

Why couldn’t you have figured that out before right now!? At no point in the weeks it took to get this appointment could you have looked at my scan and made that decision? Before I took PTO, came all the way downtown, stripped, had my port accessed, and shimmied onto this operating table?

AND MY NAME

IS NOT

BREANNA!

All of the mental gymnastics I did to bring myself to that operating table - dodging dark thoughts every night leading up to the scan, carefully balancing optimism and realism in my mind at the same time, battling panic just from stepping foot in the same hospital where I spent so much of my time in the last year - I had actually been looking forward to being put under, if only to make my brain shut the fuck up for a minute.

Instead, I marched out and called my dad who was quick to pick me up and rage alongside me the whole car ride home.

My doctor apologized on the phone the following week. “I’m sorry you went all the way down there for no biopsy.” Her voice was frustrated. Good, I thought, that makes two of us. 

Then, she offered me a choice: I could start immunotherapy treatment immediately, without a biopsy, since she was almost certain the shadows we were trying to pin down were cancer - even if we didn’t have definite proof. 

Or: I could take another three months of no scans and knowingly let the cancer grow, then try again for a biopsy in the fall, and THEN start immunotherapy treatment. 

“So treatment wouldn’t change either way?” I clarified. “This is a matter of mentally, do I want to start this now or have three more months of my life first?”

“Treatment would not change either way. So, yes, I guess you could put it like that. But take some time to think about it -"

“The second one. I want three more months.”

“Okay. There’s no rush to decide, though, if you want to take the weekend -"

“Nope. I want the three months.”

My answer was immediate and certain, surprising even to me. If I had not gone through the shitty year of treatment only months before, I’m not sure which I would have picked. But cancer is good for nothing except maybe some perspective and a desire to seize time whenever you can grab it. 

I would have my summer, so help me God. 

“Alright, we’ll plan for another scan in the fall then. And if you end up changing your mind or want to talk about it more, just shoot us a message.” 

“Thanks, I will.” I won’t.

*************************************************************************

The next chapter of this story is another three months of freedom. And guilt. And PTSD. And friends. And laughter. And joy. And dread. And resolve.

Which I’ll write about at some point. 

But to bring my current cancer chapter up to date - in September 2023, I braced myself for a scan I knew would reveal that the cancer in my lungs had grown. I tried to make my peace with the reality of starting treatment again, though I’m not quite sure that I succeeded. And when my doctor called me after the scan: 

“Your scan is good!” 

?????

“It’s good! The lung spots have all shrunk or gone away altogether - and cancer doesn’t ever just go away on its own. So whatever that was, it’s not cancer. You’re clean!” 

Emotional whiplash isn’t even accurate for what I was feeling. I was totally numb with confusion. “Are we sure that the scan is right?” 

“Yes, the scan is right.” 

“But is it possible that my body, like, absorbed the PET scan chemicals, or built a tolerance or something, and the cancer just isn’t showing up?”

“Scans don’t work like that.”

“Okay but like what if my body is different, since it doesn’t show any of the tumor marker things either?”

My doctor has the patience of a saint. “Brenna, you’re not superhuman. I mean, I think you’re a superhero in other ways, but not this, that’s not possible.” 

"Okay but like… are we sure???”

“Yes! This is good!” 

It was good. Why wasn’t I reacting like it was good? 

“Yes, good,” I parroted back.

“It’s a surprise, I know,” She must have still heard the disbelief in my tone. “And this is why I wanted to call and tell you, I knew you wouldn’t believe it.” She laughed. Then I did, and my mind slowly started working again.  

“So… now what?”

“Now I’ll see you in three months.” 

Write those words on my fucking grave.

*************************************************************************

Since September I’ve had one more “clean” scan. “Clean” in quotes because it never truly is with me, but clean enough to not worry about and send me on my way for another three months of pretending to be a normal person. Finally, I’ve started believing again that cancer might actually be gone. For now. 

And that introduces yet another chapter to the cancer story, which is: what on earth do I do now? 

I’ve spent months trying to navigate the physical and mental trauma. There’s grief for my old body and old life, and for the years of my twenties I couldn’t spend the way I wanted. There’s also joy at continuing to be Not Dead - if also some PTSD and accidental dissociation in those moments of joy. There’s complicated feelings of guilt and not so complicated feelings of gratitude. And anger - SO MUCH ANGER - that is only now rising to the surface. God, I am so mad, all the time.

All of this to say - the story goes on. And MY story goes on, without a tidy ending.

And so, too (probably), will this blog.