What Every Survivor Wants You To Know

(Disclaimer: If you are currently going through cancer, this post may not be for you. While I vow to only share hope and honesty and never scary stories, this post is about the feelings you experience post-cancer. Personally, I would have found this difficult to read when I was going through cancer, simply because I wasn’t ready for that stage yet. It’s not the season I was in, and that’s ok.

But since I feel called to encourage people in all seasons and types of struggle, this post is aimed at Survivors who have completed treatment and their friends/families. You can bookmark this and come back to it soon when you have won your fight and kicked your cancer to the curb!)

There’s something I’ve learned that every Survivor wishes everyone around them knew…

It’s not over.

Even when it’s over, it’s not over.

In fact, it’s never over.

Here’s how we think cancer goes…1) Person gets cancer. 2) Person fights cancer. 3) Person beats cancer and life goes back to normal.

I thought this too before I had cancer. Number one and two are true, but number three is not. Life does not go back to normal, and cancer is never “over”. What do I mean?

Your body doesn’t work or move or feel the same after surgeries. There are lingering side effects from chemo and radiation. There are more treatments and therapies after you beat cancer to make sure it doesn’t come back again. There is a form of PTSD that no one tells you how to manage, and of course the constant thought of this disease rearing its ugly head again and returning.

Some people might say this life is a “new normal”, and I suppose that’s true, but even that statement I don’t like. It implies that all these things I just mentioned, while “new”, are somehow also “normal”. They aren’t normal. They aren’t welcome. I don’t want them to be part of my life. But they are.

I recently heard a message about the story in Acts 3 where Peter and John healed a lame beggar. The story goes that the beggar had been lame from birth, and Peter and John met him while he was begging at the temple, and they healed him. Acts 3:7-8 says “…instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk.”

When we hear this story, we marvel at the miracle, and rightly so. This man was instantly healed, and instantly given the strength he needed! How amazing!

But what we don’t typically notice are the words “he began to walk”. This man had been lame his entire life…which means he literally did not know how to walk, despite the fact that he had been healed and now had the strength to do so. Additionally if you keep reading, verse 11 says “while the man held onto Peter and John…”, confirming that indeed he needed their help to walk even after being healed.

The point of the message is that when change comes, no matter what the change is, a season of transition always comes with it, and those are two separate things. While the man was changed, there was a whole transition that subsequently needed to take place. A transition that included learning how to walk, how to tie his sandals, and what blisters are. A transition that included finding a job for the first time in his life; previously his income came from begging for money, and now he must discover what skills he has to provide for himself!

We often think about the change in our lives, but we usually fail to consider how the transition after the change, even a wonderful change, might include a season of struggle. As a result, we find ourselves caught off guard with how to handle this expected change but unexpected transition, and we are discouraged by what is now unmet expectations of what we thought the change would bring.

When I put this message through my “cancer filter”, I feel it’s a good picture of the current season I am in, “life after cancer”. I have been healed. God used the surgeries and the medications and the doctors to heal me from cancer and our prayers were answered. It’s everything we wanted! But what I didn’t realize was the transition that would come afterwards – all the things I listed above and more that are still really difficult to deal with. I have to learn to walk again, my way of life is different, there are new blisters to deal with. There is a transition and a new way of doing life that I never thought about but now must navigate.

I’ll pause there for now and let you marinate over how this might apply to your own life and circumstances. But stay tuned for Part 2!

*If this resonates with you, I would love for you to subscribe and receive the next update! Simply enter your email in the box on the left side of your screen (or the bottom of the screen if you are using a smartphone) and click Subscribe!