Lucky

Last week the New York Times Well blog had an article by a columnist and cancer survivor on the inadequacies of words describing the experience. I ended up posting my least favorite comment about cancer: "You're so lucky."

Sometime after DD18's treatment ended, I found myself with way too many emotions to neatly categorize and file away. Not a new phenomenon, I'm sure, for cancer survivors nor those who care for them. I was having a conversation with a close relative, when I broke down and sobbed over all that I felt DD18 lost: her health, her innocence, her balance, good vision, and a general optimism and hope in the future borne of an idyllic childhood. Yes, treatment was "over" but everything else was still there. The elephant in the living room.

The close relative proceeded to chastise me and informed me I was "lucky" because my daughter was still alive.

Lucky? The dictionary definition of "lucky" is "resulting in good by chance." I felt rage bubble up in me...this was luck? This was "good"? By "chance"? Of course it was wonderful and I was thankful that DD18 was in remission, but I did not consider myself "lucky." In fact, I felt cheated out of the normal worries that mothers have, only to have them replaced or overshadowed by big, scary, unthinkable worries.

In some ways, the word "lucky" seemed to minimize everything, from the world-class surgeon who had to get too close to the brain stem to remove the tumor; to the radiation oncologists who had to ensure the targeted radiation and its inevitable "scatter" would steer clear of areas of the brain not affected by the tumor, or optic nerves, or even the ovaries; to the oncologist who planned the chemotherapy and then monitored and adjusted as issues cropped up.

Maybe a bit of "luck" has something to do with it, but skill and experience and education has to count for much, much more. And, I believe, prayer. There were lots of prayers from so many people, many of whom we did not even know.

"Luck" is random, not planned, not purposeful. Getting a tumor is a kind of "bad luck." So should surviving it be a kind of "good luck?" Don't know, but it sure doesn't feel like it to me. Kind of reminds me of that Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."

"Lucky" means I won the lottery. A friend commented soon after diagnosis, when I mentioned the very long odds of a child getting a brain tumor, "Why couldn't you have won the lottery instead?" Indeed.

No, I don't view myself as "lucky." Nor could I say I was "happy" when treatment ended. Thankful, yes. Of course. But "lucky" doesn't seem to have a place in my cancer lexicon--it feels inadequate and more than a beat off in describing the cancer journey of a child.