I'm a Survivor

by Jen Singer

I was feeling pretty confident that day in the bagel shop, displaying the "I'm having a no-hair day" T-shirt my friends gave me and my brand-new silver earrings, which dangled from under my headscarf. I was, as one friend declared, the image of "Chemo Chic."

But as I ordered my kids' lunch, waving around my yellow LiveStrong bracelet, the woman behind the counter knocked me down a notch. "Are you a survivor?" she asked. I thought, I'm here, aren't I?

Yet I know what she meant. She wanted to know if my doctor had used the "R" word yet - "remission." But I had finished only half of my chemotherapy treatments by then, and though the tumor in my lung had shrunk from the size of a softball to that of a walnut, I was far from remission. And yet, I felt like a survivor.

I had, in fact, survived a needle-guided CAT scan biopsy, during which the doctor repeatedly injected into my chest a needle so long, it looked like it belonged on a horse farm, while I, very much awake, wished that "local anesthesia" meant that it numbed everything from the chest up.

I had also survived a few dozen days and nights in the hospital where the fluids from my IV caused so much swelling, I looked like Popeye on one arm and Olive Oyl on the other.

I had survived a misguided oncologist's attempt to discuss fertility with me, until I pointed out he might want to check my chart for the word "hysterectomy," unless he'd gotten word that I've been chosen for a modern-day immaculate conception or something. (He then survived my firing him.)

And that was just in June. In July and August, I survived even more side effects of cancer treatments, including nausea, shingles and pain so sharp, I sometimes dropped to the ground and curled up in a ball like a furry little cartoon character waiting for the Tasmanian Devil to pass by.

I even survived the hardest side effect of all: explaining to my sons why God would allow cancer to grow in the lung of someone who had never even smoked.

I've got just one more round of chemotherapy left. The tumor is now two percent of its original softball size, about the dimensions of bird seed. But I haven't been invited into the remission club just yet.

Still, the next time I go to the bagel shop, I'm going to wear my new "Kicking Cancer's _ _ _" T-shirt my friends gave me, along with some Chemo Chic jewelry and a matching headscarf. I want everyone to know that, even if my doctor hasn't said so yet, I am, indeed, a survivor. I sure feel like one, anyway.