Sometimes You've Just Got to Lean Back and Hope You'll Float: A Post About Post-Remission Relapse

My friend, Jo, spent 2023 fighting cancer like a hero. She didn’t break. She didn’t even bend. She’d disappear for a week after chemo, then return full of smiles and serenity. She coped so well that her nurses asked her to do a speech for their other cancer patients. Yes, Jo was a model patient — A fighter. We all look up to fighters, you know.

Last week, a few months after she’d achieved remission, Jo’s symptoms returned, and she snapped into two pieces like a dry branch. Half of her just wants to die, now. The other half “knows” she’s going to die. She can’t be a hero a second time. She only had enough Wonder Woman in her for one cancer stint, not two.

Illness and post-remission relapse are two vastly different experiences. When you first become ill, you see a happy ending opening up before you like a great field. You know you only have one war to fight, and that feels manageable. Your healthy phase has given you the resources to survive. You have guns and knives and cannons.

Relapsing requires you to return to the battle after the last war has destroyed all your weapons.

The worst of remission is that it gives you hope. It makes you believe your disease can end. It gives you time to grow attached to your new, healthy body, and it gives you the optimism of a conqueror.

Then your disease returns. This time, you’re deeply connected to the idea of recovery. You’re steeped in gratitude for your health, so losing it is all the more harrowing.

When you find out that recovery is finite, you must grieve your health at an entirely new level. Humans aren’t built for long journeys, only temporary nightmares. We need to wake up at the end of the night, else where do we find the resources to survive?

Nobody warns you of this, so if you relapse on a chronic illness after a period of remission, you think you’re the only branch on the tree that snaps in half. You aren’t. Jo’s been there. I’ve been there. Anyone with an unremitting illness knows the difference between the exhaustion of your first struggle and the utter collapse of your second.

I wish I had 10 Awesome Hacks for Overcoming Relapse. I wish I could give you even one small piece of advice, but the only thing I can do is tell you you’re not alone. Your experience is not an isolated one. You’re one of many. Your feelings are appropriate and important.

Nobody said you had to be a conqueror, anyway. Sometimes, you’ve just got to take your resources from those who love you. Sometimes, you just need to be carried. You don’t have to do illness well. Do it badly. Throw a pity party. Cry. Scream. Rebel. These can be resources, too.

Grief and exhaustion are not synonyms for weakness. Both are legitimate feelings you should honour. As long as you show up for your treatments, you’re doing just fine. Hell, even if you need to take a break from the medical trauma, you’re a hero. Sometimes you’ve just got to lean back and hope you’ll float.