In Lewis Carroll’s story, “Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland,” young Alice fell into a rabbit hole and embarked on a surreal journey. We now use the term ‘going own the rabbit hole’ or ‘falling down the rabbit hole,’ as a metaphor for an experience that sends someone into a surreal situation, either pleasant or not. I woke the other morning to the news of yet another actress dying from breast cancer…and down the rabbit hole I went.
As a cancer pat
ient, I’ve had my own adventure in the cancer wonderland, some pleasant and others not so pleasant. But they are my experiences and I try to file them away, especially the fears. I’ve gotten better at it but become undone when someone famous dies. Immediately, I start with the questions and comparisons. I think many of us do. I lived my life publicly and as open as I could be so that maybe, other women could gain some hope. Some famous people chose this route while others are very closed off about it, and that is their right…
What kind of breast cancer was it? Was she Stage 4 metastatic or de novo? What treatments and or surgeries did she have? What was her hormone and HER2 status? I searched for pictures to see if there was a change in her appearance, hair loss, etc. My searches turned up nothing. Hours upon hours of nothing…aside from some fear.
Just as Alice knew she wanted to find her way back above ground, out of the rabbit hole, so do I. My own facts and figures tend to slap me back to reality. Stage 2a, hormone negative, HER2+ and a small tumor…some IDC and DCIS. Here I sit almost two years from diagnosis, a double mastectomy and reconstruction, 20 weeks of chemotherapy and then a year of targeted therapy. I’m 7 months out now and the mental wounds are still fresh and reopened each time I go down the rabbit hole. I want to know stories of other women walking this journey, either now or in the past.. I want to know what went right and what went wrong. I want to know what my future holds, will I be okay? It takes time. It takes courage. Most of all, it takes hope.