A Letter to Anyone Healing From Cancer

Cancer has a way of rearranging everything. Your routines, your sense of control, even your relationship with your body. Surgery adds another layer of physical and emotional weight that nobody fully understands unless they’ve lived it.

If you’re reading this, you might be recovering from a mastectomy, lumpectomy, reconstruction, colorectal surgery, or preparing for one. You might be exhausted, swollen, tender, or overwhelmed. You might feel strangely disconnected from the person you were just a few months ago. And if so, I want you to hear this clearly, you are not the only one who feels this way.

There’s a part of recovery that no one prepares you for. The feeling of isolation and being surrounded by people yet somehow completely alone with your fear, your discomfort, and your thoughts is overwhelming.

Your body has been through something enormous. Whether it was cancer itself or the treatments, your body has carried weight that most people will never have to understand. You’ve had to learn new ways to move, to sleep, to dress, to shower, to exist.

Suddenly, simple things like comfort become a luxury. Lifting your arms, getting out of bed without bracing yourself, finding clothes that don’t irritate incisions or make you feel hidious seems impossible. 

If you’ve ever put something on after surgery and broken down in tears, I promise you are not the only one.

Every recovering woman I’ve talked with wants the same thing: to feel even a small piece of their identity return. That could be comfort. It could be confidence. It could be the ability to walk to the mailbox without thinking about cancer.

You will get through this. One of the most comforting truths I learned is that no one walks this path alone, even when it feels that way. There’s a whole community of women who have cried while getting dressed, who have slept sitting up, who do not feel whole. I promise it isn't permanent. 

You will get through this season. You will feel like yourself again. Maybe slowly, maybe a slightly different yet stronger version, but it will happen. Your body knows how to heal. You are strong.