This Thanksgiving, I'm Grateful For Cancer And Divorce
by Lizzy Smith
November 25, 2014
It's Thanksgiving week and I think all my Facebook friends are posting a list of all the things they're grateful for. I've decided I don't want to do the expected thing and post my own list. Because if I did, it would include the typical:1. My daughters
2. My family (especially my parents, who opened their home to me and my two children when I was newly diagnosed with cancer and left my husband)
3. My friends and loved ones
4. The luxury of traveling
...oops! I just started the list that I promised I wouldn't. I think I'll stop right there.
But on Friday, I headed off to my weekly oncology appointment. Though I'm in full remission from multiple myeloma (a blood cancer), I am on indefinite maintenance therapy, which includes a chemo pill that I take daily, and a weekly injection of another chemo-type drug. (Neither of these drugs cause hair loss-- I already went through that!) I also get labs every three months. At that appointment, I got revaccinated. This was necessary because when I first entered treatment, I had two stem cell transplants, which wiped out my entire immune system. So all the vaccines I've had growing up were basically cancelled out. Here I was two years later getting new shots (progress!) because I was finally healthy enough to get them. And as I was sitting in clinic getting one poke after another (seven in total!), I started thinking about the radical direction my life has taken since getting cancer, and, wow, I realize how grateful I am for the experience. I mean, I wouldn't wish cancer on anyone, and I'm not happy I got it. But I did, and cancer was the catalyst for many amazing life lessons and experiences.
So I think I'll make a different kind of "grateful list"-- a list of why I'm grateful for the Cancer Journey.
1. I got a divorce
I wanted a divorce since just months after the wedding. During our dating phase, my husband pretended to be someone he wasn't-- a nice (and sober) guy. Soon, his disturbing personality patterns emerged and a few months later, he confessed that he was an alcoholic-- a highly functioning, closeted, raging alcoholic. Our marriage was a Hell that's hard to describe. And as many times as I asked for a divorce, and dreamt of a world without my husband, I had yet to pull the trigger. The minute I found out I had cancer, that all changed in an instant. I left my husband within days of diagnosis. While divorce sucks, a bad marriage sucks a whole heck of a lot worse. Some people need to be cut out of our lives just like a tumor. My husband was one of them.
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