Una Mullally: Right now, I can say that I am ‘cancer-free’

What do I say when people ask me how I am?” I was sitting in my surgeon’s office asking him this rather stupid question. He is a smart, funny, incredible man, who pulls no punches. “You can say that you are cancer-free.”

We had known that for some time. But I needed the words. When you’re dealing with cancer, all you can think about is not having to deal with it. When it ends, it’s almost stunning. After a terrible diagnosis back in March, I’ve been given the best Christmas present ever. The cancer is gone.

The odds of me surviving five years or more are now 70 per cent. I am now entering a five-year period of follow-up monitoring. With my doctor’s blessings, I decided to skip the six months of more chemo that was originally laid out, which would have taken me up to next March. I had a second surgery last month that was originally scheduled for mid-2016. When the next five years pass without a reoccurrence of cancer, I can say I’ve been “cured”. Right now, I can say that I am “cancer-free”.

In Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor, she writes about mythology surrounding cancer, and how the vocabulary and sentiment around it is almost mystical. The reaction that having cancer causes around you is devastating for your loved ones. When we talk about cancer, we talk about death. But the doctors and nurses in St James’s Hospital turned my timer on its head, and the sand is flowing through the glass in the other direction.

Going into this, all I wanted was another few years. I wasn’t ready to die. But that was never going to be my decision. The medical workers that treated me are beyond skilful, and I am beyond lucky.

Recovery can be longer than illness itself. Recovery brings fear. What if the cancer comes back? In my case, that’s not uncommon. You can get lost in message boards and statistics. My girlfriend wisely said that the people sharing their horror stories on online forums are only the ones who had something go wrong. The people who are getting on just fine aren’t as likely to share. There’s a lesson in that, from comment sections to talk radio. No one rants about everything being grand, do they?

Over the last nine months, I have experienced dark moments that I never want to revisit. No matter how many people you have around you – and I am almost embarrassed by the level of support and love that surrounded me throughout this – cancer is an excruciating, lonely experience. There are so many moments of sad stillness. But I have also experienced the unbelievable love and support of strangers, not to mention the love and support of friends, family, acquaintances, and my partner.

To all of The Irish Times readers who sent me letters of support and cards and gifts, I want to take this opportunity to thank you all so much. I know people this year who have lost loved ones to cancer, and others who are battling it. How can I find words of comfort when my lucky outcome is almost an affront to another’s fight or demise? I’m so sorry for those who are still going through this. It is an absolute weapon of a thing.

Serious illness

Anne Enright wrote in The Gathering that people do not change, they are merely revealed. But being revealed can often be a revelation. Serious illness opens something up in you. It exposes you to things you never wanted to experience. But that new chasm also allows you to understand something that we all try to avoid: suffering.

Suffering is learning. And in that new understanding, it seeds a profound empathy.

I am not a crier, but every day since Friday March 13th I have cried, sometimes out of despair, sometimes in pain, sometimes with joy, sometimes out of relief, many times out of a new, strange empathy that allows the suffering of others to flow into that chasm.

I was in bed in hospital, out of it on painkillers, when people just like me were gunned down at the Bataclan in Paris. There are always so many people much worse off than ourselves. Wrong place, wrong time.

Earlier this summer, I cried and cried in St James’s Hospital for the young people who lost their lives and were injured in Berkeley, California.

I have often returned to the words a survivor of that tragedy, Clodagh Cogley, wrote: “Life is short and I intend to honour those who died by living the happiest and most fulfilling life possible. Enjoy a good dance and the feeling of grass beneath your feet like it’s the last time because in this crazy world you never know when it might be.” What a woman.

I have never been one for mantras or inspirational quotes, but since I read a line by Emily Dickinson when I was a teenager it reappears in my mind during tough times, like finger-traced words on a window’s condensation: the wounded deer leaps highest. Only in suffering can we appreciate what we have when that suffering recedes. Sometimes, our lives fail or triumph for no reason at all, just the metaphorical flip of a coin. Who knows what lies ahead? But if you are reading this, you are alive.