It Gets Better: Why You Shouldn't Despair

Eleven years ago today, I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. I'm amazed at the difference between then and now.

June 2007

June 2018

The funny thing is, though...I almost forgot. You'd think the date would be scarred into my memory like a horrific brand—but for at least the last several years the date sneaks up on me and it isn't until one or two days before (and in a couple instances, the day of) that I remember, "Oh, yeah, cancer...that happened."

It's a good thing, though. A few years ago, this day was a crushing reminder of all I'd lost. The college experiences I'd never had, the physical activities lost to me through the damage caused by both cancer and cure, my freaking gorgeous hair, all of it. I'd hide away and mope and cry and numb myself as best as possible, all to get through one single day.

I'm not sure when that stopped, within the last five years for sure. The question is...why?

There are a couple things I've attributed this to:

1. Adaptation: The human mind is a crazy, weird, wonderful thing. I couldn't even begin to list all the fascinating things about it, there's been countless books written on the topic, but the one that helps dull the pain of remembrance and allows me to forget the day my life was forever changed is our ability to adapt to even the most mind-bending situations.

There's a lot said about desensitization today, particularly when it comes to violence. However, we're constantly desensitized to almost everything. Think about it—to people living 50 years ago, our lives today are almost unrecognizable. The sheer ingenuity and complexity of our technology alone is an absolute marvel and wonder.

We landed people on the Moon! "Yeah, whatever, big whoop, let me look at cat videos." Now, wait, how can you even look at cat videos? Less than thirty years ago, it was next to impossible to easily access the wild and wacky antics of fuzzy felines, now, it's a ubiquitous phenomena that threatens the very fabric of our existence. Or something. Maybe not. But you get my point.

Same thing with cancer. I started off numbed to it, not through desensitization, but through sheer shock. "Surprise! You have cancer. Here's a menagerie of exceedingly toxic chemicals, have fun." Ten years later, that doesn't phase me. I've relived and replayed those memories thousands upon thousands of times—especially when writing my memoir—and over time, my well of tears dried up, my anxiety and trauma of revisiting those nightmarish days of life and death faded, and it all just seems routine.

I've had ten joint replacements since 2010. I'm so used to surgeries I actually look forward to them now! It's my new normal, a known entity—as opposed to normal life which scares the hell out of me because I have so little experience with anything outside being pumped full of drugs, of having pieces of me ripped out and metal shoved in their place. But that's just another thing to get used to, and I'm sure that the more I expose myself to the more mundane, normal experiences most people know, the more my anxiety with regards to that will fade.

2. Time: There's a stupid cliché about time healing all wounds—it's utter BS. Time doesn't heal all wounds, not by a long shot. But it does grant you perspective and distance, and with that, an easing of suffering.

The memories and traumas become fuzzier, less distinct. It begins to feels less and less like something that happened to you—though there are still moments when it comes back clear as day. Of course, the pain never really leaves, but you're able to put it into better context.

While you're dealing with cancer and treatments and the after-effects of both, it's hard to focus on anything but the present. A decade or more later, you can look at where it all led you. Is it likely your life isn't as good as you would have hoped before cancer? Sure. But you get a chance to view your past through whichever lens you chose. Did cancer mess everything up? Or did it set you on a different path?

The key is spinning cancer in a positive light, in reframing your experience so you can find positives to take away from it. "But cancer sucked, how can anything good come from it?" Good question. I can't answer that, because all experiences differ—we're individuals, our paths diverge from the common origin of diagnosis. The only person who can reframe your traumas is you.

So, for those going through cancer now, or having just entered remission, don't give up. It takes time, experience, it takes getting used to, but the mental and emotional anguish of your fight with cancer—if not the physical difficulties—will dull. Let that comfort you in difficult times—for we are only as strong as we think we are.

Takeaways:

• Cancer sucks (shocker)
• Your mind has the ability to adapt to even the most challenging situations
• Distance and perspective help to ease the pain of past experiences
• You're as strong as you believe you are

The Takeaway Part Three: The Only Failure is Giving Up

The Takeaway: Part Three

My memoir about the challenges of
life after cancer

Last week I went to Warwick's in La Jolla, the oldest continually operating independent bookstore in the country, to promote my memoir, Surviving the Cure: Cancer was Easy,* Living is Hard. I have to say, I had a great time talking about my journey and what I learned from it, as well as signing books for the audience. And now I want to share some of that talk with you.

In this three-part series called The Takeaway, I will go over the key messages in both my speech and my book. These concepts are not just for cancer survivors, but for everyone. Whether it's how you view the world, how you treat others, or how you treat yourself, anyone can take away meaning from the lessons of my story and apply them to your life.

In Part One: Support Matters, I addressed the need for cancer survivors to continue to receive support even after they enter remission. While battling cancer, many patients have a great deal of support from their community and medical team, but that support decreases drastically once someone is no longer battling cancer, and yet they continue to face complications as the result of their disease or treatment. It's imperative survivors continue to receive support so they can have the best lives possible.

In Part Two: Mentality and Humor, I discussed the importance of keeping a positive attitude throughout even the toughest times. How you view and deal with life's problems is entirely up to you. Life doesn't dictate how it affects you, you dictate how life affects you.

In this final section, I will reveal that there is only one way to fail: when you stop trying.

You Only Fail When You Give Up

We're so hard on ourselves that whenever we don't meet our expectations, realistic or otherwise, we consider ourselves failures. But is it really?

There were a lot of days I wanted to give up when I was dealing with cancer and all the after-effects of my treatment—especially shortly after I found out I was going to live after being given two weeks to live. Sure, I'd survived, but what kind of life did I have? I was dealing with drug addiction, bone pain, surgeries, lung damage and needing to be on supplemental oxygen, depression, anxiety, weight gain, diabetes, and collapsing joints. It was a miserable existence I wanted nothing to do with. So I'd pop a couple dozen pills and let my thoughts stop working for a few hours to escape.

It was so much easier to zone out on narcotics and barbiturates and tranquilizers than to experience reality. And if that was the rest of my life—floating up in the ionosphere, high on anything I could get my hands on—that was perfectly fine with me. In fact, that was preferable. I stopped caring if I recovered, stopped caring about the handful of people who remained as support, stopped caring if I overdosed and died. I gave up, plain and simple.

Hips, Knees, and Ankles Replacements

But after a year of this, I realized I was healing—losing weight, dealing with less pain, not needing as much oxygen. For the first time in a year and a half, it felt like things were finally starting to head in the right direction. A doped-up existence on the couch wasn't enough for me anymore—I wanted to live. It was hard to admit to myself I was a drug addict, harder still to admit it to anyone else. I felt like a failure for letting myself disappear into that black void of drug-induced semi-consciousness.

Once I was sober, I started to rebuild my life. Things went well—until they didn't. Setbacks are the one constant since I was diagnosed with leukemia ten years ago. I can always count on something to go wrong whenever life begins to improve. Try to go to UC Riverside? Ankle collapses. Try to go to UC San Diego? Knee replacement. Try to move out? Drug relapse. Anything else? Joint replacement surgeries—ten of them since 2010, almost always interrupting some progress I've made.

Those setbacks hit hard, they felt like failures. But they really weren't. Why? Because each time I got back up, dusted myself off, and kept pushing toward a better life. Sometimes it took longer to bounce back than others, but I always got back on my feet. Despite complications and detours, I refused to give up.

As long as you're still trying, you haven't failed. Failure only comes when you throw in the towel and let your problems win—whether it's cancer or side-effects or bullies or even ourselves. The only person who can defeat you is yourself. You choose when you give up, no one else gets to decide that for you. And as long as you keep fighting, you will never fail.

***

Spreading the word about life after cancer is important. There are nearly sixteen million cancer survivors in the United States alone, and that number grows by a quarter of a million every year. With so many survivors out there, it is increasingly important that everyone—from the medical community to friends and family—finds ways to offer support once the cancer is gone. The more people realize what life is truly like for survivors, the greater the support we can give them, and the better their lives can become.

Please share this so we can get the word out about the reality of life after cancer and give survivors the quality of life they deserve.

Thank you,
Andrew Bundy

The Takeaway Part Two: Mentality and Humor

The Takeaway: Part Two

My memoir about the challenges of
life after cancer

Last week I went to Warwick's in La Jolla, the oldest continually operating independent bookstore in the country, to promote my memoir, Surviving the Cure: Cancer was Easy,* Living is Hard. I have to say, I had a great time talking about my journey and what I learned from it, as well as signing books for the audience, and now I want to share some of that talk with you.

In this three-part series called The Takeaway, I will go over the key messages in both my speech and my book. These concepts are not just for cancer survivors, but for everyone. Whether it's how you view the world, how you treat others, or how you treat yourself, anyone can take away meaning from the lessons of my story and apply them to your life.

In Part One: Support Matters, I addressed the need for cancer survivors to continue to receive support even after they enter remission. While battling cancer, many patients have a great deal of support from their community and medical team, but that support decreases drastically once someone is no longer battling cancer, and yet they continue to face complications as the result of their disease or treatment. It's imperative survivors continue to receive support so they can have the best lives possible.

In this section, I will address the importance of mentality in dealing with the challenges of life. Whether it be cancer, physical and mental side effects, or other difficult or traumatic events, the key to getting through the toughest times is how you decide to look at it.

Silver Linings and Funny Bones

There's a famous quote (one of my favorites) by the late great Yogi Berra, "Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical." Math aside, he's not wrong. And really, all of life is like that. Sure, it feels as if a lot of our existence if physical, a lot of our problems are physical, but really it's almost entirely about your mentality.

Crappy things will happen to you. It's as certain as certain can get, with few exceptions. Maybe you'll be one of the few lucky ones who goes through life and everything is rainbows and puppies and all that BS, and the worst thing to happen to you is you only win a ninety million dollars from the lottery instead of a hundred million. But if you're like most people, there will be difficulties, traumas, pain, loss. And when that happens, what are your options? That's the conundrum I faced when I was diagnosed with leukemia ten years ago. 

I saw only two possibilities: Let it crush me, or push forward. I could cry and sob and complain about how life wasn't fair—I think I'd more than earned that right—but what good would that do me? I'd just be miserable, lying in a hospital bed for months. That didn't exactly sound what I'd call "fun," so I chose the other option: Do my best to enjoy myself. Whether it was through silver linings or humor, I worked to ensure I kept away the dark specter of despair. 

It's hard to imagine finding silver linings with such devastating traumas such as cancer, but I did what I could to find or invent as many as I could. Little things like discovering Skittles taste about the same going down as they do coming up, reading get-well cards, and not having to take finals (getting cancer isn't the best way to go about getting out of finals, in case you were wondering). It's amazing how many things we can be grateful for when you really start to look for them.

But perhaps even more important than that was humor. I made a special effort to laugh out loud, or at least chuckle, as much as possible throughout my treatments. During the day, I watched old sitcoms with a nearly religious zeal—M*A*S*H, Frasier, Cheers, I've seen every episode at least twice, maybe even three or four times. I  read books I enjoyed and could make me laugh—primarily works by Sir Terry Pratchett (seriously, check him out). I played jokes on the nurses, like pretending my mom gouged my eye out with a spoon while feeding me Jell-o. Laughter kept the darkness at bay—the black moods, the depression. It's not easy finding humor during such trying times, but the effort plays a huge part in how you deal with life's hardest moments—it helps you survive.

The key to surviving and overcoming challenges is mentality. The thing to remember is that life doesn't dictate how it affects you, YOU dictate how life affects you. The only person with control over how you feel is yourself, and that's crucial in every aspect of life—good and bad. That's not to say it's easy, far from it, but ultimately it is your choice. And that gives you the power to decide whether challenges beat you down...or you rise above it.

***

Spreading the word about life after cancer is important. There are nearly sixteen million cancer survivors in the United States alone, and that number grows by a quarter of a million every year. With so many survivors out there, it is increasingly important that everyone—from the medical community to friends and family—finds ways to offer support once the cancer is gone. The more people realize what life is truly like for survivors, the greater the support we can give them, and the better their lives can become.

Please share this so we can get the word out about the reality of life after cancer and give survivors the quality of life they deserve.

Thank you,
Andrew Bundy


Part Three: The Only Failure is Giving Up
Life can be difficult, and often we feel as though we've failed. However, there is only one way you can truly fail: when you stop trying.

The Takeaway Part One: Support Matters

The Takeaway: Part One

Last week I went to Warwick's in La Jolla, the oldest continually operating independent bookstore in the country, to promote my memoir, Surviving the Cure: Cancer was Easy,* Living is Hard. I have to say, I had a great time talking about my journey and what I learned from it, as well as signing books for the audience.

I wanted to share that talk with you, so the next few blog posts will go over the key messages in both my speech and my book in this three-part series called The Takeaway. These concepts are not just for cancer survivors, but for everyone. Whether it's how you view the world, how you treat others, or how you treat yourself, anyone can take away meaning from the lessons of my story and apply them to your life.

Cancer is Only the Beginning: Support Matters

Me with my friend Nick Hollon

This is essentially the main message of my book. Many people know cancer to some extent, they've known people who have gone through treatment or maybe even went through treatment themselves. But what most people don't understand is that cancer is just the first step in a lifelong journey. After someone survives cancer, they are done forced to deal with the side-effects of the treatment and the trauma they endured. These range from the physical (such as chronic pain, exhaustion, weakened immune system) to the mental and emotional (like anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression). And while most cancer patients have plenty of support while going through chemotherapy or radiation and other treatments, once they enter remission, that support tends to evaporate faster than spit on the sun. Yet, they are still experiencing complications—in some cases the challenges of life after cancer are more difficult than when they were dealing with cancer. This was certainly true for me—though I acknowledge this is not the case for all survivors. So it is exceedingly important to continue to offer survivors support even after they enter remission.

Support can come in many forms. Each person's journey into life after cancer is different. Some might need help getting groceries from the store or cooking a meal. Others might need a shoulder to cry on. And many just want to be able to hang out with people they care about and not worry about being judged or thought of as "fragile" or different than the person they used to be. So if you know someone who has survived cancer, ask how you can help. Maybe they don't need help at all, but just offering can sometimes be the show of support they're looking for. And for survivors, don't be afraid to ask for help—it's not a sign of weakness if you feel like you could use assistance, it's just how it is. There is no shame in it. Everyone needs help at some time or another, and when they do, the best thing to do is ask for it.

***

Spreading the word about life after cancer is important. There are nearly sixteen million cancer survivors in the United States alone, and that number grows by a quarter of a million every year. With so many survivors out there, it is increasingly important that everyone—from the medical community to friends and family—finds ways to offer support once the cancer is gone. The more people realize what life is truly like for survivors, the greater the support we can give them, and the better their lives can become.

Please share this so we can get the word out about the reality of life after cancer and give survivors the quality of life they deserve.

Thank you,
Andrew Bundy


Part Two: Mentality and Humor
It is important to keep a positive attitude throughout even the toughest times. How you view and deal with life's problems is entirely up to you. Life doesn't dictate how it affects you, you dictate how life affects you.
Part Three: The Only Failure is Giving Up
Life can be difficult, and often we feel as though we've failed. However, there is only one way you can truly fail: when you stop trying.