I received an e-mail from WikiCancer.org a few days ago. They are a website that posts information for cancer patients and survivors. The information is geared more toward describing experience of cancer, rather than the science of cancer. In that regard, it’s much like this blog, I guess.
And that’s probably why they asked me to be a part of it. WikiCancer.org, like other Wikis (Wikipedia.org for example) is a website created by it’s users. Any website made democratically (wikis, forums, community blogs) needs to be moderated, and WikiCancer.org has been looking for people in the cancer community that would like to become a moderator for the site.
That’s what they asked me to do. Which is flattering. Their site presents informations very professionally, and has a very clean look to it. It’s not like some guy running an off-the-cuff cancer site out of his basement (…ahem…).
But I told them no. I didn’t even think about it. I don’t want to do it.
Which is weird, maybe, because I’ve spent so much time in the past 7 months, contributing to the online cancer community. This will be the 142nd entry in this blog. During chemo, there were whole days, especially in the beginning, where I’d just sit and write all day. I think if I hadn’t, I don’t know how I would have kept it together sometimes.
But now I’m over it. And I don’t want it be a part of my daily life anymore. Cancer, that is. I think it took enough away from me, and I don’t want to give it anymore. I want to move on.
Some people are different, though. When they go through something like this it gives them something to live for afterwards. They want to volunteer, or give speeches about early detection, or be a shining example to others. Or moderate cancer websites.
It’s not that I want to forget about cancer altogether. I learned a lot from having cancer. I’d like to take those lessons with me – but not the disease. The disease doesn’t interest me.
I learned a lot back in school, and I’m glad I went, but not everything in school interested me. I’m not hoping to make chemistry a part of my everyday life anymore than I’m hoping to make cancer a part of my everyday life.
On the other hand, I hope that this journal I’ve kept helps patients and survivors if they find it. For people that dedicate their lives to cancer, I hope that it helps them understand what it’s like for a 24-year-old white kid from the ‘burbs to have to deal with it. For people that moderate cancer websites, I hope it gives them some material to use in their discussions.
And I enjoy it when patients or survivors, or others in the cancer community, contact me and we talk about cancer, and chemo, and living with it.
But I’m not going to acknowledge my survivorship anymore than I need to. People ask me now what’s been going on with me, and I say, “nothing.” I don’t wish it to be a part of every day anymore.
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