The Body After: What survivorship actually feels like

What does life after cancer actually feel like?

Life after cancer can feel confusing because treatment may be over, but your body, mind, and nervous system may still be catching up. Survivorship can come with inflammation, fatigue, body changes, emotional whiplash, and the strange pressure to get back to normal before you actually feel normal again.

Let's Talk About The Inflammation

Treatment ends, and the world expects you to bounce back. For some people, that happens. For the rest of us, yeah, not so much.

There's a part of you that expects it too, because you've been so focused on getting through it that you haven't thought much about what comes after. Then, after arrives, and your body is still doing things you don't recognize.

For both of us, it felt like a delayed cortisol spike that lasted a while. Not a week. Months.

Inflammation showed up in ways we didn't see coming, in a body that looked different, felt different, and moved differently than the one we had before. You have to re-learn a new body while also trying to rebuild your life, and that part doesn't get nearly enough airtime. The moon face, the puffiness, the reflection that doesn't quite look like you yet. Know that with time, it eventually melts away and reveals the body and face you once knew. 

Give Your Body More Time Than You Think

The inflammation is real, but it does melt away.

The fatigue that comes back out of nowhere is real, but your energy eventually flows back. The days when you feel completely fine, followed by the days when you feel like you went ten rounds with treatment all over again, are real too.

This is not weakness. This is your body doing the long work of healing, which can feel slower than the treatment itself. And because so much of it happens invisibly, no one around you quite understands why you're not fully back to yourself yet.

That's not a you problem. That's just how this goes.

One Day, It Starts To Move Behind You

One day, you will find your way back. One day, a moment will go by where you don't think of cancer or treatment or remember that it even happened. One day, it will feel like it was ages ago. One day, you will forget for a moment.

That's growth!

It's those little or lengthy moments where it starts to click, and you feel like all of it is finally moving behind you. We hope you have those moments, even if they only last a second at first. And we hope those moments expand.

It may not look or go the way you imagined, but we hope you'll find your footing.

Make Plans Anyway

Make plans.

Book the trip. Sign up for the class. Try the hobby. Call the person. Do the thing.

Because why not?

Why not do everything you wanted to do? What if you lived a life filled with taking chances?

Blythe went to Belize for the first time, built not only Chemo Queens but a production company, and started writing and producing.

Kesley traveled. Went to places she'd been putting off. Went after acting and actually did it. Built a career. Figured out what she wanted when the noise cleared.

If you need proof that it's possible, let us be it. Not only is anything possible, but you have the power to recreate your story.