Kristin Raworth: This year, I'm grateful for being alive, and loved
It's weird to thank cancer for everything. But battling this disease has changed me.
Every year at Christmas time, The Line runs a series of articles about things we should be thankful for — just like we’re thankful for you. Happy holidays from your friends at The Line. And, today, Happy New Year!
By: Kristin Raworth
When The Line asked me if I wanted to write a piece on what I was grateful for in 2024, I didn’t need to even tell them what the topic would be. All I had to do I was ask if I could swear in my piece. Because in December 2023, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I wrote about the experience of being diagnosed for The Line in the winter of 2024. I went into Christmas of 2023 absolutely terrified and now I am going into Christmas 2024 cancer free. If that isn’t something to be grateful for, I don’t know what is.
I needed to know if I could swear because the first thought you have when you are diagnosed with cancer is “What the fuck?” That’s actually what I said to the doctor who told me, for which I was immediately embarrassed. But come on! What else do you say when someone says the C word to you? It didn’t feel real. I truly couldn’t believe it was happening. I was 41 with no family history. It just didn’t make sense.
But cancer doesn’t make sense. Asking a disease to be logical is about as sane as asking a small child not to cry. It just is. So you book the surgery to have the lump removed, you book follow ups, you book your appointment to see the oncologist and then you just wait. Waiting is torture, frankly. I am a control freak and so the waiting to learn what happened next with absolutely no ability to influence it was hell.
Don’t worry, I am getting to the grateful part.
My friends organized a GoFundMe to help me with the costs I would incur over the next year and it was a lifesaver, especially with daily care for my dog. The unbelievable generosity of people who contributed and those who sent me meals and gifts touched my heart enormously. So many of these people had not even met me but yet took time to send a meal or a donation. For someone who doesn’t have a lot of faith in people, I found that this time, maybe my cynicism was misplaced.
My partner who I love more than words can describe was incredible to me. He would listen to me cry. I was worried about the physical impacts from treatment, which sounds shallow, but I am a bit vain. He would tell me again and again how it didn’t matter because he loved who I was. This was especially appreciated after my surgery when he lovingly lied that my scar was hard to see and then tried to show me Dune for the third time. I again fell immediately to sleep cause of the meds I was on. More than anything, what he did was argue politics with me constantly. This might sound weird to normals but to me was exactly what I needed to not feel sick.
My parents, divorced for 30-plus years, who frankly haven’t always gotten along, became a team, for me. They came to my appointments together and when I was high as a kite after my lumpectomy hung out together with me for hours, which was frankly the first time they’ve been together for more than 20 minutes since I was a kid. They also laughed off my parent trap jokes cause they thought i was kidding but I wasn’t, really.
After consulting with my doctors my initial treatment plan changed after I was told having chemo would very marginally lower the risk of reoccurrence. So I decided on having radiation only. I did two months of radiation treatment, with appointments on every weekday, and then I got to ring the bell, signalling I was done with treatment. It was an amazing feeling. I cried on my way home out of relief.
I am on tamoxifen for the next five years, it evens out my hormone levels, making it harder for the cancer to come back. Early menopause sucks, if I’m being frank, but cancer sucks much more. The biggest step, however, was my one-year mammogram. I was so nervous that sitting in that room I almost had a panic attack. I had had exactly one mammogram in my life up until then, and that was when I was told I had cancer.
But it was clean. I was okay. I am okay. I got to call my parents almost exactly a year after I told them I had cancer to tell them it was gone.
So 2024 has been a helluva a year. I am so grateful for the perspective cancer gave me. It’s weird to thank cancer for anything but this experience has changed me. I don’t get upset about stupid things like I used to, I appreciate every moment with my family and my friends and my pets. I look at my partner and am so unbelievably thankful for every day that we get to fight about politics or just be together, even if I still haven’t made it through Dune.
I am just thankful. I know the hashtag #blessed is mocked a lot and deservedly so but I am. I am cancer free and the world looks so open and free to me.
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Arrakis is so beautiful when the sun is low! Happy 2025 Kristin.
Health is everything. To a Healthy, Happy and prosperous New Year.