Who am I? More specifically, who am I now?

Posted By SUE HENDLER
Feb 6, 2009

TALKING ABOUT CHANGES TO ONE'S identity is pretty common among people diagnosed with cancer. We can look different, act different and feel different. Our looks can be altered by surgery, stress, radiation, chemotherapy and, sometimes, voluntary changes if we want to shake up our appearances a bit. Our actions can change because we have varying amounts of time, strength, stamina and, perhaps, courage and flexibility. And our emotions might change because of medications and all of the above.

While most people around me insist that I am still the same person -I just now have a "condition" -it often doesn't feel that way to me. Instead, it feels as if cancer has rocked my foundation, and I've often said that I don't know how to be this (new) person.

My friend, Susan Babbitt, and I often talk about this issue of identity. She was diagnosed, over five years ago, with sarcoma, an aggressive cancer of the soft tissue that began and recurred in her leg, and then spread. We have been on our respective journeys
for different periods of time and in different ways, but I often seek her insight as to how she has adapted to cancer, and her wisdom has been an important resource in my living with cancer the best I can.

Sue:Susan, you've had a bunch of surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy. You've so far outlived a pretty dire prognosis. How would you describe who you are now in comparison to five years ago?

Susan:I have the same interests and commitments, the same personality, but much has changed for practical reasons. At first, I just wanted to "get my life back." But I eventually realized that if I didn't want fear, disability and cancer to rob me of my life, I had to think differently. This has affected my expectations and priorities.

Sue:How so? What has changed?

Susan:Cancer took away so much. I had never been ill before. I'd always had health, strength and energy, and I loved physical activity. And then, from one day to the next, just because of a lump on my leg, I became a seriously ill person. Eventually I couldn't ride a bike or ski, and now I can hardly walk. My life became so bizarre, with so many hospital stays and so much uncertainty, that I learned to look just at what was happening and not to think about what I wanted or expected to be happening. This requires mental discipline but it is possible. Again, it's practical. I had to accept the arbitrariness of disease. The result is that, although I feel like the same person, I no longer have much sense of that identity, or so it seems. I do and believe in the same things, but I don't think much about what I do, or whether and how it matters.

Sue:What do you mean when you say that you can't think about what you do or if it matters?

Susan:We've talked about how there's no script for living with the threat of death. Even though I teach philosophy, I had no resources to know how to face death. The challenge is: How do I not lose my life just because I'm losing my life? And I've found that as I live with what I have - which is the present -I lose not only the future, but also the past, or at least it loses importance. Perhaps that's because the past is tied to expectations for the future. It tells us something about who we are and what we can offer. Thomas Merton said that life is never absurd when you just live it, but it is always absurd when you watch yourself live it. Life with cancer is absurd enough, as you and I have laughed about. So I don't analyse what's happening. Perhaps that sounds odd, from an academic.

Sue:Not odd -just hard. In some ways, my probably having less time than I would have thought makes each remaining moment both more and less important. It's a strange tightrope to walk. Just when I think I've mastered it, cancer throws another curve ball and I find myself fighting to find my balance again.

Susan:I learned through the practice of meditation -just observing the arising and passing away of all aspects of my own being, and recognizing experientially that this is the nature of the whole universe. This serves as a tool. A focus on importance brings back the fear of losing it all -for me, at least. I lose that fear when I live just with what I have.

Sue:So, if we return to how we started this column, how would you describe your identity now?

Susan:I'd say that I now identify as part of the unfolding of a beautifully complex and mysterious universe, in love with the day-by-day ordinariness of my temporary existence.

Sue:Amidst all the ugliness of cancer, that is really beautiful, Susan. Thank you for sharing it with me.

¦ Sue Hendler is a former member of the Whig-Standard's Community Editorial Board. She is contributing regular columns on her experiences while she travels her breast cancer journey. Susan Babbitt teaches in the philosophy department at Queen's University.