Chadwick Boseman

I suppose you have already read about the recent death of Chadwick Boseman, but I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. I don’t usually follow celebrities, but his initial cancer diagnosis, stage 3 colon cancer, is the same as what I was diagnosed with in January.

It’s amazing what he was able to accomplish in the final few years of his life, all the while secretly undergoing chemotherapy and surgeries. I don’t know at what point his stage 3 progressed to stage 4, but it would had to have been fairly quickly. His initial diagnosis of stage 3 was only in 2016.

That’s consistent with the statistics. If my cancer were to come back as stage 4, it would likely happen within the next couple of years. The longer I go without it transitioning to stage 4, the less likely it will come back at all. I’m not considered “cured” until 7 years pass, however.

The fact that this has been in the news has been unsettling for me. It makes it real somehow, that yes, real people (young, wealthy, successful people, even) can die of this. I’m still really grappling with that. Some days I don’t even think about it, other days I wrestle with a sense of my own mortality.

John is the one who is the most impacted by my difficult days and is my primary support. But I also have a weekly cancer support group. And I occasionally hire a life coach, about once per month. And I have a “peer support” specialist, who is like a therapist but with different training. I’m also part of a “compassionate listening” group, where we practice active listening techniques. As we practice our listening techniques we are essentially providing therapy for each other, even though that’s not the actual goal. So I have a lot of support.

Here’s more about Chadwick Boseman in case you missed it in the news:

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/08/chadwick-boseman/615868

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