Surviving the Cure: Cancer was Easy,* Living is Hard

I thought I knew cancer. After all, I’d lived it. And when I went into remission, I thought I was in the clear. It wouldn’t be long before I could get back to a normal life and rejoin my friends.

However, I soon learned cancer was only the beginning. Not long after I returned home, my lungs started failing. The cure was killing me.

Extreme treatments prevented an all-but-certain death, but at great cost: 100 pounds of weight gain, emotional and mental trauma, and a bone disease for which joint replacements were the only fix.

Though I was in physical and mental agony after my release from the hospital, I decided to try to piece together a life worth living. One where I could be happy, could joke about my condition, could have the best parking spots. Maybe even one day hold the supremely enviable world record for most joints replaced.

But none of that could happen until I picked myself up. The only question was: could I?