[2022-01-01] A new year

Nelson Mandela wisely said,

It always seems impossible until it's done.

That quote seems especially fitting as we enter the third year of COVID. On many days, it seems impossible that we will ever emerge from the pandemic. And yet, one day, the pandemic will end.

2022 also represents the third year of my dealing with cancer. I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in July 2020, underwent surgery in August 2020 and completed chemotherapy in January 2021. I underwent a second cancer-related surgery in November 2021 for what my surgical oncologist thought was a small patch of precancerous cells but which turned out to be perianal skin cancer. I will start radiation in January 2022 and hope to complete my 25 rounds in early February 2022. Perhaps Mandela's quote is less applicable to cancer, or at least certain types of cancer, but some aspects of treatment do come to an end.

It is so easy to be discouraged when we're in the middle of a crisis and too easy to forget that we have successfully surmounted challenges in the past. For example, I could be disheartened that I need to undergo radiation therapy. However, when I think back to my chemotherapy treatment, I recall how quickly it came and went. I was done before I knew it, ringing the bell.

When I get depressed or sad or angry, I find that it helps to change perspective. I recently read an interesting post on LinkedIn about the challenges people faced a century ago. The post begins: "For a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were born in 1900."
  • When you were 14, the First World War began and continued until you were 18. Known as the war to end all wars, it resulted in the deaths of 22 million people.
  • When you were 18, the Spanish Flu pandemic began and continued until you were 20. It infected 500 million people around the globe, one-third of the world's population, and killed 50 million people.
  • When you were 29, the Great Depression began. Unemployment hit 25%.
  • When you were 39, the Second World War began and continued until you were 45. It resulted in the deaths of 75 million people, either as casualties of war or war-related disease and famine.
  • When you were 50, the Korean War began and continued until you were 53. It resulted in 5 million deaths.
  • When you were 64, the Vietnam War began and continued until you were 75. It resulted in 4 million deaths.
And over those 75 years and more, you no doubt experienced countless personal tragedies.

My maternal grandmother was born in 1896 and witnessed all these events, save for the final two years of the Vietnam War. And she experienced private trials as well, including poverty, miscarriages and the deaths of two children, all before medicare existed in this country.

Even if we don't look to population-level calamities to put our current woes in a new light, we can reflect on our own history of facing and overcoming obstacles.

In my case, that included the death of my father when I was 9 and a major fire just one month later that destroyed two barns on our farm. It included the need for three surgeries to deal with recurring breast infections when I was 35 and 36. It included the loss of my brother Greg when I was 53, and the start of the COVID pandemic a few months later, an event that consumed almost every moment of my life for months. It included treatment for ovarian cancer at 54 and perianal skin cancer at 55. Add to this the personal and health challenges of my husband, kids and extended family, and I've overcome a lot.

And yet, I'm still here—grateful for the love and support of my family and friends, grateful for medicare and science and our healthcare system, grateful for the strength and resilience I have developed over the years.

As we start a new year, with many of us in a very different place from where we thought we would be on January 1, 2022, it may help to consider all the hardships we have faced and overcome and to remember that "It always seems impossible until it's done."