Agony and Absurdity: Adventures in Cancerland

Living with breast cancer can be absurd. Often, though, the absurdities are kept behind the curtain and shared only with other women living in Cancerland—the tactless comment from a co-worker about how attractive we used to be when we still had hair, breast implants that explode or prostheses that are left behind, accidentally, in the vacation house, and a new wig that makes a woman feel more like Tina Turner than herself. You’ll never hear more raucous laughter than that coming from a room full of women sharing their breast cancer experiences. And, in a hot second, that room can turn into a puddle full of tears, given the agony of cancer—saying goodbye to parts of ourselves that are taken in the name of treatment, or to our sisters who do not survive this disease. In bringing these stories forward, we share the painful, the profound, and the ridiculous. We heal, too. And, through these stories, we hope to increase the understanding of the young patient and survivor experience, and to illuminate the dark spaces for those who will walk this path in the future.