They said to go home

(Disclaimer: I found this on a bladder cancer Facebook group I am part of. I loved it, relate to it, and want to share it here. I feel like this relates to the BRCA+ journey as well.)

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They said to go home.

They said, "the scans look fine, your body will recover, you don’t need to be here anymore. The cancer might come back, but until then there’s nothing we can do.”

They said to go home.

They said, “go on and live your life. Take a breath, take a nap, maybe even take a vacation. Go back to your jobs, back to your hobbies, back to laundry, dishes, and paying the bills. Spend time with your family, meet a friend for lunch, catch a movie with your loved ones."

It sounded nice when they said to go home.

So we went home.
.

But the home we went back to wasn’t as familiar as we thought.

The paint was the right color and the furniture was in place, but it wasn't the same. Our thoughts, feelings, and interests had changed. Our relationships, jobs, and bodies felt so much different.

They said to go home, so we tried to go home, but it didn’t feel like home.

We felt lost. It was as if we had been on a path, kidnapped somewhere in the middle, turned around 20 times, and set off in a new direction. We didn’t know which way was up or down, left or right. We felt stranded in the desert- abandoned, desolate, and lonely.

They said to go home.

But home was out of reach. The home we knew didn’t exist anymore. We wandered around before trying to build a new home. But the new home crumbled and cracked, forcing us to repair, rebuild, or start completely over.

They said to go home.

But they didn’t understand. After seeing thousands of patients in this position, they still didn’t understand. It looked so simple from their perspective. Go home, go back to your life, pretend that cancer never came.

But we couldn’t go home.

Our souls were altered on the deepest level. Our hearts were shattered, our minds were chaos, and our bodies hurt. They couldn’t see it.
.

Then we saw others. “Do you know where you are going?” we asked.

“No, I feel rather lost,” they would say. “But you are welcome to join, and we can pave a new path together.”

In that moment, though we were all still lost, we felt a glimpse of home. Our hearts connected and friendships formed on the simplest notion of being aimless wanderers together.

“Your thoughts and feelings make sense given all that you’ve been through. Others may not understand, but I can see, because I’ve walked a similar path.”

“You belong here.”

Our hearts began to relax. We took a deep breath of fresh air.

They said to come home.