By Erin Cummings
When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was to grow up as fast as I could. I impatiently awaited turning 10- “double digits,” as if it were the Holy Grail of my pre-teen years. I soon moved on to the heady anticipation of getting my driver’s license, graduating from high school, and leaving home for college. Those were the milestones that couldn’t come fast enough for me. More than anything, I was desperate to make it to five years of remission from Hodgkin lymphoma. If I could make it that far, I had a chance at all the rest.
I was careful to take nothing for granted. I knew that every day was a gift. The rug could get ripped out from underneath me at any moment. Despite my underlying fears, or maybe because of them, I plowed into life. I was determined to be a “normal” teenager- not a cancer “victim.” As each year went by, I allowed myself to think ahead. I would become a grown-up. I would have a career, a family, maybe even grandchildren. I would grow old. I had no idea that it would happen a lot faster than I thought it would.
It turns out that, while radiation and chemotherapy cured me of my original cancer, that cure came at a great cost. The late effects of those earlier cancer treatments produced a slew of medical challenges. Heart disease, lung disease, radiation fibrosis, subsequent cancers- they all add up. They add up to what we now call “accelerate aging.” I am only 68 years old, but my medical chart reads like someone in their mid-eighty’s.
Maybe that’s a small price to pay for my lasting this long, much longer than my expected expiration date, but I now know that those late effects are hurtling me toward a shorter life span than most of my peers. I am getting my wish. I am growing old–fast. But for all the wrong reasons.
Still, I am fifty-three years past diagnosis now. It is truly a miracle, considering what cancer treatment looked like in the early 70’s. As sad as I am to be facing what could be a much shorter life, I remain grateful for the one that I have now. Like the teenager I once was, I relish every day. I embrace my wrinkles, my creaking bones, and the gray hair I would have if I didn’t keep dying it. Growing old is good. It’s a blessing to be alive.