Last week, I walked out to my car, which had been parked on the street, to find that someone had hit it. The driver’s side mirror was ripped off, the wheel cover was smashed and the side was dented.
Two things immediately became evident: 1) we were lucky that the person responsible had left us a note with their phone number, (2) we were going to have to completely restructure our travel expectations for the foreseeable future.
While I found a lot to be grateful for in the situation, it also reminded me of a traffic analogy that I have used to describe what happens after you’re handed a cancer diagnosis.
(Photo by Scott Greer on Unsplash)
Being told you have cancer is like getting into a traffic accident: you’re moving along with everyone else in their cars, focusing on getting to where you need to be, and then all of a sudden *CRASH*.
You pull your car over to the side, still stunned by the collision, and take stock of the damage to both your vehicle and yourself.
And as you stand there, all that traffic that you were moving along with has left you behind. You are no longer part of the natural flow of things. All the plans that you had to be somewhere and expectations for what you were going to do this week and next…all of that stops.
You hear the noisy din of traffic and the “Dopplered” sounds of cars zooming by, feeling the whoosh of air as they pass. But when there’s a lull in the traffic, the quiet brings on loneliness, as if the other travelers have moved on and you’ve been forgotten.
(Photo by Viktor Kiryanov on Unsplash)
Now you have to rework your life. Instead of taking your ability to move through the city for granted, you’re scrambling to figure out what you’re going to have to cancel, how you’ll get to where you need to go and what the immediate future will look like until you get your car back in working order.
In the meantime, you see everyone else progressing along, as they have been, completely unaware of what life looks like in the breakdown lane. Having pleasant conversations, arriving at work on time, meeting with business associates, eating from cafeteria salad bars without the need to double disinfect their lettuce and tomatoes.
Not needing to schedule multiple appointments or surgeries or infusions or radiation treatments. It is such a different life!
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Shortly after receiving a cancer diagnosis there’s so much going on that it can be difficult to articulate everything you’re feeling, and those around you might have a hard time relating. I’ve found that this analogy can be helpful in relaying what the experience is like.
See if this works for you too.
Frantic Shanti 