After One Year of Cancer Treatment, My Mom is Now in Remission

Here are 2 crucial lessons I’ve learned from it all.

Last September, my mom got diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer.

She was reluctant to tell us. You know moms. They always put on brave faces for their children.

As soon as she told us on a call, I dropped my phone in shock. My hand quivered in terror. You see, I always had some sort of empathy for people who had a loved one with cancer. It’s obviously a tragic thing, and sometimes a death sentence. However, there’s only so much empathy you can give when you’ve never had a close family member experience it.

A million possibilities ran through my mind the second I found out. The biggest one, of course, was death.

My mother went through a year and three months of treatment. She had several months of chemotherapy, radiation, and a few cycles of chemo pills to boot.

It was tough seeing her lose all of her hair during the first couple of months. She told me how much she cried herself to sleep at night. She even took anti-depressants to deal with the mental challenges of being a cancer patient. I’d call her during her check-ups to make sure she was alright.

Luckily, her cancer wasn’t as horrible as we thought.

The whole process went well in terms of destroying the cancer cells. The small lump in her breast decreased slowly in her first months of chemotherapy and things got even better from there. It feels like it took forever for us to get to remission, but it finally happened.

My mother is officially a cancer survivor.

And here’s what her experience has taught me.

Laughter is The Best Medicine

I took a medical sociology college course in light of my mom’s diagnosis.

In that course, I learned that laughter is a great way to reduce cancer cells. It sounds weird. Research has found that:

“Laughter immediately improves our body’s capacity to kill or eliminate cancer cells.”

We all know there are tons of underlying factors as to why someone gets cancer (e.g. lifestyle, environment, stress). My mother is single. She’s always struggled to find jobs that pay well. She’s also raising two kids with tons of other bills.

There’s an obvious reason why black people are more likely to get cancer than white people. It’s the same reason why black people died from COVID the most.

STRESS.

Black people, as a collective, don’t live in the best places. We don’t have the best-paying jobs. We don’t have easy access to markets with fresh produce. We also have, um, American racism to deal with.

Since most of these sociological factors won’t be fixed overnight, laughter is the best medicine for black people right now. My mom always thought I was funny, but I amped it up more after I found this out.

In some ways, I think this helped with her treatment.

Have Tons More Fun With Your Loved Ones

Yesterday I saw the new SpiderMan movie with my mom.

I planned on seeing it with my sister, but she didn’t make it back home in time. To be honest, I’m glad I saw it with my mom. She smiled every single time I looked at her. We talked about the movie for a while on the way back home.

We never really get those mother-daughter moments anymore since I’m in college, but it was refreshing to do something with her again.

I’ve also had two other extended family members die this year.

I see things in a different light now. I’m no longer that sheltered baby girl who didn’t know what death was or turned a blind eye to those with cancer because I was too freaked out to understand.

Shit, we’re all gonna die.

You might as well create long-lasting moments with your family while you’re still here. Heck, my friendships have changed too. I’m way more inclined to hang out with my friends now because I have no idea if I’ll see them again after college.

I just want to be present in everyone’s life more often.

Final Thought

Thank you so much to those of you who have supported me when I first announced the bad news.

My mom and I are grateful for everyone's support. Remember, laughter is the best medicine, and cherish those moments with your loved ones. You never know why or how somebody gets cancer. All you know is they have it and they need your support.

I salute everyone who is battling cancer right now. I know you can beat it.

Fuck cancer.

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