Mental Health & Faith During Cancer

Eight years is a long time to cope with having cancer. Initially, there was a lot of grief and mourning for the loss of my mobility. I was such a healthy person who exercised every day, ate healthy, and got my mammograms and pap smears regularly. I did all the right things and still ended up with cancer and a very rare motor neuron disorder. I struggled a lot with depression and anxiety. 

I was diagnosed with cancer at 58, so relatively young. I have kids and grandkids and struggled to figure out how to talk with them about this. When you’re diagnosed with Stage IV, the statistics are so grim. At the time, women diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer had about a 17% chance of living five years past their diagnosis. My husband hates when I say this, but I feel like I’m living past my expiration date. I had to come to terms with those emotions. 

Allow yourself to feel frustration and anger over your situation.

I participated in a small community on X that’s coordinated by a woman who has metastatic breast cancer. Her mother also died of breast cancer. Her handle is @thankscancer, and they talk a lot about the toxic positivity shoved at the cancer community. I understand that you shouldn’t dwell in misery, but you also need to be able to honestly vent your feelings about cancer without being told to “be positive.” That community is one place I can do that without having to be careful of either my kids’ or my husband’s feelings.

Every time I had a CT scan or PET scan, I would be so tense. With ovarian cancer, I would have to take the tumor marker test called CA-125. It’s not a good indicator for all women, which is why it’s not used as a diagnostic tool. But for me, if mine started to go up, that meant there was disease progression. I would be a wreck every time I had to get this test when I was on maintenance. Now, I’ve sort of grown a thicker skin. You can only live in that heightened anxiety state for so long. It’s almost impossible not to have anxiety, but there are ways to make it better. 

Whenever I noticed myself getting stuck in the anxiety within my own head, I tried to switch to something else.

It’s important for people with cancer to have things to do that give them joy. I would read a book or do anything else to take my mind off things.

My faith journey during cancer had a rocky start. I felt like I had done all the right things. I went to church. I went to Sunday School. I participated in serving others and made sure my kids did as well. And then this happened. Well God, why? Why is this happening to me? I went through a period of time where I was shaking my fist at the sky and questioning my faith. 

As I went along, I realized that there’s scripture to back up my struggles. Having to hang on to your faith in the face of difficult times makes it so much stronger. Scripture says that there will be trouble in this world and that God overcomes that trouble. I could recognize that I had my faith when I had nothing else to rely on.

To other Christians: It’s really important not to give glib advice to others, even others in our faith communities. Some believe that if you pray, God is going to heal you. That certainly hasn’t been the case for me. There was a family in my church that prayed and prayed and prayed that their daughter would be healed of breast cancer, and she died. Are you saying that they didn’t pray hard enough? I’m still here eight years later, but she’s not.

Let’s not put this burden on people that they just need to pray harder to get the cancer to go away.

I don’t even have any answers as someone who has been through cancer, and it frustrates me when some Christians insist that they have all the answers. I don’t think that until you walk in the shoes of someone who has cancer that you really understand what faith is required for you to continue to be a believer when your foundation has been rocked. It’s been a long journey full of work for me. 

At the same time, I can’t imagine going through this journey without faith. I remind myself constantly that I have someone who is going to walk through this with me. He may not change my situation, but He’s there with me in the midst of it.

Photo courtesy of Unsplash.