How Fall and My Daughter’s Cancer Go Together for Me

My daughter’s chemotherapy started at the end of Spring and went right through the Summer, informing every minute of our lives for those months. There was very little frolicking in the sun because of the increased photosensitivity and how she felt most of the time. As we went into Fall and counted the days down until that part of treatment was done, we knew that the punishing side effects were coming to an end, and the sense of anticipation was huge.

Fall is my favorite season, and I was looking forward to sitting outside with my girl enjoying the crisp air knowing that it wouldn’t end with me tucking her under a blanket on the couch for a rest. I couldn’t wait for us to go for walks in the crisp air without her feet hurting from neuropathy. I visualized us being able to go into a café for a pumpkin-spice something since her immune system would be back up and running and encountering people would no longer be a danger.

Fall represented freedom.

As the leaves fell from their branches and rakes came out to clear them away, I realized it was time to do some mental cleanup as well. I sorted my thoughts into piles of yellow, orange, brown, and red and slowly but surely stuffed them into bags and put them on my emotional curb for pickup.

Yellow was shifting my thoughts into things like Tuesdays being just another day of the week instead of chemo day. Orange was learning to breathe through things like seeing foods on the grocery shelves that we had purchased in the hope she could eat them and recognizing that they were just… food. Brown was sorting through all the crappy things that had happened to my girl during chemotherapy and accepting that just maybe the worst of them was over.

The red ones, however, were a lot more difficult and the bags kept falling over and dumping them back on my mental lawn.

Red was the helplessness, the fear, the anger. It was all the big emotions that I had been shoving down while I was in action mode, making sure things got done. I worked very hard to manage them, but just as I would think I had swept up the last red leaf, a trigger would appear, and my emotional landscape would be covered in them once again.

It took more than one fall for me to finally put that bag of red leaves onto the curb. The never-ending nature of cancer kept bringing one more scan, one more appointment, one more instance of playing the waiting game when results were pending, that whipped that pile into the air like a sudden gust of wind.

But as the years have passed, as seasons have rolled one into the other, I have been able to step back and not let the bad stuff in so easily. There are still times when I will look down, and there are a few yellow, orange, brown, or red leaves on the ground around me related to my girl’s cancer experience. But now, I close my eyes and breathe in the autumn air as I wrap my arms around my heart and feel my daughter still there. I feel the joy of her existence as we move into my favorite time of year, and I pick up the phone.

“Hey Adrienne… want to go for a pumpkin-spice something this afternoon?”

This piece reflects the author’s personal experience and perspective. For medical advice, please consult your health care provider.

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