Seamus McKiernan the writer on his first major trip since the diagnosis of leukemia two years ago.Like many other patients with cancer in hospital beds or in the suites of chemotherapy, I spent a good amount of time fantasizing on fly on a tropical island. Some part of me knew that the fantasy would really escape my illness, but despite this, I made a hobby of watching aircraft in the sky and dreaming of white sandy beaches.
Suleika Jaouad writes about his experience of young adult cancer.One of the most difficult parts on the development of leukemia at the age of 22 years was it was how restrictive: my treatments left me very sensitive to infection and reduced mobility. Aircraft were strictly prohibited. Even a trip to my cellar required district plastic a mask protection and gloves to protect me against microbes. Prolonged stays in Oncology have been especially difficult, because the trip was so closely tied to my identity.
When I was growing up, travelling has been operating mode from my family. Between the ages of 4 and 18, I attended six different schools on three different continents. In the world of the children of expat, there are roughly four types of "Brats": business, military, outdoor and 'other '. I guess you could say that my younger brother, Adam and I enter the last of them. Our family was constantly moving between New York in Switzerland (where my mother is from) and Tunisia (homeland of my father). My mother, an artist and my father, a Professor of foreign literature, often had to pick up and move to new jobs.
It is not always easy, but I learned to love to move. I quickly learned to be an expert to be the new kid on the block. Travel gave me the opportunity to reinvent myself. You can imagine my excitement when, a year after my transplant, bone marrow and two years after my cancer diagnosis my doctors gave me permission to take my first big trip since the cancer. Freedom, finally!
That's how I found myself the tail to Kennedy airport holding a boarding international last week. After watching dozens of photos of exotic islands online, I chose the island of Capri in Italy as my destination. With its coastal views breathtaking and the Mediterranean climate, it seemed that the perfect escape.
More destination itself, I was impatient, a week in any case, to be just Suleika and not Suleika Cancer Patient. I could have fooled most people. If you did not notice the scars of the catheter on my chest, or the slight bulge of a central catheter, implanted under my collarbone, or the case of the pill oversized in my handbag, I looked like a young woman in good health with a short hairstyle that am pinned punky as more than post-chemo. In a strange way, I was the new kid once again. (Finally, except my boyfriend, Seamus, who was at my side during the trip and was probably worried more often than otherwise.)
The anonymity that accompanies the trip was exciting, and it is a welcome relief that nobody would be raising the C - word. But even if I was anonymous to others, it became too obvious to me that it wasn't as friendly, I had taken in the past. And it had to do with the latitude and longitude where I was. My body was not in the kind of shape to travel what it used to be. Despite the beautiful views, walk around the island has been exhausting. The water was hot, but I had not swum in two years - a few shots and I made myself. Foods are perhaps exotic, but they mainly place me. I had to stay away the enticing caprese salads for fear that fresh tomatoes and basil leaves may contain bacteria harmful to my weakened immune system. By day 3, I had come down with a cold. I spent these last days under an umbrella while sipping a hot ginger tea and my nose all a few minutes.
Do not misunderstand. I have still some time in the Sun, a break in the suite of chemo and my daily gelato (or three). Overall, I feel lucky to have been able to make the trip. But it wasn't the escape that I had dreamed. I couldn't totally away from Suleika the Patient suffering from Cancer, but maybe it was not bad at all. I missed my family, which I grew up close to since my diagnosis and I looked forward to seeing my friends, many of whom are in the treatment of cancer just like me. For the first time in my life, I wanted to go back home - a concept that had always seemed so foreign to me growing up.
Suleika Jaouad (pronounced su-Lake-UH ja - WAD) is a 24-year old writer who lives in New York City. His column, "life, Interrupted," recounting his experiences as a young woman with cancer, appears regularly on many. Follow his updates on Twitter or Facebook.
Suleika Jaouad writes about his experience of young adult cancer.
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