Forget Cancer Milestones — Try Cancer Stepping Stones

We hear about milestones all the time.

We hear about them as children learn to walk and talk. We hear them at school as we close out one grade level and approach the next. We look forward to getting our driver’s license, graduating college, advancing in our careers, getting married, having children. We keep striving for the next notch in our belt of life. 

But milestones in the world of cancer don’t hit quite the same.

Life after cancer left me looking forward toward milestones with one eye shut. Before cancer, I was fortunate. I was in good health, I had a job that contributed to our bills, and I had found the love of my life and created the little people running around me. In many ways, I took those milestones for granted. 

When I received my cancer diagnosis, nothing seemed granted anymore. I didn’t know what the landscape ahead looked like. I didn’t even know if there would be any more milestones. 

A New Set of Milestones

There would be milestones after cancer treatment, of course — just a very different type. Your first clean scan. Your first day back to work. The first time you feel good being intimate with your new body. Even something like your first workout, run, bike ride or whatever when you feel strong again.

All of these things are worth looking forward to and celebrating. They’re also incredibly daunting. Why? 

For me, after I received my cancer diagnosis, every situation felt like life or death. And I suppose, in turn, my milestones also became life or death. If I couldn’t hit them as quickly or smoothly as I thought I was supposed to, the anxiety became too much. I could not find a way to look forward to these big events but not make each one an all-or-nothing situation.

The problem was right there in the word big. I usually have a hard time managing things around me when I look for the big. I needed to look smaller — not less meaningful, but smaller markers that didn’t give me the all-or-nothing feeling. I started to break almost everything down for myself. 

I asked, “What if instead of milestones, I look for the stepping stones? Wouldn’t that be more manageable?”

I started with my fitness, something that was really important to me before cancer. Getting back into shape really helped open my eyes to this idea of stepping stones. At first, I thought I was going to step back into the gym, have a tough couple of months, then be back in shape. No problem, right? 

Wrong. 

I remember my first trip back to the gym. I walked down the stairs with my kids in tow, gave my trainer, Emily, a hug and said, “Alright, where do we start?” She sat me down in compression boots and said, “This is your first step, nothing more today, just the compression boots.”

I remember being totally gutted and thinking, “This is not the way it's supposed to go.” But she was right (don’t tell her that!). I had to deal with what was at hand, and what was at hand were really swollen legs that probably wouldn't have been able to do very much anyhow. I wanted to skip over this part and accomplish what I had set out to do, get back in shape. And I tried to. I tried working out on my own, doing things I had done before this all started. Each attempt would leave me in a heap of tears feeling like a failure. 

But once Emily and I started breaking things down, I was able to feel successful. I could look forward, just not too far. We threw away everything that we did before and started fresh. We started with a lot of stretching and focused on weights.  We did three different exercises, three times and would move on. I rode my bike on the days I was not with Emily and made a goal to ride for at least 20 minutes. We would laugh; I would complain. I would be disappointed in how slow things were moving, but Emily was so supportive and we would talk about what my body had been through and the science behind the workout and how taking small steps was going to benefit me in the long run. And truthfully, we are all here for the long game, aren’t we? 

Spreading the Stepping Stones

Seeing how well they worked for fitness, I applied stepping stones to other areas of my life. 

On one of my first days back to work in real estate, I wondered if my clients were going to have confidence in me. Would they question me as I stare at them like a deer in headlights searching for a vocabulary word with my bald head. In turn, would I have the capacity to have compassion for their issues — issues that to me, at that time in my life, were not real issues? Issues to me at that time were, “Are you going to be here to see your children grow up?” not, “This basement ceiling is too low for me to run on my treadmill.”

“Once Emily and I started breaking things down, I was able to feel successful. I could look forward, just not too far.”

I thought back to the days after my first treatment, when I knew my hair was on its way out. I decided to dye my hair platinum blonde because I would never have the guts to do it any other way. I remember walking into a showing just after that. I was uncomfortable, I didn’t know that I wanted to tell the clients what was going on. Only the wife was home at the time, and when she saw me, she said, “Oh my gosh, your hair, it is so different, I love it!” At that moment, I surrendered to the truth. I said, “Yes, the next time you see me I will likely be bald, I am going through treatment for breast cancer.”

The next time I was in their home, I was bald, standing in their kitchen as the sun was gleaming through the back sliding doors that looked out onto their gorgeous yard. The husband walked in through the backdoor from work, put his bag down, walked right over to me and just gave me the biggest hug. I don’t even remember if he said anything, but those 5 seconds helped instill a nugget of confidence in me to keep showing up. It helped me believe that small things lead to big wins and eventually accumulate to create the milestones I am used to seeing. But right then, it had to be small and steady and based on the here and now. 

I took my work showing by showing and tried to remind myself this time in my life is hard, but it will not always be this hard. I recognized that people are not wrong for having issues that I didn’t really think were issues. Maybe one day soon, I could have an issue like that again.  I just needed to do what was in front of me, keep putting one foot in front of the other. I showed up to every showing, with insane hair and shaky courage, and you know what I discovered?  People showed up for me too.

It’s been a little over 5 years of small stepping. Those years didn’t go by in a blink of an eye, yet somehow I don't know how they have already passed. They were made up of so many small moments strung together. 

I am able to handle more of the big as the years go by, but I still break things down for myself so I don’t get overwhelmed. Stepping stones made it easier for me to reframe my past and present, knowing that I always want to be looking forward but make sure it’s laced with the past. It helped me decide that even though there were so many times I wanted to forget, now I wanted to remember. Remember how love-soaked I was from people in my life and that painful incisions heal step by step and become a story. I receive a gentle reminder every night as I swallow my white pill down, as I hope to drink in security and time, knowing there is no guarantee no matter the milestone. 

Time can be such a funny thing. We wish it away in hard times, wish it to stand still in joyous times and wish for more when we know it is fleeting. For right now, I just want to be with time, right where I am, with the company I keep — counting small steps rather than the mileage.