Checkups during treatment can be anxiety-provoking. Why celebrate, especially if you still have a long way to go? Cancer taught me about celebrating each step.
Checkups are like “weigh stations,”. Commerical truckers must stop there for inspection of their vehicle’s weight and safety features. After passing inspection, they can proceed. At first blush, stopping at weigh stations seems like a purely stressful interruption. Let’s think about weigh stations another way.
Checkpoints mark truckers’ progress toward their final destination. The inconvenience is for a good cause: preventing problems. Picking up safety issues empowers truckers to address them before they cause any accidents. All good, eh?
Each checkup, like a weigh station, marks a journey you have traveled. Healthy Survivors—namely patients who get good care and live as fully as possible—don’t put off celebrating.
(Excerpt from Time to Celebrate.)
Celebrations infuse meaning and joy where calendars coldly mark the passing of time. A uniquely human endeavor, cake and balloons and music and laughter create a sensory feast intended to trigger or enhance the innate high of an anniversary or accomplishment.
When times are good, celebrations keep me grateful. And humble. When times are tough, not everything or every day is celebrated. But occasional celebrations acknowledge all that is right in the world and help me find happiness. And hope.
Illustration by Emma Mathes
Healing Hope (Harpham; 2018)
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