Living with Cancer
by Susan Steingraber, PhD

Just One Story…

In 1995, an estimated 1.2 million people in the US - 3,400 people a day - were told they had cancer. Each of these diagnoses is a border crossing, the beginning of an unplanned and unchosen journey. There is a story behind each one….

In the spring of 1994, my friend Jeannie Marshall was diagnosed for a third time with a rare cancer of the spinal cord. Both of us were writers in our 30s. Both of us became cancer patients in our 20s. Both of us grew up in communities with documented environmental contamination, high cancer rates, and suspicions that these two factors are related to each other.

In the spring of 1995, the night before Jeannie's death, I dreamed I traveled on a large boat with many other people. No shorelines were visible. Someone suggested I go for a swim. Too dangerous, I said.

But I dove in anyway, and the water was cool and crystalline. Dolphins circled me protectively. Back in the boat, I asked, "Where are we?" And someone smiled and handed me a map.

Driving across the Charles River to the hospital the next morning, I took the dream as a sign that I had accepted what I understood now to be imminent. I was wrong. I still have not accepted it.

"You understand this is a terminal event." A doctor's voice. Each heartbeat visible as data on a video screen. Slow drippings in tubes. An endless night. A blue-black dawn. A nurse's voice, as though from a distant room: "Okay. These are her last breaths now."

Outside the hospital window, tiny leaves blurred the outlines of the trees. The whole concept of spring was unbearable. I wanted to be back in Illinois in the middle of winter. I wanted to walk across frozen fields. No ocean. No leaves. No boats. She was gone

Sidebar: Welcome to the Cancer Generation