Five years. I’m torn between exclaiming that “five years” is a long time and lamenting how quickly those years pass, how fast five years can be.
To borrow a phrase my grad school department frequently champions, I’ve been “living in the tension” of how short five years are and yet how much can happen in them.
This past weekend was my five year reunion during Wheaton’s Homecoming. I felt that tension this weekend when I saw the physical signs of the passage of time: several college friends have a child or two, many are married, a few are done with med school and into their residencies, a couple are practicing attorneys, and others are in their sixth year of teaching. By those accounts, a lot can happen in five years.
Despite the fact that I’m technically where I was five years ago—since I’m at Wheaton—a lot has happened in the past five years for me, too: I’ve lived in Hawaii {twice}; I wrote a book; I published that book; I lived in Dallas for a year; I’m in my second year living in Wheaton; I’m in my final semester of grad school. A lot has happened in the past five years since my college graduation, and when I catalogue all of the crazy moves and amazing adventures I’ve had, my college graduation seems like a long time ago.
However, I saw friends whom I hadn’t seen since that day—May 10th, 2009—and we picked up like five years were nothing. I was talking with a non-Wheaton friend about how excited I was for my reunion, and she asked what kind of Homecoming traditions Wheaton has, since her university has many. I thought it over and said, “Ummm…not really any…?” which made me feel a little gypped. When I saw a group of my friends and started smiling from ear to ear, I realized that simply seeing people was enough of a draw for me, and my friend Wendy commented on that later in the day. She pointed out that because Wheaton was a pretty intentional community (not that all other universities aren’t), we were all excited enough to come back to Homecoming not because of some epic event or tradition but because we wanted to talk to people. How funny that holding a conversation is enough, and yet, all of the conversations I had this weekend left me energized, encouraged, and so thankful—once again—for having attended Wheaton. I tried to describe why it was such an amazing weekend, and I don’t think many people got it when I said, “Because I saw and talked with friends!”
Maggie and me at our 5 year Wheaton reunion
I wrote about one friend, Maggie. in my book—how she hugged me when I erupted into tears in my Drugs in Society class. We’ve stayed in touch since undergrad, texting here and there and commenting on each other’s social media posts, but we hadn’t seen each other since graduation. When I saw Maggie enter our Homecoming barbecue, I jumped up and she jogged over, and we gave each other big hugs. Though our stories have led us to different places—hers to Nigeria for a year and then Minneapolis since then and mine to Hawaii, Dallas, Hawaii again, and back to Wheaton—they have not gone on separately. They have continued across distance to grow, and seeing and talking with Maggie again was one of many highlights of my weekend.
What’s the big deal? Why write about a five year reunion? Part of me is admittedly sentimental, since many of those I saw this weekend were an important part of my journey detailed in What in the World Are You Doing with Cancer? Since I hadn’t seen many of those friends since graduation, it also meant I hadn’t seen many of them since my whole lymphoma adventure. Though I appreciated those friends back then and told them thank you, with time and space from the event in which to process and become even more grateful for the encouragement and love that surrounded me in my trial, I looked so forward to seeing them this weekend.
This reunion wasn’t just about seeing people from my college classes again. The reunion meant seeing people and getting to hug them and appreciate the role they played in one of the more challenging seasons of my life. It meant getting to affirm that, though I still had one more treatment to complete after graduation day in 2009, life has moved on: my hair is long again, my scars are mostly gone {curse you, square tape-made tattoo on my left bicep}, and my health is great. Maybe I wanted to affirm the truth, which I clung to back then amidst the trial and still believe today, that God is faithful, and the friendships which remind me of Hodgkin’s are reminders of that truth.
I’m getting long-winded {shock}. If you’ve put together the fact that I finished chemo four days after graduation and just had my five year reunion, you may be wondering about that big milestone known as “The Five Year Checkup.” It’s a biggie—and I feel pretty shameful that I haven’t talked about it yet, especially since it was over a month ago. However…
I’m officially five years cancer-free!
I know my family and most of my friends know that and it’s month-old news, but it’s still worth celebrating. Praise the Lord! In the cancer world, people call this the “Five Year Cancerversary.”
I spoke to an Epidemiology class at Wheaton a week or two ago because they were talking about prognosis and I’d just hit that big milestone. At the end of briefly sharing my story {before they prayed for me! I love Wheaton}, I said, “God is faithful, cancer or not.” I meant that and believe it. However, given that I’d just shared the praise of remission, I should have said that God is faithful, remission or not. That’s something I’m always conscious of when I get good reports—God is no more faithful after a good report than He was the day I found out I had cancer. I didn’t understand what He was doing that strange November day, but He was still faithful and sovereign. I want to be conscious of that when I share my praise for healing. Though it might be easier to praise God when I’m five years cancer-free, if the results of my test showed my cancer had returned, God would still be worthy of praise. Even though I’ve know I’m five-years cancer-free for over a month, praise the Lord!
My sister Madelyn’s fiance’s sister {yeah, there’s no good way to say that} drove up two hours from Bloomington, Illinois to come to my appointment with me so that I wouldn’t have to go alone. She was so sweet, and as much as I saw the service that others did for me during cancer, I’ve continued to see it since then as people like Ande will go out of their way to attend check-ups with me.
Me and Ande celebrating my 5 year “Cancerversary”
After my appointment, Ande and I walked around downtown Chicago a bit and then ventured up to the 96th floor “Signature Lounge” of the famous John Hancock building. We had dessert and a champagne toast to my five years of remission followed by a challenging game of “I Spy” from up so high. {Who knew the roofs of so many Chicago buildings had greenery on them? Not a lot of variety for “I Spy” purposes.} We toasted to all that God has done in me and through my story of lymphoma and all that will still come from it.
At my appointment, I asked Dr. Gordon, “So, ‘Five Years.’ If my lymphoma comes back after five years, I get to be studied or something, right?” He chuckled and agreed. I mean, I don’t want to say it’s impossible—stranger things have happened, and getting cancer seemed pretty “impossible” to begin with, but still…. People don’t use the word “cured” with cancer, but five years of remission from Hodgkin’s signifies the closest thing to “cured” that exists.
Since five years is such a big milestone in remission, I’ll close with a letter of thanks to my one-time companion, Hodgkin’s lymphoma:
Thank you, Hodgkin’s, for shaking up my life in ways I actually and very literally could not have thought possible. You made things exciting, surreal, and dramatic. You tried to give me many opportunities for anxiety, and yet, you may have failed at your job because I was strangely at peace with you despite my anxious tendencies. You caused my own body to attack itself. Not cool. However, five years later, it’s kind of cool that I can say I once had four tumors, so thanks for that conversational trump card. Thank you for helping me decide that I look much better with hair, and preferably hair longer than my ears; without you, I may have always {read: never} wondered about that. Thank you for inadvertently reminding me that we get one shot in life, so I want to live an awesome story, one that’s awesome because it’s part of a much greater story.
And so, let me close with the words of one of my students as he walked across the stage at his high school graduation: “It’s been real; it’s been fun; it’s been real fun.”
Thanks for reading, thanks for celebrating, thanks for praying, and thanks for encouraging. May you go about your day in peace!
On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
Hannah