The After

This is another layer of the after, one I did not anticipate when treatment ended, but one that has quietly shaped how I experience survivorship now. One of the strangest parts of life after treatment is the silence. During diagnosis and treatment, everything is loud. Appointments, phone calls, instructions, schedules, people checking in. Your days are shaped by what comes next, and even when it is overwhelming, there is a strange sense of containment in being constantly guid

Treatment ends, but the story does not. One month into the steady phase, I am learning that cancer is not an on off switch, and that returning to normal is not the goal. This is about finding a new steady, living with uncertainty, and moving forward without pretending nothing changed.