At the time of diagnosis with breast cancer, we had a sense of having passed into a parallel universe similar to the one we were in before, but changed in a few crucial details - now Jen has an incurable disease, and five years seems an unimaginably long time. Now we understand the experience of others with cancer in a way we never did before. Now those damn pink ribbons seem to be everywhere. Now it becomes a foreign country.
That sense of identification with other cancer sufferers (other than one or two who are close friends) is a bit like meeting another Australian when you're overseas - in normal circumstances you might not bother to talk to them, but the fact of being connected to your distant home gives you something important in common. Not that everyone with cancer feels the same way or has the same experiences, but there's an underlying appreciation of the grim reality behind the avalanche of cliches about being positive and brave etc.
I don't mean that you, the person without cancer, can't understand what it's like for us in this parallel universe, this foreign land. With empathy and thoughtfulness anyone can begin to appreciate the view from this side. But it's the difference between being a visitor to this land and living here. Those who are "fortunate" to have only an early stage breast cancer may go into remission - perhaps like returning to their home country, their first universe, but only with provisional citizenship. It reminds me of the temporary protection visas for refugees in the Howard era -- at intervals your case is up for review, and you could just as easily be sent "back" to that other world.
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What a meaningful metaphor. I've entered one of those "foreign lands" myself recently (different and much less threatening, though still serious). Yes indeed - it was "always there" ("those damn pink ribbons") but suddenly now oneself is in it, too, and you only find our way out of it one day at a time. But as you mention, with cancer, there is the fear of being sent back. It is profound. Your reference to the dread Howard era is so evocative - truly, speaking of a time when all the truths we valued and the things we felt we all believed in were being insulted, thrown aside, turned upside down, abused and held in contempt. How strongly you must have those feelings, too, about your experiences at the unfeeling, purposeless hands of cancer.
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