I have decided to call bullshit on the Hollywood films’ versions of cancer. I don’t watch every movie that has ever been made but in my experience the main character has a happy life until some doctor shows up diagnosing them with cancer. That character is shown shortly after sitting in a room surrounded by other bald patients who are not only receiving chemo but look miserable in the process. That night the main character is shown getting out of bed and throwing up while their significant other stays peacefully asleep. Again, I call bullshit.

I had no idea what I was getting into or what to expect a month ago when I was diagnosed so the only reference I had were from film portrayals. I couldn’t have been more off track. The first few weeks of being in the hospital are boring and uneventful. When I needed chemo the nurse hooked up my port in my chest to my IV pole that held the treatment and that was it. The symptoms of chemo don’t even show up until a couple of days later so I felt perfectly fine the first week being inpatient. Basically, for the first couple of weeks I was just waiting for the drugs to make me sick and miserable. Which is also bullshit by the way because when you have cancer you have to get sicker and sicker and sicker before you get better. Anyway, the first treatment wasn’t terrible because the only side effect I had was jaw pain three days later. The second was worse, bringing new symptoms that are super totally funtastic but what really sucked was the third treatment where all the pain, nausea, and cancer really hit me.

Moving on, the movies also seem to skim over how much time is spent in the hospital. I was inpatient for 30 days and thought everything was in the clear and I didn’t have to go back for a full week when I would receive another round of chemo BUT NOooOO my body decided to put me back for three days because of complications. I feel like the hospital is more my home than my actual house. I am friends with different nurses and staff that I see walking around, I know the weekly soup schedule by heart, and I can successfully navigate the back corrals of children’s to get to the staff elevators. Movies leave out these huge parts because to a story line it might not matter, but as a cancer patient I can say that the time waiting for orders, for results. or even for food are the most important. These small moments are what have determined how comfortable my treatment is and the type actions I can take to make the next year of my life mean something more than “the year I had cancer”.

I’m not saying all films that depict cancer treatments are unreliable because I haven’t seen every film shown, but I want people top know that there is more to cancer than going bald and getting sick. It is creating meaningful relationships with nurses and doctors. It is feeling pain in every joint and not being able to sit up yourself without help. It is taking 12 pills each morning and each night knowing that you are willingly poisoning yourself so that all the cancer cells are cleared out. Cancer is seeing kids wait with anticipation for the play room to open but it is also seeing kids that can’t leave their room for fear of infection. It is miracles and it is devastation. Cancer is whatever you think it is, but one fact is always true; cancer is stupid.