My bout with cancer

Billy Atwell is an ECU student and a cancer survivor. As a part of cancer awareness events on campus this week, Atwell wrote this piece outlining his struggle with cancer and how he got through it all.

On July 17, 2002, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. It had spread up into my abdomen onto lymph nodes behind my kidneys. After fighting through three heavy rounds of chemotherapy, three major operations, and a few minor surgeries, I was cured.

I was again diagnosed with cancer, though of a different kind, in the spring of 2007, all before my 21st birthday. This surgery required the removal of a large mass and then a reconstruction of my hip.

I do not want to spend much time on what happened to me; rather, I want to write about how I emotionally pulled through that terrible fight. There are countless stories of suffering to be read about downtrodden cancer survivors, and those who never pulled through. Mine is hardly significant being that it is so comparable to many others that you have read.

People have told me, "I don't know how you did it. I could never be as strong as you when you were sick." The first sentence of that statement is always a puzzle to me. I did it because I had no choice. There is no moral worth to the fact that I have suffered because I did not choose it. Yes, I have been made a better person in light of my experiences but I would never have chosen the path in life I have been given.

The second sentence of that statement is of greater value to those who are interested in cancer counseling and recovery. I have heard a quote that changed the way I view suffering. It reads, "It is not what happens to a man that matters, rather it is what happens within him that truly counts."

Overcoming cancer with a sound body is left up to the doctors, physicians and other experts. You have little to no accountability as to how your physical self pulls through an illness like cancer. Mentally, though, we have much more control over what happens. Having suffered through cancer twice I have taken two approaches: optimism and pessimism.

My optimism came in my first bout with cancer. I was, and still am, a firm believer in the God. I was raised Roman Catholic my entire life and my faith has played a key role in everything I do. The suffering cancer brought was a beast my faith had not experienced up until that point. I had to place a significant amount of trust in God that I was going to be OK. That is difficult to do when you are violently throwing up blood for days, wrenching with pain and hoping for death. Somehow I kept my eyes on the cross and came out happy and joyful.

My pessimism began before my second diagnosis. I began to have thoughts of my own death. I wondered if I would get cancer again. I felt like a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode. I doubted what Christ had in store for me.

My fears were realized when I was told that the lump on my hip was in fact cancer. I cried for a long time. The placement of the cancer had various potential complications. I was frustrated and scared. The last thing I wanted was to become a cancer patient again.

I asked, "Why would God do this to me? After I was so loyal and trusting in Him last time I did this, what is there left for me to prove?" I spent months lonely and depressed. I stopped praying or caring about God. I felt as though He had left me alone in the desert. I came to the conclusion that if believing in Him didn't seem to change anything about my situation then why go through the trouble of glorifying Him with faith?

To make this short and readable, I will get to the point. My deliberations are of little consequence, it is my conclusion that matters. My trials and tribulations have given me all that I hold dear. Without cancer I wouldn't have many of the friends that I have, I wouldn't be a volunteer cancer counselor, I wouldn't have made proposals for cancer support programs to professionals in the field, my faith in God would not be as strong, and my relationship with my family wouldn't be as fruitful as it is.

My profits have far exceeded the costs, because of my overall optimism. Suffering isn't about what happens to you and all the pain and struggle involved. Suffering is about taking your situation and seeing the good. Stars shine brightest at night. In suffering, the beauty of good can shine through, if you let it. When you look into the sky at night it's easy to see the darkness all around, but what makes it beautiful is the small, piercing glimmers of light that shine through. It is in those glimmers of light that we find purpose and hope.