Mine might read:
Warning ⚠️
This body has an expiration date. So does yours, the difference is that mine has been highlighted, underlined, and discussed in conference rooms by people wearing white coats. When someone tells you they have terminal cancer, please don’t mistake certainty for surrender. I am still living. I’m just living with a clock that everyone pretends they can’t hear ticking.
Warning ⚠️
May still Google symptoms despite already knowing how this story ends. Hope is funny that way, not because I expect to find a miracle buried on page seventeen of the internet, but because somewhere inside me still lives the person who believes every ache deserves an explanation. Sometimes I search because I want answers. Sometimes I search because uncertainty is somehow harder than bad news and sometimes I search because being informed feels like the only control I have left.
Warning ⚠️
Please don’t confuse acceptance with giving up. I know my disease is terminal and I also know tomorrow’s sunrise is worth seeing. Both things can be true at the same time. Acceptance isn’t waving a white flag, it’s choosing not to spend whatever time I have left fighting reality instead of embracing life.
Warning ⚠️
Battery may appear fully charged. It is not. Some mornings I look almost normal. I smile. I joke. I answer emails. I meet friends for lunch. You may assume I’m feeling better, but what you don’t see is the three-hour nap afterward. Or the pain medication waiting on the kitchen counter. Or the quiet negotiation my body demands for every ordinary thing I choose to do. Appearances have become excellent liars.
Warning ⚠️
May talk about death without wanting to die. There is a difference. People often lower their voices when they say the word. I don’t anymore, death has been sitting at my table long enough to become part of the conversation. Talking about it doesn’t invite it in, it simply acknowledges the guest who never really left.
Warning ⚠️
Please don’t tell me to “stay positive.” I know your heart is in the right place, but positivity isn’t medicine. Some days courage looks like optimism. Other days courage looks like crying in the shower before getting dressed for another infusion. Both count. I don’t owe anyone a cheerful version of terminal illness.
Warning ⚠️
Dark humor ahead, proceed accordingly. If I joke about my PET scan, my medications, or the fact that my calendar revolves around oncology appointments, it isn’t because I don’t understand the seriousness of my diagnosis. It’s because laughter shrinks fear down to a size I can carry. Sometimes humor isn’t denial. Sometimes it’s survival.
Warning ⚠️
May love ordinary moments with unreasonable intensity. A quiet cup of coffee. Watching rain through the window. My spouse laughing in the next room. My kids asking questions they could have Googled. A sunset. A soccer game. A boring Tuesday. Funny how terminal cancer recalibrates the value of everything. The extraordinary becomes optional. The ordinary becomes sacred.
Warning ⚠️
Time has become strangely expensive. I no longer measure life by years. Sometimes I measure it by holidays. Sometimes by scan intervals. Sometimes by birthdays. Sometimes simply by making it to next weekend. When you realize your days may be numbered, you stop spending them as if they’re unlimited. You become ruthless about what deserves your attention and wonderfully generous with the people who deserve your heart.
Warning ⚠️
May say “no” more often. Not because I don’t love you, but because energy has become a currency I cannot afford to waste. Every yes costs something now. Sometimes the cost is pain. Sometimes it’s exhaustion. Sometimes it’s missing tomorrow because I borrowed too much from today. If I decline your invitation, I’m protecting moments you may never even see.
Warning ⚠️
Please don’t say, “You don’t look sick.” I know it’s meant as a compliment, but cancer isn’t measured by appearance. Some of the hardest struggles happen in bodies that still smile for photographs. You can lose strength while keeping your hair. You can carry unbearable pain while making polite conversation. You can be dying and still look alive. Life is complicated like that.
Warning ⚠️
May become emotional over seemingly insignificant things. Commercials. Old photographs. The first day of school. Christmas ornaments. A song from twenty years ago. The smell of fresh-cut grass. When your future suddenly feels smaller, your memories somehow become bigger.
Warning ⚠️
I still make plans. Yes, I know they might change. I still book vacations. I still buy birthday presents. I still dream about next year. Hope isn’t pretending the prognosis doesn’t exist. Hope is refusing to let the prognosis write every chapter before I’ve had the chance to live it.
Warning ⚠️
May have become less interested in winning arguments or maybe more. Perspective has a funny way of rearranging priorities. I’ve learned there are very few hills worth dying on, but those that are worth it are sacred. Ironically, it took learning I might actually die to finally understand how precious peace really is.
Warning ⚠️
Contains an uncomfortable appreciation for time. If you have your health today, don’t waste it rushing toward tomorrow. Call your parents. Take your kids for ice cream. Sit on the porch. Read the book. Forgive someone. Start the project. Take the trip. Life isn’t measured by how many days we collect, it’s measured by how completely we inhabit the ones we’re given. I used to believe that was a nice sentiment, now I know it’s the only currency that has ever mattered.
Warning ⚠️
Still here. Still hopeful. Still grieving. Still laughing. Still making plans. Still scared sometimes. Still grateful more often than I expected. Still learning that terminal doesn’t mean life stops, it simply means life becomes impossibly, painfully, breathtakingly precious.
If you meet someone living with terminal cancer, don’t spend all your energy trying to fix them, sit with them. Laugh with them. Listen to them. Remember them for how they lived, not simply for what they carried.
And if you happen to meet me, just know the warning labels aren’t there to scare you away, they’re there to remind you that every single one of us is more fragile than we realize. Mine are simply printed in larger font.
This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and all year long, please be on the lookout for PinkWashing and if you missed the #LightUpMBC live show on October 13th, the ONE day all October set aside for those of us living with MBC, it’s always available on the Metavivor YouTube Channel.
