Through the Lens of Cancer

Have you ever scrolled through Netflix searching for something to watch and you come across a movie you haven't seen in years, and you wonder if it still holds up or if it's a horrible dated mess?

I do that with every old movie I watch, but I ask myself: Will this movie hit different now that I have cancer?

Take A Walk To Remember for instance. You know it: Mandy Moore is the dumpy, nerdy preacher's daughter who is revealed to have terminal cancer after making the hunky leading man fall in love with her (but she TOLD HIM NOT TO!!!) and she dies at the end but not before having the wedding of her dreams and doing all the things on her bucket list with the help of Shane West. 

I saw that movie in theaters in 2002 with my friend Sara and we cried our EYES out. What a sad movie!! Shane West? What a beautiful man!! And Switchfoot?? What a mediocre Christian soft rock band!!!!!

Anyway. You'd think that now that I actually have cancer myself that this movie would absolutely wreck me. But I watched it a few months ago and I actually laughed more and cried less. And not because the movie is, by all accounts, not that good, but because I related with Mandy Moore so much more that certain lines of hers were actually really funny. She cracks a joke about dying and Shane West cries, "That's NOT FUNNY" and I instinctively and immediately shouted, "YES IT IS!!" at my TV screen. Good one, Mandy.

Also, good for her for not telling everyone she has cancer. I use my cancer card any and every chance I get. That's how I know this movie is fiction.

It also seems like everyone in TV and movies has cancer, now. Like since I got my diagnosis, every show I watch now has a character who either gets the news that they have cancer, or they already have cancer and that's why they came to Grey-Sloan for some sort of lifesaving surgery.

I just started watching Mike Flanigan's newest show called The Midnight Club. It's about a group of terminally ill teenagers living out the rest of their lives in hospice. So far, I'm actually really enjoying it. Suuuuper glad it didn't air last year, though. But I think I'm far enough out from my diagnosis not to feel too triggered by it now.

I watched a horror movie (surprised?) a few months ago called The Night House. I can't recommend it enough. Without giving too many spoilers, it's about a woman who's grieving her recently deceased husband. There is a scene where this woman is having drinks with friends, and they begin to ask her some very personal questions about her husband and how she's dealing with it. While her best friend tries to end the conversation, the main woman is more than than happy to answer. But her friend continues to stop the conversation. I've never related more to a character, especially in a horror movie. It can be therapeutic to talk about our traumas, and when people try to stop the conversation, it can be more harmful than helpful.

There was a very goofy SNL sketch last fall, from the twisted mind of Sarah Sherman (aka Sarah Squirm). The premise of the sketch was a woman on a date with a guy. The twist was that the woman had meatballs embedded in her skin, and she was incredibly sensitive about them. Most people would write this off as a weird sketch by a weird lady, but as a person living with an invisible disability, a disability that causes me to poo out my front side, I immediately related to this woman in the sketch. I felt seen and it made the sketch even funnier. 

Yes, having cancer sucks, but it's oddly comforting to see myself reflected in the media.

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