Wait, I had cancer?!

The thing I find so wild about having had cancer is that I will always be someone who had cancer. That sounds like such a "duh" statement, except that pop culture loves a storyline where you survive and everything is as it should be. Movies, TV shows - if someone has cancer and doesn't die, the story ends when they crush it and get the happily ever after. When I was declared done with active treatment, it was almost like my brain was surprised that I didn't magically revert back to who I was, that the repercussions of my treatment would endure, that my mastectomy was forever. Even four years later, I have moments when I'm like, woah, I fucking had cancer. 

Nobody really spells it out for you - when you're in the whirlwind of a diagnosis and processing the shock and horror while also making monumental decisions - that you will live with those decisions for *hopefully* many years. As soon as they told me the lump wasn't just a muscle knot, I wanted it out. I threw myself into the start line, whatever the doctors advised, and the only long-term thought I had was that I wanted to be able to look back and know that I did everything I could. So the grumpiness I feel isn't exactly regret, and I'm pretty sure I'd make the same decisions today if I had them to do over - but also I don't think anyone really said, hey, if we do our job right, you're going to have another 40+ years in the body that's left over after treatment.