The day I finished chemo, I thought it would feel triumphant. I envisioned marching up to the bell and ringing it with gusto. But I was not euphoric. I was anxious. My heart was pounding with a thousand questions I did not know how to say out loud. What if the cancer comes back? What if I am not in remission? What if, what if, what if…
My husband, Patrick, was waiting in the lobby anticipating the big bell ring. My mind was spinning as the last drops of chemo entered my veins. The oncology nurses were moving between patients with the calm efficiency that becomes second nature in a place like that. I finally called one of them over and asked the question I had been carrying for days: Do all of your patients ring the bell?
She gave me a knowing look—one that told me she had heard this before, that my fear was not unusual. She said some people ring the bell. Some do not. Some believe it is bad luck to celebrate too soon.
Bad luck! I hadn’t even considered that.
What finally pushed me toward the bell was a friend. He was a father who had fought the same cancer, but our stories ended differently. I survived. He did not. When I reached for that rope, tears streaming down my face, the room disappeared. It was just me and the bell.
I rang it for my family. I rang it for my freedom from treatment and the toll it had taken on my body. And I rang it for him and all the others who did not get their victory lap.
Walking away from that bell introduced me to a new kind of ache: survivor’s guilt. It settled into my chest with more weight than I expected. I thought about my friend’s children and the milestones he would miss. I thought about the randomness of two bodies responding differently to the same illness. For a long time, I found myself whispering the question: Why me?
Eventually, it hit me. Guilt implies wrongdoing, but I didn’t do anything wrong—nor did he. None of us who survive cancer have committed a crime by living. We all have our own stories.
For a while, I hid my joy from friends still in treatment. I softened my happiness, convinced that I was protecting those still in the fight. I know now that dimming my light will not make anyone else shine brighter. Sometimes hope comes from seeing what is possible.
I am still healing in body and spirit. I have been given the privilege of life. That privilege makes me hug my husband tighter, check on the people I love more often, and savor the Hill Country sunrises and sunsets. Life is a gift. Remission is a gift.
If you are walking beside someone in treatment, understand this: Finishing does not always feel like victory. Sometimes it feels like standing in the doorway between gratitude and grief. Hold space for both.
Weslea O’Connor is a writer, Chief Operating Officer of Saxon MD, and founder of Survivor’s Edit, which shares personal essays about cancer survivorship, life after cancer, identity, and the emotional terrain that follows life-changing events.
I rang the bell for my friend and all the others who did not get their victory lap.
I know now that dimming my light will not make anyone else shine brighter. Sometimes hope comes from seeing what is possible.