I’m a Unicorn, Silly Goose

When I came across an article in Coping magazine titled: How Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal, I couldn’t click on it fast enough. As both a writer and a creative journaler, words are a particularly powerful part of my own healing magic. I’m always down to learn new tools or ideas to add to my spellbook of personal healing.

So I dove right in. Here is the introduction paragraph:

“Whether you’ve just received the diagnosis, you’re in the midst of treatment, or you’re acclimating to post-treatment life, cancer can impose a great deal of stress at any point along your journey. It’s well known that excessive stress is bad for your health, but it is especially so when your health is already compromised by a disease like cancer.”

And right there in that first sentence, I ran full force into a reminder of how different life with a uterine leiomyosarcoma(uLMS) diagnosis is than for the majority of other cancers. You see, leiomyosarcoma patients never reach that magical post-treatment world.

Never.

Leiomyosarcoma spreads through the blood, not the lymph system. It’s a sly, cruel cancer in that you can be No Evidence of Disease (NED) for literally decades and than BOOM! there it is. Only this time it’s spreading like wildfires spread: fast and without distinction for what they destroy.

So even though I had clear margins and 3 clear ct scans since my hysterectomy, that could end at any time. It could end this week if my ct scan on Wednesday shows new tumor action. In the space of one ct scan I can go from staged 1B uLMS to stage 4.

I’ve always been an outsider, a seer of what-is unable (or unwilling) to plaster a thick enough mask to appear ‘cool’. I’m just an odd duck or, as I prefer, a silly goose.

I find it ironic that this odd duck/silly goose ended up with one of the rarest cancers around. I mean, it is kinda runny, don’t ya think?

The annual incidence of breast cancer in the US is 129.4 per 100,000 women per year(1).

But uLMS is a shy, sly son-of-a-bitch.

“Uterine leiomyosarcoma (ULMS) is a rare smooth-muscle tumor with an annual incidence of only 0.35–0.64 per 100,000 women in the US.”(2)

Sometimes I can’t help but laugh about the irony of that.

I’m a goddamn rainbow unicorn.

In fact, if my cancer returns and is inoperable (meaning I’ll need chemo), I plan to get a unicorn hat and a unicorn blanket and a unicorn plushie to snuggle and probably even a unicorn notebook to write in while I’m hooked up for treatment for hours and days on end.

Life’s too short not to find the humor where we can.

Find the joy.

For me, that’s gonna be an array of unicorn support items in various fabulous rainbow colors. If I can find a unicorn cookie cutter, I can bring gluten-free unicorn cookies to share in the chemo treatment room. That sounds like fun.

Now that I’m typing that out, I’m thinking it might be fun to get some unicorn items I can wear to these scary/hope-filled ct scans too. I’m gonna go all in on the unicorn fun so I’ve got something that makes me smile on every time it’s scan time.

Heck, it might even bring a smile to staff or another person sitting in the waiting room fearing what their own scan might show.

Ok, thinking that through, that it might bring others joy, seals that deal. I’ll be keeping my eyes out for unicorn gear on my thrifting trips from here on out.

Cool. I’m stoked I might be helping others find a smile while helping myself – go team human!

Thank you for reading.

Love,

Kat