Cancer became a very personal event in my own life. Losing my big sister and best friend, Meghan McGrady to ovarian cancer changed my life in countless ways. Last month I got a chance to review Carrie Host's memoir Between Me and the River, which details her battle with a rare and often deadly form of cancer. Her words spoke to me and in many ways, offered me some comfort in trying to understand what a cancer patients goes through – both mentally and physically. The following is a very heart felt interaction between a fantastic author and an intrigued journalist.
One of the reasons I was so moved by your memoir was because you were so poignant in describing your feelings towards battling cancer and survival. As someone who has lost a sister to Ovarian Cancer, we never talked about how she was mentally, only physically. Reading your memoir brought me a lot of closer as it made me think of a lot of things I never got to ask Meghan before she lost her battle. Is this something that you considered while writing Between Me and the River?
Yes, I did. I knew that no one was willing to talk about anything so I specifically decided to talk about the unspoken aspects of dealing with cancer, of which there are a ton. I am so touched to hear that this helped to bring you some source of peace around your sister’s death. I’m so sorry. I truly am.
How do you feel about everything that you went through now that you are past it? Do you ever think about what it might have been like had your outcome been different?
Not too much. I try to keep looking forward. However, when you phrase it as “…now that I’ve gotten through it” I have to stop. I mean I have gotten through so much in terms of treatments and survival but here I am still living with carcinoid tumor. So really, I’m still very much “in it.”
What advice would you give survivors both of the illness and of a lost family member? Is there any one way to handle dealing with your own cancer or that of a loved one’s?
You ask very good questions. I would advise survivors that you take note of your everyday life and find who you have in your life that you can say you love and then love that person by action, as much as possible. For those who have lost someone, I give you my honest compassion. I don’t have advice there, because death is so final. I am not good at losing people.
Dealing with your own cancer is a highly personal issue. As for dealing with someone else’s cancer, I recommend you read my book to see what that might look like.
Now that you have moved past your ordeal, has that changed your view on life at all? Do you feel any different towards the day-to-day? How so?
I have not moved past my ordeal. Everyone else has. I’m still getting an injection every 27 days…a visceral reminder that I still have cancer that has no cure.
It has changed my view towards the day-to-day. I am serving on the Board of Directors of the Caring for Carcinoid Foundation,(CFCF) because taking action—beyond having written a book—to help others is choosing the positive. By helping the CFCF to raise awareness and money in order to fund research into finding a cure, I feel that I am contributing to a cause much larger than my own. I really like what Benjamin Franklin said: “A man all wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.”
I try to wrap myself up in what I can do to help others, I find it so much more appealing than keeping the focus on myself and my cancer. It is like conscious denial, if that is even a rational term.
Had the ending to your battle been different, how do you think you might have felt? What would you have done differently?
I am writing my own “ending” as I go along. How can that be different from what it is? I mean that in the most congenial way. I would not have done anything differently. I continue to believe that we write the individual pages that make up the chapters of our lives. None of us is excluded from that. Our “endings” are what we make of the hours and days that lie ahead, nothing more.
Is there anything else you' like to add?
Kind regards, and thank you for such a daring and philosophical set of questions. I hope my answers do not scare you.
Between Me and the River by Carrie Host is available for purchase through Harlequin with ISBN 0373892144.
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