A native New Yorker, Shira Kallus Zwebner is a communications consultant and writer living with her husband and three children in Jerusalem, Israel. Diagnosed in 2017 with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, she's fighting her cancer battle and blogging about the journey at hipstermomblog.com

Shira Zwebner

I have been annoying my husband about seeing a dermatologist for years. When he entered his 40's, I started subtly nagging. Each time I went to see the dermatologist, I would gently suggest that he schedule an appointment for a routine scan too just to make sure that everything was okay. 

To my untrained eye, he didn't have anything that looked like it needed to be checked out, but I believe in the “better safe than sorry” philosophy of life. With a Grandmother who died from melanoma, I was paranoid about my skin. Yet my husband preferred to just let things be, and so for years, he managed to avoid the dermatologist.

When I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, I stopped the nagging and surrendered myself to the care of my hematology-oncologist and my husband. For months, my husband was my full-time caregiver, shuttling me from treatment appointments and weekly blood tests, to scheduling scans and filling prescriptions. He physically hauled me off the bathroom floor when I collapsed after violent vomiting fits, and stood outside my shower door with a towel, ready to quickly remove the waterproof cuff that we used to keep my PICC line dry and sterile. 

He kept the home fires burning with our three small children while holding down a full-time job, waking up early to make school lunches, and staying up late to review homework. He listened to my fears, held me when I cried and made sure that I stayed hydrated, medicated and sane. I would not have made it through treatment without him. 

When treatment ended and recovery began—I started nagging him again. I didn't stop at the dermatologist though, I wanted him to have a colonoscopy and more blood work. His health became my top priority. I needed him to be healthy and not just because I needed him in his capacity as a caregiver, but because I needed to know that our children would at least one healthy parent. I learned that life could throw us curveballs and when they did, it usually affected me, so he needed to be the stable one in their life.

So when I saw my dermatologist over the summer, I decided to stop asking him to make the appointment and made one for him. As with many dermatologists, the earliest appointment wasn't for another three months, but I booked the time slot anyway and sent him a calendar invite. I insisted that he not cancel, no matter what else came up during that time, including another national COVID-19 related lockdown. We were both convinced the appointment would be routine, and so I stayed home when he went for his full body scan.

Distractedly, I sent him a text that morning to check-in and he replied, “she found something.” Shock, then disbelief followed. When he finally called me, he said that she saw something on his back that she wanted to remove ASAP. She said it was probably nothing, but well, we all know that probably nothing always has the potential to turn into something. Dazed, my husband managed to pick up a canceled appointment with a plastic surgeon, and he scheduled the mole removal for the following morning. It was an appointment I didn't miss, and suddenly our roles reversed and I became the caregiver. 

If I'm being honest, I suck as a caregiver. For less than 24 hours of post-mole removal, I catered to his every need. I fluffed his pillow and prepared his meals, I let him recover in bed and made sure the children were taken care of. I bought him a new comic book to lift his spirits and some chocolate to feed the fear. But I also made him walk the dog and after two days off of work, I told him it was time to get back to the office. 

I couldn't handle seeing him lying in bed, his fragility a stark reminder that I have no control over which one of us gets sick. As much as I've been working on keeping him healthy and strong, at the end of the day, I have little choice or say in the matter.

For the past five weeks, we skirted around the cloud that was hanging over our heads, waiting for the pathology report. We know better than to tell ourselves that everything will be okay until we know it's okay. So we focused our energies elsewhere, in trying to keep routine to our day while keeping our fears to ourselves. Once again, we kept our children in the dark as we waited for the results.

This morning, as we entered the first full day of another COVID-19 related national lockdown, we got the call that the pathology report came back benign. I let out the breath I've been holding for the past five months, thanked God for the good news, and started nagging about the colonoscopy next.

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I've always had a complicated relationship with food, from growing up a chubby child whose well-meaning parents restricted my intake to becoming a teenager with a binge-purge habit that extended throughout my 20's. My cancer journey began because of the years of yo-yo dieting, binge eating and self-loathing led me to a bariatric surgeon, who was willing to perform weight loss surgery even though I didn't weigh enough. I was told to overeat to get my weight up to qualify for the surgery, and during pre-op testing, we discovered metastases throughout my liver and spleen.

My food issues didn't magically disappear after treatment, especially since I put myself on a severely restrictive diet during chemo. I fasted on treatment days, cut out all sugar, caffeine, and carbohydrates and I continued to gain and lose the same 5-10 pounds in a year. Yet for the first time in my life, I felt extraordinarily lucky to have excess body weight.

On the cancer ward, I looked healthy and robust in comparison to so many of my fellow patients with cancer. One of my new cancer friends I met told me that she remembered when she used to look like me. I was so confused by her statement, she was perpetually pale, waifishly thin and while we had similar coloring and features, we looked nothing alike. It wasn't until I saw the photo they used in her death announcement, that I realized what she meant about our resemblance. She had been much larger, stronger and radiant before cancer ate away her flesh. I overate my feelings the day I found out she had died, as if the excess weight on my body would stave away cancer.

Two years past treatment, and I still have nightmares about being on the cancer ward.

I think back to the treatment day when a flimsy film of curtain separated my bed from an elderly cancer patient. With the “Red Devil” dripping through my veins, I dozed in and out of my Benadryl induced slumber, to hear a young woman tearfully implore her elderly mother to eat during treatment or they would have to put in a feeding tube. I later told my husband that a feeding tube would be my red line, the deciding factor between continuing or ending my fight.

I've developed an obsession with living a healthy lifestyle. Back in May, I 

 how I believed that if I could just lose weight, I will be able to keep cancer from coming back. Yet as soon as the weight started to come off, and my face started to look thinner, it would trigger me back to the cancer ward and I would overeat to regain any of the weight I had lost. The paradox between my desire to lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle, with my fear of weight loss, has been a constant struggle.

I look at my excess body weight not as unhealthy fat that's unattractive, but as time. The rolls of my stomach represent months while the skin hanging beneath my arms represents days. My excess body weight, in my mind, means more time in this world with the people I love.

If cancer should ever decide to come back again, it would take longer for the disease to starve me into non-existence.

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Two weeks after finishing treatment, with the after-effects of more than 8 months of chemotherapy still coursing through my veins, I drove an hour away from my city to meet with a nutritionist. She had come "highly recommended" and I yearned for someone to help my body heal from cancer, from the poison in it that killed my cancer. I was desperate to keep myself in remission and was willing to pay, do and try anything. Even in cancer debt, I was willing to shell out more than $500 that I didn’t have if it meant I would stay cancer-free.

I brought my medical records with me, the new set of blood test results she requested and my bag full of medication and supplements. We sat together for over an hour while she created a new wellness program for me, which included supplements, daily juices, exercise, and naps.

 With a full-time job and three children under the age of 9, daily naps were never going to happen.

Then she reached over her cluttered desk and took my hands, looked deep into my eyes, and promised me she would be there for me no matter what. I walked out of her office and drove straight to an appliance store to spend another $300 on a top of the line juicer that I couldn't afford, hopeful that I had found my answers. The following day, I emailed her with a question and never heard from her again.

Sadly, she was not the first person to take my money and disappear; over the past two and a half years I have fallen victim to people who preyed on my cancer vulnerabilities. I’ve met with homeopaths who promised to keep me in remission, while charging exorbitant monthly fees, and hired personal trainers who said they specialized in working with past cancer patients, but then created workout programs that left me limping and in pain. COVID-19 has just exacerbated these vulnerabilities while increasing the number of people savvy enough to prey on our fears.

Living in Israel, I have gone through two official COVID-19 lockdowns, the most recent one currently in the first stages of lifting. For the past month, over the Jewish high holiday season, our movements were restricted. Shops and restaurants were all closed, with some offering food deliveries. Families were told they couldn’t get together for holiday meals, while all beaches and nature parks were closed to the public. We couldn't walk more than 1 kilometer from our homes while gyms and other exercise facilities were shuttered. Schools were closed and children reverted to distance learning, while offices of non-essential workers were closed and many parents were forced to work from home. And during this lockdown, I had my fall scans which included an abdominal ultrasound and blood work. My ultrasound was clear but my blood work wasn’t, and as a lymphoma survivor, the results shook me to my core.

Depressed and scared about my blood test results, and the upcoming follow up tests, I spent a lot of time on social media. On Facebook and Instagram, I was bombarded by people and brands peddling their wares, services and 

. This doctor has a nine-day liver cleanse that looked promising, while that wellness guru offered a 30-day meditation package that promised to “calm, relax and heal” me.

Then I saw a Facebook post from a local photographer who specialized in boudoir sessions, who was offering a 30-minute lockdown special that looked promising. I was desperate to do anything that would make me feel better, so I got in touch to ask for more information. I soon realized it wasn't for me, but she kept following up with me. I was weak and tried to be kind, I kept telling her I would think about it. She followed up again and I told her that while it sounded so great, I just wasn't comfortable with my body. She responded that lots of people found it empowering, that the session would do wonders for my self-confidence. She used all the right words, said all the things I needed, and wanted, to hear.

I sent her payment, booked a session and days later canceled. I never rescheduled and, unsurprisingly, she never followed up with me.

When I realized that I essentially paid this woman to leave me alone, I surrendered my credit cards to my husband. Sadly, the only way to avoid falling victim is to completely disconnect. I take ownership of my weaknesses; no one forced me to sign up, pay for, or make appointments with any of these people. They just didn’t make it easier for me to say no either.

Miracle cures, juice cleanses, even ancient supplements, cancer patients and some survivors often fall victim to people who prey on our vulnerabilities from cancer.

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My cancer diagnosis didn’t come as a complete shock to me, it was more of a confirmation of what Google and my gut had been telling me for a week between my emergency CT scan and that fateful doctor’s appointment. Google “spots on the liver” and pages and pages of results all lead to a cancer diagnosis, although which type of cancer is a crapshoot. So, when my doctor called after-hours and told us that we needed to come see her immediately, and that she would wait in the office until we could get there, I knew the news wasn’t going to be good.

Hollywood’s depiction of that moment you hear your cancer diagnosis tends to be so dramatic; the world is supposed to become hazy as words and sounds fade into background noise while the person – suddenly a cancer patient – experiences a plethora of emotions from disbelief to denial. I felt very present in the room as my doctor confirmed that the spots on my liver were cancer, and I vividly remember watching my husband bury his head in his hands while he wept.

There was a lot of information to take in during that first appointment, as we had so many questions. We didn’t know what kind of cancer I had, just that it had already invaded my liver. I needed a CT-PET scan a few days later to find the tumor so they could identify my primary form of cancer. I was encouraged to buy a binder to keep all my medical papers in one place, and was provided with referrals to an oncologist, the CT-PET, and official documentation about my diagnosis to send to both my health care provider and Israel’s national health service.

As we listened to what needed to be done to find and type my cancer, I asked my doctor if I was going to die. She was honest and said that she hoped not. When I asked her if she thought my cancer was treatable, she was honest and said that she hoped so but without knowing what type of cancer I had, she couldn’t tell me what type of treatment I was facing.

My husband squeezed my hand and said that it didn’t matter, we would fight cancer no matter what it took, no matter what the treatment entailed. I remember taking in his words and suddenly feeling that weight and responsibility on my shoulders. Suddenly choosing treatment wasn’t a choice I would be allowed to make on my own, and that frightened me. As a young mom in her early 40’s, I had a husband and three children at home who needed me, and so there was this expectation that I would do whatever I could to fight and survive.

Days later, when the CT-PET results showed cancer had spread to my spleen and four bones but did not reveal one primary tumor. So, I was now dealing with stage 4 cancer but still did not know what kind of cancer I was dealing with, and it was agony. I was stuck in this limbo state, not knowing what exactly I was dealing with; if it was curable or even treatable.

One night, while we waited for the biopsy results on my liver, I told my husband that I didn’t know if I would choose to treat my cancer. My words surprised him. I explained that I wasn’t afraid of pain or discomfort, but what I didn’t want to do was put him and our children through the trauma of treatment where the result was death. On the one hand, I didn’t want my kids to have memories of their mom in pain, while on the other hand I wanted them to know that I fought like a lioness to survive, to stay here for them and our family. I was so conflicted about a course of action, or inaction, it led to weeks of sleepless nights and anxiety.

Once I finally had my diagnosis and learned that my hematology-oncologist was confident that he could treat and potentially cure my cancer diagnosis, I made the decision to move forward with months of chemotherapy. Reflecting back, I realize it wasn’t a decision I came to on my own. It was a decision made with my loved ones perched on top of my shoulders, with the responsibility of my stage of life leading the charge.

How many cancer patients make health and treatment choices based on the wants and needs of others, over their own desires? People often ask me for my advice on how to talk to a loved one or friend that is newly diagnosed with cancer. If there’s one piece of advice I can give, it’s to offer steadfast support while withholding your opinion. The last thing you want to become, is another voice to sway the patient into making choices they might not want to make.

Patients with cancer have a right to choose not to treat their illness, even if it’s not a popular decision.

Shira Zwebner

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Struggling With Eating After Cancer

Vulnerability In Cancer Survivorship And Looking For A ‘Cure’

Patients with Cancer Should Have the Right to Make Unpopular Treatment Decisions

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