Living With Cancer: What the Mariana Trench and Cancer Have in Common

Losing My Buoyancy

When I was first diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma at the age of 25 it felt like I was losing my buoyancy, almost as if my body forgot how to float. I’d spent my life in the ocean, diving with my Dad, learning how to descend calmly and resurface when it was the right time. Cancer doesn’t give you that choice.As the doctor mouthed the words “lymphoma” all I could hear was the dull hum of the overhead fluorescent light.

I immediately sought out the ocean as respite to clear the noise in my head. Swimming and sitting on the beach were cathartic to me in ways I can’t explain. One relapse and two stem cell transplants later I was finally in remission. Years passed; I aged, started a family and led a happy, healthy life. Then came the news I had breast cancer followed by a diagnosis of esophageal cancer. This brings my cancer total to four times; four times facing this horrific disease.I often compare my life to nature, especially the ocean, and facing cancer feels like confronting the unknown depths of the Mariana Trench.

Descending Into the Unknown

For those unfamiliar, the Mariana Trench is the deepest place on Earth; roughly seven miles down into the ocean.The trench is so deep it erases light. It carries pressure so intense it could crush steel. Overall, it rewrites the rules of survival. I share these details as that’s eerily what receiving a cancer diagnosis can feel like.

Like the Mariana Trench, a cancer diagnosis is full of different layers – especially when you first hear the news.It begins with sinking into the drop-off; you lose your buoyancy control and descend rapidly over the steep, deep underwater edge. Your mind can’t seem to grasp what the doctors are telling you. You hear it, receive it, but it still feels like they are speaking a different language. You feel completely alone.

The Weight of the Darkness

Then comes the layers of excruciating pressure and darkness. In the Mariana Trench, the pressure is so extreme it’s hard to fathom how any living creature can survive. Similarly with cancer, you feel the pressure of losing your place in the world, the pressure of upholding your financial responsibilities, and the pressure to maintain some sort of semblance of “normalcy” to placate your loved ones.

After you endure the shock of the news you begin to sink further down to hear the treatment plan, the risks, and the side effects. The news comes in waves, pushing you further down until you have landed at the bottom in total darkness. Faced with extreme pressure you thought you could never endure, you feel trapped. You wait anxiously for the submarine to appear so it can carry you back to the surface. But the submarine doesn’t appear, and you are no longer who you were before. The uncertainty of the tests, the treatment, the doctors are all circling you – leaving you in a paralyzed state of fear. Your physical self starts to change. You look in the mirror and feel further away from who you once were. It’s lonely. And isolating.

Survival in the Extremes

But then something happens. You begin to adapt, just like the sea creatures found in the Mariana Trench. “Survival in the Extremes” they call it. Just like the sea creatures who survive through unique adaptations, I began to do the same by learning how to administer my own medications, asking for help when it was needed and by becoming the biggest advocate for my own health and wellbeing.

The Mariana Trench is a place where we once thought no life could exist – the pressure, the absence of light – and yet it does.

The resilience these sea creatures have fought to survive and adapt under harsh conditions is like a cancer patient. When we undergo a cancer diagnosis, we too must make a choice to dig deep and find the strength we thought was impossible. The strength to take on the treatment. The strength to give it our all even on days when we just want to sink further into the darkness. Even in the deepest layer something unexpected can emerge — resilience. Courage. A deeper understanding of what truly matters. You discover strength you didn’t know you had. You learn who shows up. You learn how fiercely you can fight. You learn how precious ordinary moments really are.

Lifelines in the Deep

And just as explorers and deep-sea submarines didn’t descend into the Mariana Trench alone, no one facing cancer should do so either. We become enveloped into new family-like relationships with our doctors and nurses. Our friends and family show up to act as a lifeline, vessels of light in the dark. They don’t eliminate the depth, but they help you navigate it.

And while we may feel so far removed from this planet – we are here. And we’re still us – maybe different than before – but we’re still here. But maybe this time our light becomes slowly brighter as we fight to swim our way out of the darkness and into the sunlight.

Finding the Light Again

I’ve heard a lot about how cancer isn’t the whole story it’s just a chapter, but as a four-time cancer survivor what if for me it is my whole story? I used to hate the fact that so much of my life has been spent dealing with cancer but now I’m slowly learning to embrace it. It’s part of who I am. It’s one of, if not my biggest accomplishments to date.

And like the Mariana Trench the depth of cancer is real. The pressure is real. The darkness is real. But so is life and so is our strength. And if the deepest, darkest place on Earth can prove that life and survival is possible, then so can we.

I still seek out the ocean and I still dive. I’m more conscious now; surfacing slower than is needed. And as I watch the bubbles rise to the surface I know I can trust the light will be there.

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