Finding My Voice: Living with Esophageal Cancer

When Life Tests Your Resilience

Last Wednesday, I started my first chemotherapy treatment. For days, I had built this moment up in my mind—imagined the struggle, mentally prepared for the worst, fortified myself with courage I wasn’t sure I had. Instead, I slept through the whole thing.

The Benadryl they give you before chemo is no joke. It wrapped me in a gentle fog, and I drifted off into what felt like the most needed sleep I’d had in weeks. When I woke up, it was over. No drama. No crisis. Just a medical experience that turned out to be far less terrifying than I’d feared. Thursday following my infusion brought no complications, no nausea, no weakness, no complications that I’d been warned about. I felt almost normal, which seemed like winning the lottery.

And then Thursday evening happened.

My husband couldn’t breathe properly. That tight chest feeling, the dizziness—the kind of symptoms you see in movies but pray will never touch your own life. We rushed to the emergency room, and what we thought might the flu or a passing condition turned into something far more serious. Congestive heart failure with multiple blood clots in his lungs. The words felt unreal, like someone else’s medical nightmare that had somehow gotten mixed up with our file.

Friday brought surgery. They needed to remove some of the clots, and I spent the entire day at the hospital—the kind of all-consuming vigil where time moves differently. Hours felt like both minutes and days. I held my phone, called people, tried to eat something I couldn’t taste, and waited for my husband to come through it. Around him, I tried to be strong. I was his rock while mine was crumbling underneath me.

By late Friday afternoon, exhaustion set in—but it was a different kind than what I’ve read about from chemo. This was the bone-deep fatigue that comes from fear, stress, and love all tangled together. Was it the chemotherapy beginning its assault on my body, or was it the emotional weight of nearly losing someone you love? I honestly couldn’t tell anymore. The line between what chemo does and what crisis does became impossible to draw.

Saturday came with relief. I was unable to visit in the morning, I was too weak, too drained. Instead, I stayed home, feeling guilty for not being there, grateful he was safe, and completely hollowed out.

 That afternoon he was stable enough to come home. We made it through the discharge process, got him settled, and finally exhaled.

This week hasn’t gone the way I planned.

I started it as a cancer patient beginning her treatment journey—ready for a manageable medical challenge. I’m ending it as a man whose husband had a serious condition that appeared out of nowhere. A caregiver now, in addition to being a patient. He seems to be doing very well, but the caregiver in me needs make sure he is taken care of.

Someone told me this week that stress weakens your immune system, which is the last thing anyone undergoing chemotherapy needs. I’m trying not to think about that. I’m trying to focus on the fact that my husband is home and stable. I’m trying to remember that the chemo went better than expected. I’m trying to be gentle with myself for being exhausted.

Some weeks test you. This week has tested me and my family in ways I couldn’t have imagined just days ago. But we’re still here. We’re still moving forward. And somehow, that feels like enough.