Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

by Suleika Jaouad

They had a singular goal—to cure the Patient so she could go back to being herself. In all this lay a strange irony: It had only been a year since my diagnosis, but I

could hardly remember what being myself was like.

This hit home for me. I really felt like a different person after having cancer and going through a year of treatment. I think that is something most people don't understand and it is hard to articulate.

Death never comes at a good time, but getting a death sentence when you’re young is a breach of contract with the natural order of things.

Wow.

I’m beginning to understand that no matter how much time passes, my body may never fully recover to what it once was—that I can’t keep waiting until I’m “well enough” to start living again. It’s a bitter concession but a necessary one. While it might not be possible to move on from illness, I have to start trying to move forward with it.

This is the hardest thing about cancer. I still face it every day.

They say that in difficult times you find out who your friends are, but mostly I found out whom I wanted to befriend. Some people I thought I could count on disappeared, while others I barely knew did more than I ever expected. I was floored by the thoughtfulness of these strangers—readers

I don't really relate to this, but I found the outpouring of love and support from many people very touching.

There is no restitution for people like us, no return to days when our bodies were unscathed, our innocence intact. Recovery isn’t a gentle self-care spree that restores you to a pre-illness state. Though the word may suggest otherwise, recovery is not about salvaging the old at all. It’s about accepting that you must forsake a familiar self forever, in favor of one that is being newly born. It is an act of brute, terrifying discovery.

YES!

recite a few lines of a Stanley Kunitz poem called “The Layers.”

I noted this so I could read this poem which feels very relevant and is beautifully written

I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray.

This is a line from the poem noted above

After I return to my motel room, I keep thinking about the poem Ned

recited—about the idea of a “principle of being” that threads through the past, present, and future. When talking with Ned, I noticed how he kept subconsciously referring to himself as split into three selves: pre-diagnosis Ned, sick Ned, and recovering Ned. Whenever I talk about my life, I realize I do the same. Maybe the challenge is to locate a thread that strings these selves together. It strikes me as a challenge better worked out on paper.

I really relate to this idea of pre-diagnosis Kathy, sick Kathy, and recovery/living with cancer Kathy. I can't really wrap my mind around a thread that links the three together.

There’s an old Tunisian saying that your entire life is inscribed on your forehead but it’s as though everything that came before my diagnosis has been scrubbed from mine. I don’t know how it happened, or if it could have been

prevented, but at some point in the last few years my entire existence, my identity, even my career, became linked to the worst thing that ever happened to me. My scope of interests shrank in direct proportion to my world. A year out of treatment, illness continues to dominate the narrative and seems to squeeze out the possibilities of anything else.

I can't explain it, but I feel this way too. It is deeply embedded in my soul.

To learn to swim in the ocean of not-knowing—this is my constant work. I can’t know if there is a rogue cancer cell lurking somewhere in my marrow.

Yes!

Imagining a future is a frightening exercise when your life has been upended; it requires hope, which feels risky, even dangerous.

True

This is the cruel irony of medicine: Sometimes the treatments you receive to get better make you worse in the long run, requiring further care, exposing you to yet more complications and side effects. It is a maddening cycle.

The uber radiation I received when first diagnosed killed the cancer in my right lung but also permanently deflated much of my lung making it difficult to breath and severely limiting my mobility. The miracle drugs I take now eliminated tumors, prevent growth of new ones, and have greatly extended the two year life expectancy I was once given. But the leave me tired and fatigued, limiting what I can accomplish in a day. It is all give and take. I can't complain about these side effects because the alternative is far worse and I'm grateful the medicines and technology exist to prolong my life.

back to painting and has resumed her

Not sure why I highlighted this, but living with cancer has me seeking joy by trying many forms of art and it has been quite wonderful.

When she’s not on the road with her 1972 Volkswagen camper van and her rescue dog, Oscar, she lives in Brooklyn. suleikajaouad.com Facebook.com/​SuleikaJaouadPage Twitter: @suleikajaouad Instagram: @suleikajaouad

Contact info for the author. I'm going to friend her on Facebook when I am done with this GoodReads entry!