Living a post-cancer lifestyle means including your medical history on a health declaration form and learning to deal with the consequences.
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 17, 2018
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
Prior to my cancer diagnosis last November, I was an active work-at-home mom. I did workout videos with 10-pound weights (sometimes at 1:00 a.m.!), worked out with a trainer weekly and would go for long walks up and down the hills of Jerusalem. In my 20s, I was an avid gym-goer, rising early at 6:00 a.m. to work out with my trainer at New York Sports Club, attending boxing class every Wednesday, and walking to and from my Midtown office no matter rain, snow, or heat wave.
With every new workout regimen I started, I would give very little thought to the health declaration, where you’d have to fill out sheets of paper noting any health complications. Instead, I preferred to think about more important things like having the right gear and garb. I would breeze through the declaration; filling in what I felt was useless information like my tonsillectomy when I was seven, and the lack of cartilage between my knee joints.
A month after I finished chemo, I found myself face-to-face with a health declaration form while checking in to a hotel. After eight months of biopsies and weekly PICC line cleanings, chemo treatments and hospitalization, we decided to leave the kids behind for a couple of days so that my husband and I could get a much-needed break from our cancer life. The three-day spa retreat was supposed to be heavy on the spa treatment since I was desperate for some post-chemo R&R. Confronted with the form, I took a deep breath and starting filling it out in a lot more detail that I had been used to: date of cancer diagnosis, medications used to treat the cancer, location of scars and anything else we thought would be relevant. We booked our treatment and went for dinner.
With every new workout regimen I started, I would give very little thought to the health declaration, where you’d have to fill out sheets of paper noting any health complications. Instead, I preferred to think about more important things like having the right gear and garb. I would breeze through the declaration; filling in what I felt was useless information like my tonsillectomy when I was seven, and the lack of cartilage between my knee joints.
A month after I finished chemo, I found myself face-to-face with a health declaration form while checking in to a hotel. After eight months of biopsies and weekly PICC line cleanings, chemo treatments and hospitalization, we decided to leave the kids behind for a couple of days so that my husband and I could get a much-needed break from our cancer life. The three-day spa retreat was supposed to be heavy on the spa treatment since I was desperate for some post-chemo R&R. Confronted with the form, I took a deep breath and starting filling it out in a lot more detail that I had been used to: date of cancer diagnosis, medications used to treat the cancer, location of scars and anything else we thought would be relevant. We booked our treatment and went for dinner.
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