Since being diagnosed with cancer, I can't walk into a grocery story without hearing B.B. King sing "The Thrill is Gone." My relationship with food changed, and I often wonder if we'll ever be able to fall in love again.
BY Sarah DeBord
PUBLISHED April 30, 2019
Sarah DeBord was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer at age 34. In the years since, she has turned her diagnosis into a calling, and become an advocate for other young adults diagnosed with colorectal cancer and parents with young families facing cancer. She works as a communications and program manager for the Minneapolis-based Colon Cancer Coalition , volunteers her time with the online patient-led support community COLONTOWN , and blogs about her often adventurous experiences of living with chronic cancer at ColonCancerChick.com.
An article in CURE came up in my Twitter feed before Christmas and I clicked on it immediately. The timing couldn't have been more perfect as I was sandwiched between two food-centric holidays where someone would always comment on my plate that wasn't piled high with traditional food, or notice that I turned down any offer for seconds. In this article I saw words like "food anxiety," and read other patients describe food as a "chore" and their lack of desire to eat. Every word resonated with me and I kept ending each paragraph with, "That's me!" Through this article, I found this little corner of cancer that I had never heard talked about, and every word validated this weird post-diagnosis perception I'd developed toward food that I believed was singular to just me.
Not a day has gone by since I was diagnosed that I haven't climbed on the scale for the opposite reason I climbed on it before cancer. Eight years prior, I watched as it ticked down to numbers I hadn't seen since middle school despite a steady diet of French fries and milkshakes. My cancer diagnosis finally explained that unexplained weight loss, and my relationship with that number on the scale was forever changed when I discovered it was a tumor sucking the calories out of everything I consumed. For me, the number on the scale became a measure for my level of sickness, and a subsequent meter for my level of cancer-related anxiety.
Not a day has gone by since I was diagnosed that I haven't climbed on the scale for the opposite reason I climbed on it before cancer. Eight years prior, I watched as it ticked down to numbers I hadn't seen since middle school despite a steady diet of French fries and milkshakes. My cancer diagnosis finally explained that unexplained weight loss, and my relationship with that number on the scale was forever changed when I discovered it was a tumor sucking the calories out of everything I consumed. For me, the number on the scale became a measure for my level of sickness, and a subsequent meter for my level of cancer-related anxiety.
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