Everything Changes - The Guide to Young Adult Cancer

I love weddings (almost obsessively so) and am thrilled for anyone who is currently engaged.  But, sometimes it is damn hard dealing with wedding planning season when you’ve got cancer or a chronic illness.

Being single with cancer and no date at my brother’s wedding was hard.  I was in the midst of breaking up with a guy who couldn’t say the word “cancer”.  I was so happy for my brother and didn’t want to feel like a self-pitying sister or that I was detracting from his moment.  I tried to keep my mouth shut about it all.  I also dreaded all of the guests telling me how grrrreat I looked in that wacko-cancer-pity-adoration way.  But for all of my angst leading up to it, I decided to go totally solo, not even bring a friend date and it was the most fun wedding I’ve been to.

When it rolled around to my own wedding a few years later, I thought hard about whether at I would thank the people in my life who have been there for me during “hard times” (code words for “cancer”.)  I decided to thank people for other things, that cancer didn’t belong at my wedding.  But sometimes it isn’t possible to compartmentalize life like that; life just bleeds on through.   It’s challenging to hide baldness at a wedding or scars decorating your body.  And you can’t hide your absence at a wedding because you were too sick to go.

It’s hard to transition from staring death in the face to embracing unlimited love. Take for example Dana, a leukemia patient in my book Everything Changes, who said: “At my rehearsal dinner, I went into a bathroom stall and sobbed my eyes out. I could not believe I was at my own rehearsal dinner after everything that I went through. My friend came into the stall and sat with me. I just needed her to be there while I got it all out. It was like I suppressed all of these feelings because they were too big for my brain. It was like, ‘Look at where I’m at, I’m alive, I’ve met this man.’ I had to let them out.”

Wedding budgets, gifts, puking on your bouquet.  As a bride, groom, member of the wedding, or just a guest, what are some of the challenges that you’ve faced because of your  illness?  Do you have any weddings coming up this year?

Read about being engaged with cancer in Everything Changes: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in Your 20s and 30s.

Wedding season has officially started, so I’ll tell you a little tale about my own wedding.

Shannon and I were slated to get married in an old factory in Pittsburgh. (We love urban decay and grunge.) On a site visit three days before our wedding we discovered more grunge than we bargained for. Water was raining out of the ceiling, and serious mold infestation had set in – our guests would need hazmat suits just to step foot in the building.

Our response? “Oh, this is fixable.” We made a list of alternate spaces (a cool yoga studio in an old school house, a fire hall, an installation art museum), called around town, and found a great solution within 24 hours. Stressful? Yes. Earth shattering? Far from it. We were calm and cool. My mom and her friend were amazed that I didn’t cry or transform into a ready for cable TV bridezilla creature.

I didn’t consciously say to myself: ‘My cancer is not curable, but a ruined wedding location is.’ Yet, I know that this perspective played a large part in my no big deal attitude. I am way too neurotic to think that cancer has chilled me out; I still sweat small stuff. But having cancer as a young adult has taught me well how to be calm during crisis.

Have you had any major moments when you been able to brush off a seemingly stressful situation because it pales in comparison to the stress of illness? Do you find yourself saying more often “This is no big deal” or “I can handle this”?