"I know what you're thinking, baby. I used to be just like you."
And then, sitting in the doctor's office in Cincinnati at the age of 22, Rebecca Gifford saw her chest X-ray. The illuminated grapefruit-sized mass emblazoned a scarlet "C" across her breasts. Cancer. She was no longer just like anyone.
"I felt like a rug was pulled out from under me," Gifford says of the diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Her post-collegiate life, consisting of a move to Cincinnati to pursue her career in writing, was potentially over before taking flight.
Hey, shit happens. Or in Gifford's case, Cancer Happens. She acknowledges the intentional reference in her book's title. "It's just expressing that it sucks, but you get through it. In the end, some good and bad comes out of it," she explains, speaking from her office in Columbus, Ohio.
Gifford's memoir unearths the dirty roots of living with cancer and, in the process, leaves the author as bald as her chemotherapy treatments. Cancer Happens is an X-ray of Gifford's life. The results, like her diagnosis, are raw and blunt, a stark contrast to the whispery, childlike voice on the phone.
"I think these are stories that people want and need to hear," she explains. "I think it's also the way I write. I don't shy away from edginess."
It's a fine line she teeters with a strange sense of matter-of-fact bravado. She can go there. She's survived.
That's why Gifford has no qualms stating in one chapter, "The fact was I'd given up on sex being a big part of my life the day I was diagnosed." Cancer Happens is Gifford's nitty-gritty Cancer Confidential. Each card is flipped over in turn. Readers are even privy to what's hiding up her sleeve.
"It tells the story that people want to hear but are afraid to ask about. I wasn't afraid to delve into some of those nasty upper places," Gifford says.
For cancer patients/survivors, according to the author, it's a case of "I felt that or thought that but never really had the guts to say it." Relatives and friends touched by a loved one living with cancer counter with "I always wondered what people would think in that situation."
Gifford jotted down her thoughts as she lived them. Writing, a craft long tied to Gifford's soul, became an unofficial aspect of her cancer treatment, as much a part of her routine as her chemotherapy. "I was writing a journal. I was reading a lot," she comments. "That helped to express a lot of things going on at the time, a lot of negativity I felt. I think it was a necessary outlet."
Unloading negative fuel is a source of ammunition in cancer patients, Gifford believes. "I think a lot of cancer patients are expected to be eternally positive. I'm not sure that that's a real positive response. It's going to back up on you and affect your health and well-being in a negative way," she explains.
Her recovery is the proof. "I have to go back fairly infrequently. Right now, my chances are about the same as yours. Once you get between 5 and 10 years your chances go way down," she says.
Even with a sunny disposition, however, Gifford carries with her the umbrella of cancer. Radiation exposure to her chest has left with her a high risk for breast cancer, a fact she utters with every ounce of nonchalance. "Your tolerance for that goes way down after you've faced it," Gifford says. "It doesn't mean I don't pay attention. I'm a little bit more aware, and some might say hyperaware of those kinds of things."
This awareness, the evidence of a writer's mind at work, energized itself in the form of a personal experience column on oncology.com, a prelude to her book. Gifford put others' feelings into her words. "When someone is actually going through it, it's difficult to express," she comments.
But not for Gifford. She knew what cancer patients were thinking, baby. She found others just like her.
REBECCA GIFFORD will sign and discuss Cancer Happens at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Joseph-Beth Booksellers.
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