I felt nostalgic last week, so I turned on some music from my high school days. Sometimes I forget about how great the music was when I was growing up. How great music is in general. Song lyrics hit me differently now that I am older and with all that life has thrown at me since then. When I go to concerts, I call it my music therapy. A moment in time to forget about everything else in the world and spend a few hours healing. While I was listening to the songs that night, it sent me back in time to relive some memories, both good and bad. It then shot me full speed back to today, where I realised how much some of those song lyrics fit with my life. Picture me just crying alone in my kitchen, loving the music but feeling on a deep level everything the songs had to say. There was a song that came on my playlist that night by the Goo Goo Dolls that I have always loved. One particular line that stuck out to me said, “Scars are souvenirs we never lose”.

I think this line fits for anyone who has gone through cancer. Whether these scars are internal, external or both, they will be something we will never lose, something we will take with us until our time has come to pass. I have those scars, inside and out. My entire upper body has been cut up and sewn back together. I sometimes think someone has a voodoo doll of me somewhere and is just having some fun cutting me apart. I have a scar on my lower abdomen that goes from left to right, a wide morbid smile that will permanently be there. I lost my right breast completely because IBC involves the skin so there is no other option. The radiation scars are plenty, going all the way up under my arm and around to my chest. My skin will never go back to looking normal, the burns marking their territory. My reconstruction also altered my left breast. I know the scars will fade given some time, but I will never lose them. They are part of the reason I am alive today. If my breast had not been amputated, the cancer would have won. When the choice was between mutilation or death, I chose the former.

I have found some peace with those scars for that reason alone. I don’t want to die, not until I have lived a long life where I get to see my beautiful daughter grow up and live hers. I still have days where I find looking at myself hard, wondering what I used to look like. That girl in the mirror is not the girl from a few years ago. I’m hoping those days are few and far between going forward, but it’s hard to say, even now. Looking at old pictures can be traumatic and filled with sadness, despair and longing. I look at those pictures and then look in the mirror and wonder who I am staring at. Yes, I’m still Cindy, but I’m not. Some people don’t understand that, but I know a lot of you reading this will. From the outside friends and family will still see the old Cindy. But I know she has changed. I feel it. I feel it all too much on the inside.

The internal scars are something I’m having a harder time working on. Those are the ones that are in hiding most of the time, as I have become very good at avoidance, humour being an excellent way to avoid this. They will unexpectedly make their appearance, usually at the most inconvenient times. These are the scars I will need some help with, and I’m not ashamed to say that. Someone who can help me navigate the mental disruptions, depression, anxiety and overwhelming dread that I sometimes feel. I’ve come to realize that I have what I like to call high-functioning depression (is that a thing, maybe, I haven’t looked it up, but this is what I am calling it because it makes the most sense to me). That’s strange to admit out loud, but I can’t deny that it isn’t true. I wish I could say it has lessened these past few years, but I think that is just me lying to myself about it. It’s not gone, nor will it ever be gone entirely. As much as I tell myself I will fight till the end of my days, those scars just will never go away and will be my forever souvenirs from a trip I never wanted to go on in the first place. They will always bring me back to remind me of everything I have gone through and when I get tired of them, I won’t be able to throw them in the trash. I’ll keep fighting no matter what life has left for me, whether I collect more of these souvenirs along the way or not. I still have a lot of music therapy left to do.