Thoughts on Hope: Sarah Howell

Today, we introduce a GUEST BLOGGER: Sarah Howell. She and her husband, Jerel, moved to Las Vegas from St. Louis, Missouri two years ago with their dog, Kingsley. Since their new home is so dog-friendly, they have been fostering rescue dogs for A Home 4 Spot Animal Rescue. She is also a poker player, reader, crafter, and lover of all things Vegas.

Thoughts on Hope

Cancer brings its own language. In the weeks after my diagnosis my vocabulary expanded to include words I never really wanted to know like neo-adjuvant and docetaxel. My understanding of other words expanded to include details I never really wanted to know, like lymph nodes and radiation. A few words got tossed around a lot that I had a really hard time accepting: survivor, warrior, faith, and hope. When I was in the thick of it, I couldn’t appreciate these words or how much they were already a part of my story. I couldn’t even bear to look at the word “survivor” until after my treatments were completed. It was a year or more before I could confidently say out loud, “I am a cancer survivor.”

Now I am a three-year survivor and I am still learning the language and deepening my understanding. Today I realized that I am finally starting to understand what hope really means. 

I’m a numbers girl and a gambler. I spent many years studying math and I’m most comfortable making sense of the world with statistics. In my own treatment, I don’t think I ever thought about hope. I accepted uncertainty in terms of odds. I processed my experience with data, results, percentages, graphs and reports. Seeing the word “hope” on bumper stickers, keychains and tattoos would strike me as trite or not strike me at all.

For me, “hope” was a verb. It was just a nice way of saying what I want. “I hope you feel better.” “I hope I win at poker tonight.” It certainly comes up a lot in cancer treatment. “I hope I can sleep tonight.” “I hope the tumor is shrinking.” “I hope I feel well enough to celebrate my birthday.” “I hope this birthday isn’t my last.” But that’s not what people mean when they get the word tattooed on their skin. That “hope” is a noun.

I was so fortunate to always have confidence in my cancer treatment. I was devastated to be diagnosed with breast cancer at age 41 with no family history or obvious risk factors and I was disheartened to learn I had the relatively rare and aggressive triple-negative breast cancer. But I had total confidence in my medical team, and for the most part, I never doubted that my treatment would be successful. I still fear recurrence, but that’s a whole different subject. When I was in treatment, I just put my head down and got through it one day or one hour at a time. I didn’t think much about the big picture or the larger forces at play in my life. 

Now I have the luxury of being alive and well, and I can take a closer look at my own journey and the journeys of the new sisters I have met along the way. Today I’m thinking of a friend facing a complicated medical crisis and I have no math to make sense of it. I want to arm her (and myself) with graphs, percentages and numbered step-by-step instructions. I don’t have any of those things, but I do have a very strong feeling that she is going to be okay. I was mulling this over today when it really hit me—this is HOPE. This is the hope that people put on t-shirts and tattoos. I finally get it.

I used to think “hope” was a weak word for times when you really don’t have anything. But hope is so much more powerful than I ever thought. Hope is what keeps you going when things look bleak. Hope is completely unaffected by statistics. It is a force that exists to empower you to face any challenge, regardless of the odds. Today I am surprised and comforted to find that hope is enough.