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| My sweet oncologist |
The month after my oncologist transitioned me into the survivorship program, my husband and I signed papers on a house in a new city. I didn’t expect that leaving the safety of my cancer team and leaving the familiarity of my hometown would stir up the very same question in my heart: Who am I now?
When my oncologist told me I was being moved into the survivorship program, I smiled politely. I knew this was good news. Survivorship is the place every cancer patient hopes to land. It means active treatment is behind you. It means scans are less frequent. It means life is supposed to return to something resembling normal.
But as I walked to my car that day, keys clutched tightly in my hand, I felt something I hadn’t expected.
I felt untethered.
For months, years really, my cancer treatment center had been my anchor. The waiting room chairs, the familiar faces at the front desk, the quiet efficiency of the infusion nurses, and most of all, my oncologist. She knew my case inside and out. She knew my fears before I spoke them. When something felt off in my body, I could call and know someone who understood my history would respond.
Being transitioned into survivorship felt like someone gently, but firmly, removing the training wheels.
“You’re doing great,” they said. “We’ll see you in six months.”
Six months.
In cancer time, that feels like an eternity.
At almost the same moment this shift was happening, my husband and I were in the middle of buying a house in another city. Boxes were appearing in the corners of our home. Paperwork was piling up on the kitchen table. We were researching new grocery stores, new pharmacies, new doctors.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
In one season, I was leaving behind not just a house, but the place that had carried me through one of the hardest chapters of my life.
Cancer changes the geography of your heart. Certain streets hold memories of radiation appointments. Certain parking spaces feel sacred because you prayed there before walking inside for biopsy results. The walls of my treatment center had witnessed my tears, my flat chest, and my whispered pleas to God in sterile exam rooms.
And now I was being told: You’re okay. You can go.
At the same time, I was packing up my life.
Moving to a new city is unsettling under the best of circumstances. You leave behind your favorite cashier at the grocery store who always asks about your family. You leave the pharmacist who knows your medication history by heart. You leave the shortcuts you’ve memorized and the restaurants where they know your order.
You trade familiarity for uncertainty.
But for a cancer survivor, it’s more layered than that.
In my current city, people know my story. They saw me during treatment. They watched carefully as my body changed. They brought meals. They prayed. They know why I look the way I look.
In this new city, no one will know.
And strangely, that both thrills and terrifies me.
There’s something undeniably appealing about walking into a room where no one knows your medical history. In a new neighborhood, I won’t automatically be “the woman who had breast cancer.” I’ll just be the new neighbor. The lady down the street. The one unpacking boxes.
That anonymity feels like freedom.
But it also feels like hiding.
Because here’s the truth: I am flat-chested. I chose not to reconstruct after my mastectomy. Some days I wear my prostheses. Some days I don’t. In my current town, that choice doesn’t require explanation. People understand.
In a new city, if I choose not to wear them, I may get stares. I may get whispers. Someone may wonder if I’m transgender. And then I’m faced with another decision: Do I share my story all over again?
Do I open the door to the most vulnerable chapter of my life for the sake of clarity?
Or do I wear my prostheses every day, ward off questions, and blend in as “normal”?
It’s a conundrum I didn’t anticipate when we started house hunting.
Because this move isn’t just about real estate.
It’s about identity.
Cancer has already rewritten my reflection in the mirror. It has reshaped my body and, in many ways, my soul. Survivorship is supposed to be the chapter where you reclaim yourself. But what if you’re still figuring out who that self is?
Am I the “before cancer” version of me, trying to reassemble what was lost?
Am I the “cancer warrior,” defined by scars and survival?
Or am I someone entirely new?
Standing at the intersection of survivorship and relocation, I’ve realized something profound: both experiences are invitations.
Being moved into the survivorship program is an invitation to trust my body again. To trust that the treatment did what it was meant to do. To live without the constant hum of weekly appointments.
Moving to a new city is an invitation to step into unfamiliar spaces and discover who I am when no one already knows my backstory.
Both feel risky.
Both feel hopeful.
There’s grief in leaving the safety net of my oncology team. Even if I can still call them, it won’t be the same. The rhythm of regular check-ins is changing. The intensity of oversight is softening. I have to learn to carry more of the responsibility for my health awareness.
And yet, there’s dignity in that, too.
Survivorship says, “You are strong enough to walk forward.”
Likewise, moving says, “You are brave enough to begin again.”
I’ve started to see that the real question isn’t whether I’ll be the new me or the old me with baggage.
The truth is, there is no old me to return to.
Cancer ensured that.
But there also isn’t a completely new me untethered from the past.
The woman packing boxes carries scars, visible and invisible. She carries a fear of recurrence. She carries gratitude for life. She carries wisdom she didn’t ask for but now treasures.
The choice isn’t between baggage and freedom.
The choice is how I carry what I’ve been given.
Maybe some days in the new city I’ll wear my prostheses. Maybe some days I won’t. Maybe I’ll share my story with a neighbor over coffee. Maybe I’ll keep it tucked close to my heart until trust is built.
Maybe survivorship isn’t about pretending cancer never happened.
Maybe it’s about deciding that cancer doesn’t get to script every introduction.
As we prepare to load the moving truck, I find myself whispering prayers like the ones I prayed before scans: Lord, go before us. Steady my heart. Remind me that You are my true safety net.
Because the truth is, my security was never fully in a building with an oncology wing.
It wasn’t in a zip code.
It wasn’t even in the frequency of appointments.
It was in the steady faithfulness of God through every diagnosis, every treatment, every sleepless night.
That same faithfulness will meet me in a new city. It will meet me in survivorship. It will meet me in awkward introductions and in quiet evenings when fear creeps in.
This season feels like standing on a threshold.
Behind me: scans, surgical scars, therapies, familiar streets.
Before me: unpacked boxes, new doctors, unknown neighbors, longer stretches between checkups.
In both directions, there is evidence of grace.
I don’t know exactly who I will be in this new city. I don’t know how often I’ll tell my story or how often I’ll choose silence. I don’t know if I’ll feel untethered or unexpectedly free.
But I do know this:
Survivorship is not the absence of fear. It’s the decision to live anyway.
And moving forward, whether into a new home or a new medical chapter, is an act of courage in itself.
So here I am, keys in one hand and medical discharge papers in the other, stepping into a future that feels both fragile and full of possibility.
Maybe that’s what survivorship really is.
Not a clean slate.
But a brave next step.
If you are still in the thick of treatment, still counting infusions, still waiting on scan results, still gripping the hand of your oncologist a little tighter than you admit, I want you to hear this: the day may come when they move you into survivorship, and it will feel both victorious and unsettling. You may miss the rhythm of appointments that once exhausted you. You may long for the safety net you can’t wait to outgrow right now. That’s normal. Healing is layered. Courage is layered. And you are stronger than you know, even on the days you feel anything but strong.
For now, stay where your feet are. Let the nurses care for you. Let your body rest. Let others carry what feels too heavy. One day you will look back at this chapter, not because it was easy, but because you walked through it. And when that next season comes, whether it’s survivorship, a new home, or simply a new kind of normal, you will not step into it empty-handed. You will carry resilience. You will carry wisdom. You will carry proof that you can do hard things.
And that will be enough.
