When Rebekah was diagnosed with cancer, my world was turned upside down. I felt helpless and overwhelmed, desperate to find ways to support her through this unimaginable journey. I needed to find a way to regain some control and actively help her cope with the numerous challenges she faced. The anxiety was overwhelming. We were waiting for staging and treatments plan, and the uncertainty was like a cloud that wouldn’t lift. As her older sister, I’d always been protective of her and looked out for her in many ways. But now, facing something so monumental, I couldn’t shield her from this. I couldn’t protect the little sister I’d always protected. This weighed on me so heavily and I felt utterly helpless.
To cope, I reached out to a counselor experienced in supporting families dealing with chronic illness. Having someone to talk to who understood the emotional rollercoaster we were on was incredibly helpful. Around my family, I felt I had to be stoic and positive for my sister, but inside, I was freaking out. For whatever reason, I also found it really difficult to talk about with friends and other family members. I didn’t want to be a burden or have them then worrying about me and how I was handling things. Talking to a “stranger” was actually really easy, and as the name of therapy would suggest- therapeutic, ha! My counselor provided lots of invaluable advice and strategies, which included adopting mantras to manage my anxiety.
One particularly helpful mantra was, “Don’t react till you have the facts.” This reminded me not to catastrophize before knowing the full picture. It’s easy to make yourself miserable by imagining the worst-case scenarios before they even materialize.
Handling the emotional highs and lows was challenging. My counselor gave me an analogy that was kind of fun and silly but made sense: surfers are often happy people because they understand the natural flow of ups and downs. They ride the wave with joy, knowing that even when it ends, another wave will come. This perspective helped me see that the valleys wouldn’t last forever, and it was okay to embrace the highs when they came.
Accepting the things I couldn’t control was one of the hardest lessons (and something I still struggled with). Another mantra that provided comfort was: “No matter what happens, no matter what news we get, all I can control is that I will do everything in my power to help her.” Making this commitment to do everything in my power for her brought me some peace because that was something I could control. Knowing I was doing everything I could, and that this was really all I could control, helped me navigate through the turmoil. I didn’t have a magic wand to take away her cancer (and cancer all over the world. F— cancer), but I could research and buy products to make her journey easier, cook and deliver meals, visit daily, send stupid memes and tiktoks, check in via text, help with caretaking, etc.
These early days of her diagnosis were incredibly tough, filled with a lot of unknowns and emotional upheavals. But having strategies to manage my fears and staying committed to supporting my sister as best as I could made a significant difference. It was a journey of learning to balance bravery and vulnerability, to be a steadfast support for my sister while also taking care of my own emotional health.