"Looking Well"

I had a another big weekend, if recent months are taken as the comparison class. On Saturday we went to visit a site in Laurel, Maryland known for its dinosaur bones. Two Saturdays a month, members of the public are encouraged to search for fossilized bones there. We didn't find any, and we got pretty hot, but it was a welcome change from sitting at home feeling tired.

A life-size model of a baby dinosaur; the adults were immense

On Sunday the weather was pleasantly cool, and I went for my longest walk yet post-diagnosis. Then in the afternoon we went to an excellent concert of Beethoven violin sonatas. The pianist was Anand's choir director, so we saw a lot of his fellow choir members. It was good to see people I knew, and many of them were kind enough to say I was looking well. 

I will admit that I was left scratching my head a bit over that. Why is looking well so important? Does it count if one major reason I'm looking well is that I'm on an appetite stimulant? What is the relationship between how I look and the deadly cancer that I'm carrying inside me—and which I feel at every deep breath or twist of my torso? Will people understand if I need to sit down or leave an event early if I don't look sick?

I don't mean to call out the wonderful people who are glad that I'm doing so much better than I was. I'm sure glad I'm doing better than I was, too! The fact that they care means a great deal to me. It's just that living with cancer is complicated, and I'm new to this version of life. My cancer oscillates between something that is still so new that I can briefly forget all about it, something whose threat has retreated over the past months, and something that is the most important fact about my present life, whether it shows on the outside or not. 

Like I said, it's complicated.