Annabelle Gurwitch said she never felt like a “warrior” after her Stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis in 2020. Instead, she remembers feeling lost, quite literally.
“I was getting lost when I would go to the grocery store two blocks from my house. I lost my ability to drive. I lost track of my finances. I had my car repossessed,” Gurwitch told WTOP.
Gurwitch is an author and cancer advocate who is challenging what she describes as the common “cancer warrior” mindset in her new book, “The End of My Life Is Killing Me: The Unexpected Joys of a Cancer Slacker.”
She said the well-meaning encouragement to “seize the day” was exhausting.
“When you get diagnosed, people will tell you you’re brave or you’re a warrior, and I don’t always feel brave and like a warrior,” Gurwitch said. “This lexicon of ‘cancer warrior’ … was not only limiting to me, but also made me feel some days like a fraud. Like I wasn’t living up to this idea.”
Rather than living each day like it’s your last, she argues that “a better, kinder approach is to live each day like it’s the first day of your life, with curiosity for what is next.”
Gurwitch, who has never smoked and whose comedic observations and writings are ruefully observational and self-aware, said she never could have foreseen a lung cancer diagnosis.
“I was asymptomatic for lung cancer,” Gurwitch said. “I went in for a COVID test. I walked out with Stage 4 lung cancer.”
She said the trauma of receiving an advanced diagnosis hit her hard, comparing her forgetfulness and inability to concentrate to the effects of a brain injury.
It took her time, she said to feel like herself again.
“I slowly was able to, over months … rebuild my confidence and my trust in my own body.” Gurwitch said.
Despite her initial inner turmoil, Gurwitch said she often looked and felt healthy through her cancer journey. Her treatment is one-pill-a-day targeted therapy.
“Of course, this speaks to the cognitive dissonance that we have in our society of how we look versus how our health actually is,” she said.
With advancements in lung cancer treatments, Gurwitch said more people with late-stage disease are living longer. That progress, she said, also means ongoing treatment and a shift in mindset.
“There’s a greater percentage of us living longer now. There’s a lot of unknowns in the future,” she said.
Gurwitch said she isn’t complaining, or at least not much. “I now pay a lot more attention to everyday quality of living.”
Gurwitch will discuss her book and her experience Thursday night at Politics and Prose on Connecticut Avenue in Northwest D.C. The event is free and open to the public.
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