There is a specific kind of grief that nobody warns you about. Not the grief of losing someone or something, but the grief of losing a version of yourself you didn’t even know you were attached to.
I was, for a long time, the person who had it together. Not in a showy way — I wasn’t the one with the color-coded planner and the motivational quotes. I was the one who quietly, reliably, got things done. Remembered the details. Caught the errors. Stayed late without being asked.
Chemotherapy has a way of rearranging your furniture without asking. You come back to the house of your own mind and nothing is where you left it. The keys are in the freezer. The word “umbrella” is gone. You stand in the middle of a sentence you started with full confidence and you just… stop. The thought has left the building.
The medical term is chemo brain. That’s probably not what the actual medical term is, but that’s what they called it in the hospital. Chemotherapy induced cognitive impairment? Poison induced Space Cadet-ness? No matter what you call it, my experience boils down to this: I used to be good at my job, and now I have to write down that I already took my vitamins or I will take them twice.
What nobody tells you is that competence can become an identity. And when the competence goes — even partially, even temporarily — you don’t just lose a skill. You lose a self.
I’m still figuring out who I am without the spreadsheets and the steel trap of a mind that could easily recall the nuance. This website is part of that figuring.