Anonymous’ Story (Stage 4 Cancer)

Hi! I’m a piano teacher with stage 4 cancer. How’s that for an introduction? If your response is ‘oh, me too!’, then, Hello! Welcome! We are peas in a slightly tricky pod. Good to share the rocky waters with you, my friend.

However, I suspect the odds are small. The chances of you describing yourself in those specific terms are mercifully slim. But how slim, I wonder? How unusual am I to tick those two particular boxes?

I’ve got plenty of music teacher friends, and several stage 4 friends, thanks to the slightly dark corners of social media, but none that overlap both circles. Perhaps there are loads of ‘cancery’ dudes teaching instruments out there, and in the incessantly optimistic words of Michael Bublé, I just haven’t met you yet.

Regardless, I bet there are heaps of teachers with other chronic conditions. And I wonder… do their students know?

If it were you, would you tell your students?

It isn’t a particularly new category for me – I’ve been “Mrs. Cancer Pants” on and off, for the best part of 20 years – but I’ve only had the stage 4 badge of honor for a year or two. It’s a badge that puts a whole new spin on time management; fitting radiotherapy around your student recitals, re-arranging your teaching schedule to accommodate a billion blood tests, and making sure you aren’t teaching at that particularly drowsy point in the slow-release drug curve, because nodding off mid-sonata isn’t your best look.

And then there’s gossip management. My badge is largely a secret.

I’m feisty and stubbornly independent (both to a fault at times) and if I flash you my badge, you’re very honored indeed. I’m not ashamed of it, not at all; I just hide it because I am so much more. I want my other labels – skilled musician, wearer of bright colors, queen of dark humor, endearingly clumsy hippo (to borrow more lyrics, don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?) – I want THESE features to be noticed. See me, not my cancer.

I also like a little restriction over when and where my cells are discussed. My cancer is running riot, so maybe I’m just clinging onto a tiny bit of control where I can, not unlike a toddler refusing to leave a playground… but it’s just damage limitation, really. If people don’t know, then they can’t drop an uninvited C bomb into conversation when you’re least expecting it. There’s nothing worse than a well-meaning comrade suddenly asking about your malignancies when you’re merrily stood at the bar, weighing up rhubarb gin versus raspberry beer, and simultaneously pondering your choice of nail polish and tomorrow’s breakfast options.

So what does this secrecy mean for my job? It means none of my students know I’m unwell. Not one of them. And very, very few colleagues. I’m the ultimate closet cancer patient. Like a Bond Girl hiding in a wardrobe, with a hospital gown and IV drips where the evening dress and diamonds should be. I probably need my own theme tune… some kind of contemporary fusion of Inspector Gadget and Casualty.

I digress. My teaching room, you see, is a place of escape. In there, I am myself and only myself. I can focus on the joy that is music, on building my students’ confidence, on sharing knowledge and magical moments, on relationships with families, and on being a teacher with more passion now than ever.

If I bring cancer into that physical space, I bring it into my headspace too. If I’m with people who know I have cancer, it can be difficult to switch off from my frankly alarming medical state. Sometimes it’s a relief that people know, of course – don’t get me wrong. Don’t allow me to glamorize or minimize what I’m going through. I’m human and I need support from others at times, but those others don’t need to be my students or their families.

Some days I start work with an empty battery. With a heavy heart, aching bones, a cloudy brain, like an elephant sat on my lungs and waves from my old pal nausea. Sometimes, on those same days, I clock out feeling better. The joy of teaching, the giggles in lessons, the pure energy I get from my students and their progress…that’s enough to pull me back to my feet. I mean, I rely on medication for that too, but that’s not massively inspirational. I’m not here to make you gaze at your navel wondering if you ought to take more paracetamol in this life.

The hardest bit… or maybe the newest hard bit, because stage 4 is one long string of hard bits, like those elasticated candy necklaces you got in the 80’s, that nearly broke your teeth and made your neck damp with your own dribble. The newest hard bit is losing some of the function in my arm. Find me a pianist who wouldn’t feel a degree of emotional agony at discovering they can only play with one hand, or suddenly finding they can’t reliably hit the right keys, and certainly not with the articulation they wanted. Find me a lifelong musician who doesn’t play to channel their feelings, to get through a hard time, to express frustration and anger and joy and despair, to feel comfort and familiarity. Clue: there aren’t any, so if you’ve dashed off on a bizarre musical scavenger hunt, you can stop looking now.

We pianists are centrally that – pianists. Our identity is pianist. Not JUST pianist – I appreciate we are multifaceted complex beings – but our souls and personalities, experiences and memories are all tied up with piano. The searing irony of needing to play to cope with having cancer, and then having cancer stop you play, is pretty obvious. “Good day! I’m your cancer. I shall never leave you alone, and you shall need to play piano for all eternity to cope with my presence. And now, because I’m a particularly cruel beast – or maybe just because I’m a little bored and fancy a new environment, because a change is as good as a holiday, after all – I’m going to invade your shoulder, and make playing piano rather painful and difficult. What a lark!” Yes, my cancer is a melodramatic Victorian, with a mischievous penchant for parlor games, who especially enjoys Blindman’s Buff and taking afternoon tea before receiving gentleman visitors.

So here we are. I won’t be able to hide forever. And I won’t be able to teach forever either. But then, was I ever? We’re all just walking each other home in this life, aren’t we? I’ve been catapulted onto a different path so I’m walking it the simplest way I can. I keep tripping over roots and falling into the undergrowth, but so far I’ve always hauled myself back out again, a little grazed and muddy, with a few brambles stuck in my hair; but ready to reframe and find the next new way forward. I’m still teaching with my whole heart and soul, and I’m still playing with one-and-a-half arms. I might not get to walk for as long as I’d like, but I’m sure as hell going to find the fun on the way, and let in the light wherever I see it.

You probably, hopefully, don’t have stage 4 cancer. You might be blissfully free of chronic health conditions, but I bet there are things about yourself that you keep from your students. We all wear professional masks after all. Does it make us less authentic? Do we teach with less integrity? I don’t think so. We all have our reasons for only letting our students see what we want them to see, and we should all be okay with that. Especially if it allows us to be the best, most engaged teachers we can be.

Anonymous
UK
Submitted 06/04/2023

This story is intended to convey a personal experience and should not be relied upon as a substitute for professional medical advice.