Cancer and Trauma Recovery: Invincibility as Masquerade

Invincibility.

It doesn’t exist among humans, but I love invincibility as masquerade, as defensive strategy in cancer and trauma recovery.

I make my body a giant middle finger to display to the bullies of the world. 

I dare them to find fault. I disguise any weakness. I am nothing but unfeeling muscle. I am nothing but defiant strength.

Take that summer, during a pause in cancer treatment in 1985, when I didn’t yet know that the cancer would come back with a vengeance and send me to the opposite side of the country for last chance treatment.

I was in Saratoga Springs, home of the wealthy, home of the famous racetrack, summer home of the New York City Ballet. I attended ballet training camp, a kind of delicate, graceful battleground. We teenaged girls danced all day. We plied, pirouetted, leapt, waltzed, and bowed. We did not stop or wince. We worked, turning ourselves into rivers of sweat. Our muscles ached. Our lungs heaved. Our toes bled. We lived on coffee and teaspoons of ice cream. 

While I was rejected by the NYCB, when I returned home to Auburn, New York, I was invincible. My dance teacher, L., had always been a bully, one of those abusive coaches who demonstrates her devotion by hitting you and screaming profanities at you. But back from Saratoga, I was close to flawless, at least by the standards of my small hometown studio. 

I was skeletal and fearless. I could jump on pointe as if my feet were made of iron. I could hold one leg extended while it touched my nose or my ear. I could leap for multiple songs without breaking a sweat.

My victory was measured by L.’s silence. She had no corrections to shout. She had no reason to slap my hand or pinch my back or smack my stomach or butt. I was a model. I was untouchable. 

Of course, the glory didn’t last long as I disappeared to yet another cancer treatment center for life-changing intervention. But I feel similar inclinations now, having mostly finished treatment for another cancer in 2025. 

I regard my healthcare providers as a bunch of bullies, unsavory characters who take every shortcut available to spare themselves, while I have tried to understand them, to respect them, to offer them the kindness I am so desperate to receive.

Now, when the best I hope for is bureaucratic indifference, and the worst I anticipate is downright cruelty, I think again of making my body a fortress.  

I will reduce myself to my ideal weight. I will run to outpace the snarling dogs of death. I will lift the impossible stones of cancer recurrence and toss them halfway across the country. I will throw the javelin of my contempt until it stops my enemies in their tracks, until it robs them of breath.

I have confronted many bullies, many deadly diseases. 

Only fools underestimate me. Only fools think I will thank them for slop and for shit. 

I am a soldier against death. 

Besides fighting for my life, I fight for what I know to be true. I fight for what I feel to be right.

Resistance is Health