[Guest blog by Barrett Rollins, MD, PhD]

I’m an oncologist at Harvard’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. So was my wife of thirty years, a woman who, despite her undisputed genius as a physician and researcher, kept her breast cancer a secret from everyone, including me, for a decade. (Hold your questions…) Eventually, she became too ill to hide it any longer. When that happened, I devoted myself to caring for her at home during her final year.

Watching Jane slowly fade while I tried desperately to make her comfortable was the hardest thing I’d ever experienced. For twelve months, I did nothing else, thought of nothing else. I was so focused on the work—changing dressings, relieving pain, managing shortness of breath, fighting infection—that I had no time to think about what I’d do once she was gone. In fact, like so many others in my situation, I blocked all conscious thoughts of Jane’s death.

But Jane died and I was lost. We’d had a close, nearly hermetic relationship, one that had excluded friends and family. When the time came, though, those we had shunned were amazingly forgiving and generous. They offered support. But after thirty years of refusing it, I didn’t know how to accept it. I was convinced that my life was over—not that I would die but that my career and the things that used to interest me no longer had meaning.

Somehow, though, in between bouts of sobbing, a different thought took hold. I realized that although I had lived through an extraordinary event, I understood almost nothing about it. Why had Jane and I cut ourselves off? Why did a brilliant, otherwise insightful cancer doctor refuse to seek treatment? Why did she hide her cancer from the person who loved her most?

I felt compelled to find answers to these questions. The one person who might have, in time, explained her inexplicable behavior was gone and I certainly hadn’t generated any useful insights myself. What was I to do?

I decided to write. I’d try to document everything I could remember about our lives together. I’d relate the facts, of course, but in the process, I’d try to interpret them. I’m no artist but it occurred to me that this might be the closest I’d ever come to producing a work of art, something that might do what art is supposed to do: refract experience and, if done well, help explain some of it.

So, I began writing about Jane. The result was a memoir that I called In Sickness.

The book didn’t answer all of my difficult questions but it largely provided what I’d hoped it would: a new way to look at what I’d understandably thought of as a horrific experience. It let me see how love and hope were embedded in our shared ordeal. Most important, it allowed me to forgive both Jane and myself, and it helped me re-embark on my life.

“Survivorship” as we think about it on this important day, rightly honors the brave, strong individuals who survived their cancer diagnosis. But, perhaps, it could also honor the devoted family members who are left behind, often in a diminished state, when their loved ones succumb to cancer. I hope that my story—a tale of cancer’s miseries, to be sure, but also a tale of rebirth—can help many who feel hopeless after another’s death and wonder whether their own survival has meaning.

Barrett Rollins, MD, PhD is an oncologist and author of In Sickness. He is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Born in Cleveland, he graduated from Amherst College and received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University. He is a trustee of the Interlochen Center for the Arts and lives in Boston.

Barrett is part of the Official NCSD Speakers Bureau Roster.