“Moving On (before and after cancer)” by Sue McCollum

“Moving On (before and after cancer)” is author Sue McCollum’s personal journal about her experience with breast cancer. However, it’s unique because it is written entirely in rhyme poetry.

The book is divided chronologically into four sections detailing McCollum’s cancer journey: The Discovery, The Treatments, The Follow Up and Life Goes On. Each section is comprised of five to seven poems. Most of the poems’ rhyme schemes occur in the second and fourth lines of each stanza.

“Moving On” gives the reader tremendous insight into the cancer experience. McCollum describes her fears and anxieties, interactions with doctors and other cancer patients, her relationship with God and things she learned along the way.

Her poems give a behind-the-scenes look at the trials and tribulations of cancer and the plethora of emotions the experience engenders. The first poem of “The Discovery” section is titled “The Little Pea.” She begins:

It had been a year since I found it.
It was like a little pea.
It didn’t go away
so I went to the Doctor to see.

The doctor informs her that it is indeed cancer, but we get the sense the McCollum will not let cancer define her going forward. She continues:

I thought of this as an ‘ugly job.’
It has a start and a finish.
I will not let cancer own me,
Nor my life will it diminish.

I’ll continue to walk,
I will enjoy each minute.
With my family and my dear friends
I will, indeed, win it.

McCollum finds out the small lump in her breast is cancer, a shocking and horrifying thing for anyone to hear. However she makes it evident that she was ready to face the cancer head-on, with a strong desire to fight and see it through to the end.

The second poem of “Moving On” is titled “c,” stylized intentionally as a lower-case “c.” It stands for “cancer,” and McCollum writes a note at the end of the poem stating that she refuses to acknowledge it with a capital letter. Sue informs us during this poem that her mother died of breast cancer when Sue was eight years old. So you get the sense right away this is an unbelievably personal battle, with daughter fighting the same cancer as her mother had.

In the “Treatments” section, McCollum goes into detail about her thoughts on different medical personnel, radiation and other cancer patients she sees in the radiation labs. In the poem “Radiation,” McCollum describes the process:

To go through radiation
is like being buried alive.
I’m locked down in the bowels of the earth
hoping I will survive.

I’m put upon a steel table
the technicians call a ‘couch,’
Tucked into my special cradle
where I lie and don’t say, ‘Ouch.’

Credit: suemccollum.com

She continues to describe the process, being shut into the machine behind a six-foot-wide steel door. She mentions that when she’s in the radiation chamber all alone, she wonders if she has died, if God is in there with her, and if He even cares.

Two poems in the “Treatments” section share details about other cancer patients she sees in the radiation lab. Some are worse off than she is, and she talks about how they’re all dressed the same, and that she looks around with a half-smile, saying nothing because what can you say in a situation like that? These poems portray the inner workings of a mind plagued with countless questions and emotions brought on only by the experience of a cancer radiation waiting room.

Waiting in the Wings

The majority of “Moving On” is about Sue McCollum herself: her anxieties, her experiences with cancer, her inner thoughts and how she coped with the disease. One of the final poems in this collection gives praise to family and friends of all cancer patients, not just her own.

Titled “Waiting in the Wings,” it begins:

Hats off to those who wait in the wings,
while their loved one goes through cancer.
They are there day after day
wishing they did have an answer…

To help, to assist, to calm the fears
of the one they love so much.
But there is nothing that they can do
-so they just show up a bunch.

She continues to describe the importance of simply “being there” for your loved one. Clearly her loved ones helped her through the rough times, and she implores others to do the same.

“Moving On” is a short collection of extremely personal poems detailing Sue McCollum’s experience with breast cancer. It gives readers insight into the “process” of cancer and helps us to vicariously understand what a cancer patient goes through.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who has a loved one who’s had cancer or currently has cancer, cancer patients themselves or anyone who’s been affected by cancer in some way or another. In other words, I’d recommend “Moving On” to everyone.