Undetectable Disease
(Or Midlife Citizen of the Year)
In 1999, my senior year of high school, I received the Youth Citizen of the Year award. The winner likely also received a year-end college scholarship, which is how I rationalized nominating myself.
Even then, I knew that while plenty of peers and adults were aware of how involved I was, there was also invisible work I wanted made visible.
So I did.
Even now, decades later, I feel embarrassed admitting the self-nomination. The first thing the critic in my head says is, Typical. Tooting your own horn.
Lately, though, I have been thinking that maybe I have kept self-publishing all these years, here on Substack for the last year and before that, on and off at amandathanks.com, because the internet may be the last place anything, or anyone, goes to die.
And when I do die, as we all will, traces of my thoughts and stories and ideas may still be sitting in the cloud, with a chance of one day raining down on relatives near or distant who never got to know me.
When I’m dead, while I believe it’s important to be honest about the missteps, questions, and impulses I acted on, I also think it is just as important, and just as vulnerable, to cite the monumental and still sometimes invisible achievements.
So, taking a note from Rindge, New Hampshire’s 1999 Youth Citizen of the Year, I have decided to name what the last year and a half has required of me.
It has only been a year and a half since melanoma entered my life, and right now I am in undetected disease status.
At this moment, no scan shows visible evidence of cancer.
That is not my doing. That is the miraculous work of modern medicine, the discipline of following medical direction as closely as possible, and whatever divine force lives in air, water, breath, and human care.
I believe attitude matters. But I do not believe anyone can think, pray, wish, or hope themselves into or out of chronic illness.
I also do not believe humility requires silence.
I did not disappear the cancer, but despite its best efforts, I also did not allow the cancer to disappear me.
Here is what I did while fighting for my life and co-parenting a teenager:
I survived emergency brain surgery, brain radiation, and both combo and single-dose immunotherapy.
I learned to live with adrenal insufficiency and a damaged thyroid.
I sold my house, resulting in a 100 percent return on investment.
I moved 40 miles away.
I accepted help, even when it felt like it was eroding the most precious parts of my identity.
I navigated complex insurance, medical, and financial systems.
I spoke up when the people in charge were not listening.
I made friends.
I became closer with family.
I learned to nap and say no.
I stayed present at my son’s baseball games.
I found my way back to movement.
I kept writing and started to paint.
Treating this disease has left lasting damage. The key word in that sentence is: lasting.
So, while the year is not even halfway through, I am claiming Midlife Citizen of the Year, 2026.
