Joy: An Eponym

Written by Alecs Kakon

Photos by Jen Fellegi

*Trigger Warning*

Life throws challenges at us, but as some would believe, we are only thrown the ones we are equipped to handle. While a part of me can find flaw in that symbiotic way of thinking, the other part of me wholeheartedly wants to prescribe to the belief that I am strong enough to overcome whatever comes my way. As a child I most certainly was not. Rather than dealing with anything, I invested in a huge broom for sweeping and what not. But, as the years accumulated, along with a mountain’s worth of emotional debris, I acknowledged that I needed to procure a different sort of cleaning device for clearing away the pain, the symptoms, the triggers and so on. What I learned is that when you invest in yourself—treat yourself to some self-care, self-love, self-reflection—a lot will surface, making room for positive space in your heart where gratitude and happiness can reside. It was such a foreign concept to me, until just recently, the whole “everything happens for a reason,” or whatever, no longer felt cliché. If I look closely at the narrative of my life thus far, there is a storyline that is being woven, and with that comes overarching themes, symbolic knots that are tied up, and meaning to moments I have yet to discover. Listening to Joy tell her story of survival, I was moved beyond awe. Her resilience, her perspective, but most of all her sense of self. Joy sought comfort in knowing that the fabric of her being could withstand even the fastest growing tornado.

Born and raised in the depths of the farthest corner of Montreal, Joy grew up right near an ambulance base. Like a beacon of future dreams, Joy discovered her passion very early in life, and true to her character, it was a profession wrought with warrior strength, skilled calmness and caregiving qualities. “I remember being so young and walking by the base, stopping to stare up at it knowing that one day I would work there,” Joy describes. “I just knew it was coolest, rawest feeling to be out in the field and helping people, prepping them before getting to the hospital. You never know what you’ll be called to answer, but you have to be ready. It was just so neat.” Starting her studies to be a medic at 17, Joy had to wait until she was 18 to start her stage, and off she went into her lifelong career as a medic. “Six years ago an elementary school asked if I could come on once a week to do First Aid. It started part-time, but now I am work there full-time as the First Aid Coordinator, but I still keep my ambulance shift once every 2 weeks. It keeps my skills up and keeps me current, but honestly, I’ve been with my partner for 22 years and the truck is just my happy place.”

Barely 2 years into the job, Joy was faced with a reality-rupturing experience. “My daughter was on a competing dance team and I had made good friends with a bunch of the moms from the team. One of the moms I had grown close to was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was a shock to all of us. She was our peer and she was our age. It was insane. I immediately checked myself,” Joy explains. “I had had a breast reduction the year prior and one day, right near my scar felt uncomfortable. I gave myself an exam and I felt a massive lump. It was the size of a golf ball. I screamed to my husband and yelled ‘oh my god I don’t want to die’. I was crying inconsolably. I had been checking myself regularly, but this thing was all of a sudden really there. When I finally had my appointment, my GP confirmed that I would need an ultrasound. I spoke to my friend and she urged me that no matter what the ultrasound said, I should insist on a biopsy. ‘Don’t leave there without a biopsy,’ she repeated. I remember being in the office alone, wearing a pink gown and the song wind beneath my wings was playing, it was like a bad cancer commercial.” Chatting during her appointment, the doctor just stopped at one point and turned to Joy and said, ‘yeah, there’s something there.’ Joy thought she would need to insist on a biopsy, but the doctor assured her she wouldn’t be leaving without one. “I had to wait 72 hours for the confirmation, and when it came it hit me hard. The doctor kept repeating fast growing, aggressive, cancer, and which hospital would I be transferred to, and I just thought ‘will I be able to watch my kids walk down the aisle?’”

Joy got her team of doctors ready and off she went for 16 rounds of chemotherapy prior to her planned surgeries. “I had these unrealistic ideas that this would all be contained and it would be a minor bump in the road and I would be fine. The first 12 rounds went fine, but I reacted badly to the last 4. My body wasn’t handling it. Think of the worst movie of that woman being sick, tired and nauseous from chemo… that was me. Until then I had been Joy, wig, lashes, makeup, a strong smile – no one had to worry about me. I had this, I was fine. One night it was so bad, I showed up no lashes, no makeup, hat on, no wig and the doctor just looked at me and said ‘wow Joy, you look really sick,” Joy remembers. “Those last 4 rounds were bad and they kept having to delay and push back sessions, it felt like the end was so close and it was almost over and then it would be prolonged. It was never-ending.” Joy made it through with her greatest weapon of all: throughout the entire course of her illness, she kept a face she could recognize, she remained the person she knows herself to be. Rooted in solid Joy (and her name couldn’t be more fitting), she survived Triple negative cancer, had a double mastectomy and a hysterectomy, she carries the BRACA-1 gene mutation and wears her cancer scars like a the hero that she is. “Throughout it all I just never wanted anyone to worry about me. I am the helper, I am the caregiver, and so taking care of myself was important. Looking like myself as important. I want people to know me, see me, I don’t want cancer to be the first thing they see when they think of Joy.”

Four years in remission and Joy is almost declared cancer-free. “I’m not cancer-free yet, and it’s scary because it feels like those last 4 rounds of chemo, like that declaration of ‘cancer-free’ is right there, I’m so close, but anything could come along and delay it. I get a migraine and I get a CT to rule out cancer. I have bad blood tests and I’m checked for kidney cancer. It’s always right there with me. My body is reminder of what I’ve been through also. I’m tired, I ache, I feel like an 85 year-old woman sometimes. I was in such good shape 4 years ago and I get frustrated that I’m not there yet. But I’m grateful.  I look back and think ‘holy shit, I can’t believe what I lived through!’ But you know what, while I was in it, I never stopped, I just kept pushing. I jumped back into my life pretty quickly; I was impatient to get my shift back because being someone who saves other people is who I am, it’s a huge deal for me. I may have pushed too fast too soon, but I had to get back out there to be myself again. It’s my identity. That and my hair is finally the length it was before chemo and I am never cutting it!”

A mammoth diagnosis at 35 that changed the course of her life, Joy’s sense of conviction and self beamed through her storytelling and I just listened in awe. Some people truly are just cut from a different cloth and Joy’s resilience is a testament to that. As we closed our conversation, Joy said: “I recently got into an accident and I thought, great, I survived cancer but this is how it ends!” She giggled. One broken arm later, Joy knows that being back in that hospital felt iterative of treatment, one IV catapulting her back in time, but “I’m strong. Life happens, but I’m equipped. I can handle it and I can power through this. It’s who I am.” Tracing the thread of her life back to that little girl who stood staring up at that ambulance base, dreaming of the life she would live saving people, the symbolism of Joy’s life is not lost on me: she answered her calling, and no matter what life throws at her, she is always at the ready.