Early in the interview, Amanda is asked about the idea of hope, then and how it may have changed in the now.  She speaks of her fears that even though, while she was in prison, she knew her family and friends back home were supporting her, their worlds were (are?) so catastrophically different.  Her mother spoke to her during her incarceration about hope for the future, and it's not that she'd lost hope, but she had to also set realistic expectations. 
We can't thrive in a land providing us only with hopes and dreams of the future.  That doesn't help in the now. 
Amanda speaks of how yes, she knew her innocence, hoped justice would be served and she would be freed, but what if not?   The trust in the judicial system waning in the face of her wrongful conviction, what if she had to stay in prison for twenty-six years?  She served four before "it was all over," but trauma is never over.  we simply turn to the next chapter.  the pages behind us are still there.  we can recall significant passages, flip back to the memories and relive them.

i understand, in a different but same way,
because this fleshsack is a prison.
not the kind with bars, and a shitty cot for a bed, with guards screaming in your face because you are crying because you miss your mom, not that kind of prison.

i have been told to be hopeful.  i have been told that we will all get through this.
who the fuck is we?

at least it's not xyz.  at least you're still alive.  at least the drains were eventually removed.  at least you can eat now, even if it's limited and painful.  at least your relearned how to walk.  (at least I rented the wheelchair until my insurance had purchased it and i got to keep the fucker, since I still need it sometimes, but I digress).  

or, best,  at least it's the good cancer.
the good cancer!!
i want to scream.
there are "good" and "bad" cancers. 
you know, ones that respond well to treatment or are slow-moving,
as opposed to one that moves ferociously and quickly.
"if you have to have cancer, this is the best one you could have picked."
.... fuckery.  i didn't pick anything.

"neuroendocrine cancer is rare and progressive.  it's persistent and will always come back.  but the good news is, it responds well to treatment and moves slow!  but yours has already metastasized all over your body, it's stage iv, so yeah, there's no curing this or fixing it."
a shit sandwich on a silver platter.

what about the time they told me that my cancer had been successfully removed and somebody, somebody, put the notion into my head that I was cancer-free after my Whipple Procedure?  I had a facebook memories thing come up last week, on what would have been Thanksgiving or the following day, stating i was thankful to be cancer free.  who. fucking. lied. to me.
because they told me they had removed all the malignant masses that they had known about. Known about.  They had also found additional malignant tumors, ones they hadn't known were there.

so then, if they found more than what they were looking for, why in the fuck would they think they got it all?
and further, if it is stage iv and removing it doesn't actually remove it, because it's just there or whatever, waiting, creeping, why in the fuck would you tell someone they are cancer free?

or the first time I arrived at Johns Hopkins University for "specialized continuance of care" a year and a month post-Whipple, to be told by a surgical oncologist whose specialty is neuroendocrine tumors that in his professional opinion, my Whipple Procedure was unnecessarily invasive and didn't really... do... anything.  That the correct course of action was the injection treatment I am now on, because of the persistence of neuroendocrine tumors/cancer, they'll just keep cropping back up and you can't just keep cutting a person open to remove them, scar tissue build-up and stuff.
like amanda knox, i too have floundering faith in the system that was supposed to protect me.
... the system.  not the individuals. 
i am sad.  i don't harbor any ill feelings against my surgeon who performed my Whipple. 
honestly, i love him.  that makes it harder.
i'm sad.
i was crushed;
​now, two years after that news i am just sad.

tell me how to be hopeful.

yes, i can and do hope that the treatments work and make plans, but the thing is, there isn't "when this is over," not til we're dead in the ground.  I wrote the other day on Patreon, that life is cumulative. You don't get to come out of prison, or walk away from shaking death's hand, and just resume life as it was.  There isn't an over.  There is processing and wading through it.

there are scans every few months. 
"for what?" people ask, if I mention these.
"to see if i light up like a christmas tree." and I do. 
little radioactive blips that show where the cancer still is and will continue to be.
little radioactive cancer patient, lit like a christmas tree and not in the fun way.
the blips don't glow any larger, which means the treatment is working.
the blips also don't glow any smaller, which means the treatment isn't working as well as I'd hoped it would so even though the PET scan results are "good" and show "effective treatment," i am not good.  tell me about how this is one of the good cancers.

tell me about how to be hopeful.  
tell me how to take this information and be hopeful.

you can't.
i'm sorry, i'm not angry at you, reader.
I'm just angry.  and hurt.  and alone.

hope can feel dangerous.  a trap you lie for yourself.
Amanda compares it to a light at the end of the tunnel, but it's too bright, so her eyes are squeezed tight to keep herself from being blinded, and honestly that's a much healthier way of viewing it.
​
it's hard to feel hopeful when you're in the hospital parking garage and you hang up the handicap placard that makes you feel like an imposter.  you don't look old enough, you don't look sick enough, and yet here you are, already fifteen minutes late and yet you can't get out of your car because fuck.  just being at the hospital is enough to set me into tears.  i go every four weeks for treatment.