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| Race for the Cure 2010, one month post-chemo. |
Yesterday marked six years from the day that I received the
call telling me that the pathology report from my surgery four days earlier was
in, and confirmed that I had cancer…for the second time.
It was late in the day, as afternoon gave way to evening, its subtle waning light foreshadowing sunset. I remember marveling at the idea that my surgeon
was still at work, reviewing reports and delivering verdicts, at such an hour.
It was spring break for me. I'd scheduled the surgery on the Monday after Easter so that I wouldn't have to take time off for it and, when the call came, I had just returned
home from a run which, in hindsight, was either evidence of extremely poor
judgment or the strength of my ability to ignore and deny the facts.
I sat on the porch, cordless phone to my ear, furiously scribbling notes as I absorbed the news. It didn’t pack the same shock value as the first time I’d received this diagnosis,
mostly because I’d carried the line of lumps under my arm for three years with
the unsettled feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Sometimes even without
knowing you just know.
I hung up after reassuring my surgeon that I was
okay and scrawling his cell and home phone numbers at the bottom of my notes in case I had any
questions, or just needed to talk, over the weekend. It was a Friday afternoon, and the fact that he was
willing to divulge such information underscored just how disappointed he was himself by
the news.
I rehashed the conversation with the running partner who’d
unwittingly become privy to my health crisis by virtue of her presence on the porch
with me. She put her arm around me for moral support as I summoned the strength
for next steps, plotting out plans and anticipating the future.
I called Scott at work, but got his voicemail. I dialed his
cell and caught him in the car. To this day he can describe in precise detail
the exact spot where he pulled to the curb to take my call, and vividly recalls
the knot of fear in his gut as he drove the rest of the way home.
I called my mom. She seemed unfazed, optimistic, and blessedly
certain that I would do whatever I had to do and it would all turn out fine. It
helped to hear from someone else that, while life-altering, this diagnosis did
not definitively spell out the end of my health, my life, or my world.
I drove to my sister Sarah’s house to pick up Sammy, who’d
spent the day with her cousins. In the days leading up to surgery, I’d thought about how I’d tell her if, God forbid, the path report turned up a malignancy. I knew what to say, but that doesn’t mean I was in any way
prepared to say it.
Sarah met me at the door. My mom had called to alert her to
the situation, which was why she'd arranged for the kids to be at the park when I
arrived. I stood in her kitchen, explaining the pathology results the way the
doctor had explained them to me, and suddenly started to shake with a
bone-rattling chill.
In hindsight it was probably shock. Sarah made me sit down,
got me another sweatshirt, and then a jacket, and made a pot of coffee. I
wrapped my blue-tinged fingers around the cup and proceeded to deliver a monotone,
contemplative monologue on my immediate future.
The kids straggled home when it got dark, tired, muddy and grass-stained. Sammy, keen observer of the human condition that she is,
noticed the layers I wore. “Why are you wearing all those jackets?”
“I’m just cold,” I lied. We gathered her things and said our
goodbyes. I waited until we were in the car, in the comfort of the familiar
journey home, to tell the truth.
“The doctor called. The bad news is that those lumps he took
out are cancerous, but the good news is that we caught it early.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Are you going to die?”
“Well, someday I will, but not right now. I’ll have to
have another surgery and we’ll see after that if I need any more treatment, but
no, I’m not going to die.”
It was neither an outright lie nor an irrefutable truth, just a hopeful utterance that has, to this point, proven to be as accurate as my
mom’s firm belief that I would successfully scale the necessary medical
obstacles and that all would be well in the end.
Somewhere along the evolutionary line of cancer blogs, someone coined the term "cancerversary" to describe the anniversaries of important milestones one experiences on the journey through diagnosis and treatment.
I don’t celebrate cancerversaries with trumpets and
fanfare. I don’t plan parties, or dinners, or even buy myself flowers or over-indulge in chocolate. But I do
mark my diagnosis date—every single year.
I inhale and relive the suspended moments of denial and disbelief,
remembering the fear and doubt that dogged those cancer days.
And then I exhale a prayer of gratitude for the beautiful
gift of life that I’ve been given, and get back to the day-to-day business of
living it.