A Journey
Like so many other women, I began a journey that seemed like a one-way ticket to hell on a witch's broomstick, I found out I had breast cancer. And to think, my journey started on one of those perfect days in early June.
Spurred by the sunshine, blue sky and ideal temperature, I was retrieving my daughters' summer clothes from the top shelves of their closets, when I felt something different in my right breast. What's this, I wondered, as my fingers probed a hard little lamp. To me, it felt like a marble. Three weeks before, I had my first mammogram ever, and everything was "fine." Certainly there was no reason for alarm, and my doctors agreed with me.
We all decided since I was getting married in July and since my lump was most certainly a harmless cyst, the lump could wait until after the wedding. So I turned off a little nagging voice at the back of my head until after the wedding. One hot day in early August, I left my office for a little outpatient to remove the marble lodged in my chest. Since I have chosen local anesthesia for the surgery, I figured I'd be back in the newsroom, in two, at most, three hours. I did get back, but it took almost a full year.
But that hot day in August, I was still blissfully ignorant. Except for being awake and able to hear the surgeon call for the scapels, I found the surgery a snap. Sure, the surgery took a little longer than expected, but I felt no alarm. I was delighted it didn't hurt, and all that marked the spot was a line of neat little stitches. I waved happily to the surgeon as I wheeled down to recovery. He was talked on the phone, and later, I would recall how gloomy he looked. Something, I thought, must have gone wrong with another patient.
I congratulated myself in the recovery room. The patients who had had general anesthesia were
groggy, while I felt great and so relieved. So where was my husband Jere? I was more than ready to leave. The nurse wondered what was taking my husband and my surgeon so long. The surgeon's on the phone, I told here, and my husband probably went to find a soda machine. Just as I was described how much Diet Coke Jere could drink in a day, he arrived.
"Jere," I exclaimed, grabbing my things to go, "what took you so long. Hey, don't worry," I said, noting his face. "I feel fine. This was easy. If I had the surgery was going to be this easy, I would not have waited at all. Let's go."
Jere wasn't share my joy, and he wasn't holding a soda. Instead, he became intent on making me read a story about a cat that had traveled 2000 miles to get home. "Sit down, and read this. You'll love this story, Marianne. And, besides, we have to wait for the surgeon."
Sure, Jere looked pale, and he didn't normally thrust cute animal stories on me. Yet I still wasn't suspicious. After all, I wasn't the "sick" type. I knew most breast lumps are not cancerous, and I had never felt better. Besides, I reasoned quickly to myself, cancer doesn't run in my family, I don't smoke, and I rarely drink. Neither his behavior nor the surgeon's was going to shake my confidence, so I took the newspaper Jere pressed on me and sat down to read.
So I was in the middle of the story about a poor cat's desperate journey when the surgeon arrived. Visibly shaken, he told me what he had already shared with my husband. Only this time, he was positive. He had the lab report, and I had breast cancer.
"You had a big lump of cancer," he told me. "And , I don't know if I got it all. You'll have to fight, Marianne." Then he paused. "At least, you're young. At least, that's in your favor."
I cried immediately, but the news really took me months to absorb. Those first few days Jere and I were on the phone, calling doctors and hospitals and gathering armloads of information about breast cancer. In a day or two, I told my daughters, who were then 4 and 8. Would I be able to tuck them in, read them stories, braid their hair, go swimming? When I said yes, they took the news with a shrug. I envied how easily they adjusted.
"How," I remember saying to my husband that day all my hair fell out and I cried, "can you love a woman who is totally bald?
"How," he replied immediately, pointed to the thinning spot on the top of his head, "can you love a man who is losing his hair?'
I dried my eyes and laughed. Laughter, like prayer and supportive family and friends and physicians, made the impossible tolerable. My attitude, I learned, was the one thing I could still control. And, at least now, I understand.
Like the cat in the story, I have a journey to make.
Like so many other women, I began a journey that seemed like a one-way ticket to hell on a witch's broomstick, I found out I had breast cancer. And to think, my journey started on one of those perfect days in early June.
Spurred by the sunshine, blue sky and ideal temperature, I was retrieving my daughters' summer clothes from the top shelves of their closets, when I felt something different in my right breast. What's this, I wondered, as my fingers probed a hard little lamp. To me, it felt like a marble. Three weeks before, I had my first mammogram ever, and everything was "fine." Certainly there was no reason for alarm, and my doctors agreed with me.
We all decided since I was getting married in July and since my lump was most certainly a harmless cyst, the lump could wait until after the wedding. So I turned off a little nagging voice at the back of my head until after the wedding. One hot day in early August, I left my office for a little outpatient to remove the marble lodged in my chest. Since I have chosen local anesthesia for the surgery, I figured I'd be back in the newsroom, in two, at most, three hours. I did get back, but it took almost a full year.
But that hot day in August, I was still blissfully ignorant. Except for being awake and able to hear the surgeon call for the scapels, I found the surgery a snap. Sure, the surgery took a little longer than expected, but I felt no alarm. I was delighted it didn't hurt, and all that marked the spot was a line of neat little stitches. I waved happily to the surgeon as I wheeled down to recovery. He was talked on the phone, and later, I would recall how gloomy he looked. Something, I thought, must have gone wrong with another patient.
I congratulated myself in the recovery room. The patients who had had general anesthesia were
groggy, while I felt great and so relieved. So where was my husband Jere? I was more than ready to leave. The nurse wondered what was taking my husband and my surgeon so long. The surgeon's on the phone, I told here, and my husband probably went to find a soda machine. Just as I was described how much Diet Coke Jere could drink in a day, he arrived.
"Jere," I exclaimed, grabbing my things to go, "what took you so long. Hey, don't worry," I said, noting his face. "I feel fine. This was easy. If I had the surgery was going to be this easy, I would not have waited at all. Let's go."
Jere wasn't share my joy, and he wasn't holding a soda. Instead, he became intent on making me read a story about a cat that had traveled 2000 miles to get home. "Sit down, and read this. You'll love this story, Marianne. And, besides, we have to wait for the surgeon."
Sure, Jere looked pale, and he didn't normally thrust cute animal stories on me. Yet I still wasn't suspicious. After all, I wasn't the "sick" type. I knew most breast lumps are not cancerous, and I had never felt better. Besides, I reasoned quickly to myself, cancer doesn't run in my family, I don't smoke, and I rarely drink. Neither his behavior nor the surgeon's was going to shake my confidence, so I took the newspaper Jere pressed on me and sat down to read.
So I was in the middle of the story about a poor cat's desperate journey when the surgeon arrived. Visibly shaken, he told me what he had already shared with my husband. Only this time, he was positive. He had the lab report, and I had breast cancer.
"You had a big lump of cancer," he told me. "And , I don't know if I got it all. You'll have to fight, Marianne." Then he paused. "At least, you're young. At least, that's in your favor."
I cried immediately, but the news really took me months to absorb. Those first few days Jere and I were on the phone, calling doctors and hospitals and gathering armloads of information about breast cancer. In a day or two, I told my daughters, who were then 4 and 8. Would I be able to tuck them in, read them stories, braid their hair, go swimming? When I said yes, they took the news with a shrug. I envied how easily they adjusted.
"How," I remember saying to my husband that day all my hair fell out and I cried, "can you love a woman who is totally bald?
"How," he replied immediately, pointed to the thinning spot on the top of his head, "can you love a man who is losing his hair?'
I dried my eyes and laughed. Laughter, like prayer and supportive family and friends and physicians, made the impossible tolerable. My attitude, I learned, was the one thing I could still control. And, at least now, I understand.
Like the cat in the story, I have a journey to make.