Tomorrow Will Change Everything

Day Twenty – Christmas

With a big, ugly cloud hanging over the house, we celebrated with our daughter and had a wonderful meal together, visited with neighbors, and watched “A Christmas Story”. Cancer would not ruin this day.

I spoke with my dad and my baby brother the day I got the biopsy results. My middle brother called today and we talked for a long time. He asked all the right questions and gave me all the comfort I needed and it felt so good.

Cancer can either tear a family apart or mend it. I have so many people behind me, here on earth and my angels who have passed on before me. I certainly don’t feel invincible, but I do feel cherished.

Day Twenty-one or Twenty-two – Thursday and Friday

I don’t know how it happened or when it happened, but our marriage is tense. This has made it even more tense. The same man who went with me to every appointment, CT scan, and chemo treatment has not even been in town for anything so far. I wonder if he is trying to hide from this because he is so scared, or if he is just tired of all of it. I honestly can’t blame him. I guess I included this little piece of personal information to let you know that not everything will go smoothly – the treatments may go horribly wrong, or the diagnosis may not be as promising as you hoped, or your spouse may decide that it’s just too much.

What I have to decide now is what’s best for me. Not him, not my friends, or my kids, but me. It’s my time to be totally selfish. If I am going to make it through this, I have to be the strongest I can be and I can’t have anyone around me who isn’t willing to give me 100% of their emotional self. No self doubts, no criticisms, no threats, no promises that can’t be kept. I need honesty, support, and love without conditions.

My GYN calls me to offer support and tell me he would have referred me to the doctor I am seeing on Monday. The call is uplifting.

Day Twenty-three – Saturday

I drove to Phoenix to pick up my husband and had a little talk with myself on the way up. I said in my mind over and over again what I would say to him and I felt good about the conversation. I wasn’t sure what his reaction would be, but I was sure what I was going to say.

Funny how nothing ever goes the way you rehearsed. Sometimes it goes even better.

Our conversation didn’t turn into a fight, like I pictured it in my head, but a release. I released all the feelings of hurt and fear. He released all the scenarios he had been thinking about, but not sharing. We both felt better and I knew he was, once again, totally in my corner.

Day Twenty-four – Sunday

Football day! We watched and ate and laughed and snuggled just like normal people do. Every once in a while the 500 pound elephant would rear its ugly head, but we would just glare at it and it would slowly leave the room. 

Today was not the day for talking or thinking. Today was the day for enjoyment of food and our favorite sport. One of our teams won and one lost. One is going to playoffs and one is going home. Well, you just can’t have everything.

I feel fine, physically. The bruises from my biopsy have healed. I have no pain anywhere, except the normal “I’m an old lady and I creak” pain. That doesn’t go away – ever. But if I didn’t know that I had Cancer growing in my breast, I wouldn’t know it. I feel perfectly normal and as healthy as I have felt for about 2 years. The same things blast around in my head: I need to lose weight. I need to exercise more. I need to go to the dentist. I need to find a job so I can go to the dentist. On Tuesday, I need to pay the bills. Normal stuff.

But I do know about the Cancer and it creeps into my thoughts constantly. Tomorrow’s appointment will tell us a lot – probably a lot we don’t want to hear. I have to think that it will be the next step towards getting better, but I’ve been here before, and before you get better – there’s a lot of getting worse. I’m not looking forward to that.

Tomorrow will change everything.