-
happy to be home
At 4 o’clock this morning, I called out, “Honey!” Almost instantaneously, “Coming Momma!” from a 14 year old who has been elevated to heroine status for reasons that will become clear as I try to make a point about what coming home means. At the same time, from the den, another “Coming honey!” – my wise and worn-out husband who has experienced waiting more than anyone I know, more than anyone should. Waiting and watching for years until an aortic abdominal aneurysm grew to just the right size for a surgery that would repair it and allow him to retire. During that wait, it never once occurred to me to…
-
cancer on our calendar
This relatively normal Christmas could have used the enviable scheduling skills of the Breast Patient Navigator. The hustle and bustle of my favorite season has been overshadowed by interminable waiting for results of tests on tumors and saliva. By some miracle, the Christmas tree is up and twinkling in our front window. I even resurrected my camera and, on a 70 degree day, forced our daughter to don a cheery winter coat and pose under a tree in the backyard. The effort and the eye-rolling was worth it, producing a festive image that was duly uploaded to Shutterfly where the nice people there transformed it into a Happy New Year…
-
positively negative
During a webinar with colleagues this afternoon, my cell phone rang. No caller ID. “Unknown.” Presumably, like all recent “unknown” callers, this would be one of my ever-expanding new network of medical professionals. Initially, I thought it was the cheery Maria from my dentist’s office, confirming a routine cleaning, but it was the other Maria, The Breast Surgery Coordinator, whose phone calls have become as vital to me as dispatches from the front. Two weeks had passed since last we spoke, so I knew this was about the BRCA gene testing. With a quick readjustment, I braced myself for Maria’s news and at the same time resigned myself to the likelihood…
-
Uncategorized
47 days
I read something the other day about a woman who felt she had two distinct lives – the one before cancer and the one forever changed by the diagnosis. In thinking about my own journey through cancer country, I am stuck on determining the actual departure date from the life I’d had without cancer. I may have had it for as long as seven years, I’m told. Still, I feel different. Something has shifted around and within me. Ostensibly, my life is technically the same. I wake up, take a shower, ‘prepare a face to meet the faces I will meet.’ I go to the same job every day with…
