The Cancer Diary 5 Years Later: 12/12/12 and the Satellite

I have always been a good rule follower.  I never park in handicapped parking spaces.  I renew my license and pay my bills on time.  I write my lesson plans on Sunday nights so that they are online Monday morning.  I grade my students’ papers promptly so that they can know their grades quickly.  I am reliable.  Unfortunately, not everything in life is that reliable and so I am easily shocked when things do not go as planned. 

I have had the biggest shock of my life.  I have breast cancer. 

Why is this a shock?  Because no close relative of mine has ever had breast cancer – I have to go back two generations to great aunts and a great-grandma .  Because I thought only large-chested women had breast cancer (um, not me).  Because since seventh grade, when my grandma died of diabetes related heart problems, I have only ever worried that I would have diabetes or heart disease.  Breast cancer?  This was far off my radar of things to worry about.  And so I did not. 

But I did turn 40 this past June.  I looked forward to it, much more than turning 30.  Turning 40, I was secure about myself.   I didn’t have to worry about what I haven’t done yet in my life.  I could be happy with what I have done.  However, when you have milestone birthdays, you do think about ticking off certain boxes.   One box for me was getting a mammogram.

 

I had thought about it in the previous few years.  My mom gets a mammogram every year on her birthday.  Friends who were starting to turn 40 were talking about getting mammograms.  Even my primary care doctor sent me an alarmist letter telling me to get one.  I wasn’t worried, but remember, I am a good rule follower.  If you are supposed to get a mammogram at 40, I was going to get one.

Luckily for me, I had a very easy way to get my first mammogram.  On election day, we have a professional day at school – no students.  For the last few years, our wellness committee had also planned a health fair for that day.  It included a mobile mammogram unit from the James Cancer Center.  I knew that I wanted to sign up for that mobile mammogram.  It was easy – I was already at school.

But then I got busy with other things and forgot to sign up for an appointment before the deadline.  Oh well, I thought, I can do it next year.  Luckily for me, someone else was looking out for me – a guardian angel maybe.  Two days before the health fair, we got an email telling us that if the mammogram unit didn’t have at least one more person, they wouldn’t come.  OK, I thought, someone is really telling me that I should get this mammogram.  So I called right away and got my appointment.

The first mammogram was pretty quick and easy.  The staff was nice.  It was uncomfortable but it didn’t really hurt like some say.     The technician explained the procedures to me and said that because this was my first mammogram, I may need a follow-up.  Follow-up procedures are common.  OK.

A couple of weeks later, I got a call from the James and from my gynecologist’s office.  I did need another mammogram and had a new appointment scheduled.  I started to have a sliver of negative thoughts peep through, but still I thought nothing was wrong.  Many others have follow-up procedures.

I went to my appointment with my mother to the Stephanie Spielman Comprehensive Breast Center.  I must say that this Center is a strikingly beautiful place with the friendliest staff I have ever observed.  The date was 12/12/12.  Many people were excited about that day since the numeric sequence will not occur in such an interesting fashion again in most lifetimes.  It was an interesting day, maybe a lucky day, definitely a life-changing day.

The first procedure I had done was another mammogram.   I walked in the room nervously but blissfully ignorant of my situation.  The technician had pictures of my previous mammogram lighted on a screen.  She explained to me what we were looking at and what kinds of mammograms we were going to do.  Wait.  I looked at the screen.  Is that abnormal, I asked?  The technician diplomatically gave me a non-answer and my face began to fall -- my first realization that something was indeed wrong.

My next procedure was an ultrasound -- the longest ultrasound in the history of man (at least what it seemed like to me).  They obviously were looking for something.   I was starting to understand.  Then a radiologist wanted to talk to me – and my mom.  That’s when I learned about the satellite.

My mom and I walked into a dark, small room with my now enormous breast lighted on a screen.  The doctor talked about calcifications, measurements in millimeters, and especially being worried about the satellite.  A satellite, a linked body nearby.  For some reason, that word stuck with me.  I like satellites – like the moon and satellites that circle the earth and tell us about space.  I don’t like this new satellite.  It means there’s something wrong. 

And there really was something wrong.  The next week, I ended up having a follow-up biopsy which showed that I have invasive ductal carcinoma – breast cancer, the most common type.  I didn’t need the biopsy to know I had cancer.  I could tell from the pictures of the mammograms and the ultrasounds that I had cancer.  I don’t have medical training, but I had a feeling.  I meet with a surgeon next week to discuss what will come next.   I’m not sure what that will mean exactly, but I have faith that the doctors, nurses and all the medical personnel will do their best to help me.

Maybe 12/12/12 was my lucky day after all.   It was the day that I found out about the satellite and my breast cancer.  There have been days since then that I have been very sad and scared, but on the whole, besides being a rule-follower, I am an optimist and I am thinking positively.  My cancer is very small, measured in millimeters instead of centimeters.  Because of developments in technology, they were able to find my cancer early, when I am young and I have a great chance of fighting it.  I am also blessed to have such a wonderful, top-notch cancer center so nearby.  If I need to fight cancer, I feel good going to such experts.  I am also blessed to have such caring family and friends who I know will help me along my journey.     

The Mythology of Being a Woman: Perfectly Flawed

The question, which I can see coming every time, makes me clench my insides and mentally brace myself.  “So, do you have any kids?”  It seems like an easy question to answer – either you do or you don’t.  But as a middle-aged woman who doesn’t have any kids, it’s actually an answer wrought with emotion and complexity.  Over the years, I have learned the best ways to answer.  Either I say “No”, smile and quickly change the subject or I say “No, but I have cats (or a husband). And they laugh.

Most people are polite, but there is the after-lingering in the eyes of the questioner thinking “why not?” and then there’s me for a minute, stuffing various emotions back down my throat while I think of something else to say.  As a teacher, I get this question a lot from my students.  And sometimes they aren’t polite, or at least they don’t know any better, and they ask “why not?”

I used to ask that too. 

When I was little, I believed in the mythology of women that we are taught as girls:  1.  I would be married.  2.  I would be a mom.  That’s the perfect woman, right?

In my early 20s, I remember the day I truly realized that myth number 1 might not be everyone’s reality (including mine).  It was a little bit like learning that your parents are Santa Claus.  But I finally got it -- not everyone gets married and that’s OK.  I eventually was married in my late 20s, but here I am divorced now.  It’s not quite what the mythology implied would happen.  But things happen in life that you don’t expect.  It is good for me now to be divorced.   

What I have still not gotten over completely is myth number 2, that I would be a mom.  At their house, my parents have an enormous dictionary that has several different parts to it.  One of the most interesting to me was a section with pages and pages of first names and their etymology.  I used to pore over this dictionary, looking at the names and would actually make a list of names that would be good for my future children.  I still know those never used, never needed names.   

My personality leans toward being a nurturer.  In high school and beyond, my main source of income was babysitting.  In college, I worked at a summer camp.  Currently, I teach high school and at my church, I teach elementary-aged kids to sing.  I like kids and I get along with them for the most part.  I always thought I would be a pretty good mom.

And yet, here I am, childless.  There is a variety of reasons why a woman might be childless.  For some, it is a choice to not have children.  But for me, it was not my choice.  I spent some years trying to get pregnant, but according to my doctor, I have a condition that makes it difficult to become pregnant.  And then if you have that difficulty, you also need a spouse who wants children at least as much as you do and is willing to go through the extra effort to make it happen.  So, if you don’t have that spouse . . . .

Various pregnancy tests bought over the years . . . always negative, always disappointed.

Sometimes, when I say I don’t have kids, people will reply, “Oh, lucky you!”  Well, I don’t feel lucky; I actually feel the opposite, like all my womanly parts failed me and now society judges me that I’m not a mom.  Others have said, “Oh, it’s good that you didn’t have kids, now that you’re divorced.”  Hmmm.  Maybe.  Maybe it’s easier on those ghost children that I never had . . . .     

When I had breast cancer at age 40, this was the time that I finally closed the chapter on being a mom.  The doctors asked if I wanted to freeze my eggs before I had my treatments.  I thought about this, but only for a few minutes.  There were too many unanswerable thoughts: How old would I be when I stopped treatments?  But even then, it would still be a struggle to become pregnant.  My life was the definition of chaos at that time.  It was time to be done with the idea.

How do I feel now, five years later?  I’ve come to terms with it.  What does it mean for me to be a woman?  I am not married, nor do I have kids.  But, I am happier than I have been in a long time.  (And I’m going to actually admit this: occasionally, I even enjoy the fact that I don’t have kids because I can do whatever I want, whenever I want – it’s a little bit of a luxury that my friends with kids don’t have).  Does this make me less of a woman?  In society’s eyes, yes.  People still ask me if I’m going to have kids –however that might work for a single 45-year-old.  People still don’t know what to say when I respond that I don’t have kids.  There is judginess – for sure.  But, here’s what I know now:  I am smart and sometimes funny, hard-working and dependable, girly and powerful, helpful and loving, perfect and flawed. I am not a mom, but I am the best woman I know how to be. 

That is enough.

The Burning: What to do with Eighteen Years of Memories

June 10^th is my anniversary, my former anniversary, my ex-anniversary.    

It’s hard not to notice dates.  It’s hard not to think about what it means to you.  It’s hard not to remember that one June 10^th, in 2000, we got married.  I have pictures.  I have certificates.  I even have framed needlepoints that people lovingly made for us to remember that day.  And I have memories.  I remember that he cried as I walked down the aisle of the church.  I remember that at the end of that day, we laughed hysterically as we went through the Wendy’s drive-thru because we were starved. 

What do I do with this day now?  Will I always remember our wedding?  Will I need to?  I still have my rings and my dress.  What should I do with them?  When other people get divorced, they sometimes save these things, these mementos, for their kids and future generations.  I have no kids.  And who would want any of my memories?

And yet, it’s easy enough to tuck the memories back in your brain.  But, what to do with the actual, physical items commemorating my failed marriage?  It doesn’t seem like these are things I should just throw out, like they were trash.  They were important to me for a long time.  But keeping them doesn’t seem right either.  They remind me of how things fell apart and that makes me sad.   I have been trying to move on and live a happier, healthier life.  I need to part from these tokens of grief.

This is what led me to “the burning.”   I decided that I needed to dispose of my wedding memories in some sort of ceremonial fashion – a burning.  Tonight, I will build a fire in my fire pit and I will burn some of these mementos, not in anger, but simply as a way to send them off into the universe.  That way, I can truly let go of these items and the memories that go with them.  Will it still be sad?  Of course.  Will it require drinking some wine?  Definitely.  The letting go is hard, but necessary for the new journey.   Will I ever truly forget?  No.  And I don’t want to forget it all.  There was happiness there too.  There was goodness that day.  But if I can let go of some of it, it will let go of me too.   And then, I can look to the future and start working on my new life and create my own new happiness.

The person I was in 2000 is quite different from who I am now, having lived through a lot of pain since then.  In a way, I wish I could tell that old me from 2000 what to do differently, but living through that pain made me who I am today and I like that person quite a bit.  She is strong and resilient and loves herself.  I am ready to move on and have been -- physically, mentally, emotionally. New, happy memories await.  

The Truth: I’m a Survivor

Two things happened this past week that spurred me on to sharing this post.  First, it was reported that Russia voted to decriminalize domestic violence and second, I received a letter confirming my compensation toward my legal fees as a domestic violence victim, the fact of which I am still in disbelief. 

I am not sharing this post in order to air my dirty laundry or to call anyone out.  I simply am telling the truth.  Although my truth is not even close to as hard or as horrible as it is for many other people.  My experience happened just once, prompted by substance abuse, but once was enough.  The only way I learned how I could change my life was to hear others’ truths. So, here is more of my truth – a truth I never imagined my life would contain, a truth I have not shared with very many people. But if sharing this post helps anyone else, it’s worth posting it. 

I am a victim of domestic violence. 

How can this be?

I am a strong, smart woman. 

He was such a kind, gentle, smart man.

I am a victim of addiction. 

How can this be? 

I am a strong, smart woman.  

He was such a kind, gentle, smart man.

I went to court to testify against my ex-husband, my ex-soul mate, my ex-best friend. 

This is one more on the now long list of things I never imagined doing in my life.  

This was not my plan. 

This was not my dream. 

And now, someone else is in charge of the rules. 

Why couldn’t I fix the problems myself?

I didn’t see the danger coming, though others did.

I should have listened. 

I never imagined that my gentle man would harm me in a drunken rage. 

I relive that night over and over, trying to understand it.

But how can one understand it? 

How can we go from trusting someone completely to being completely afraid? 

And still, I wanted to protect him instead of protecting myself.  

Telling the truth was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. 

But the truth will set you free. 

I am a survivor of domestic violence. 

I am a survivor of another’s addiction.

I am a survivor. 

Truth.