I need to take you back for you to have even the slightest ability to consider how “freaky” this Friday, the 13th of July was for me.
Almost four months ago, my husband and I were traveling back from Montshire Museum. It was a hot, sunny Sunday in the end of June. Natalie was sound asleep in her car seat while we reflected upon our day. During the course of our trip to the science museum we had taken Natalie through all the exhibits and watched her light up with wonder and excitement as she learned and explored for the first time at Montshire. As a parent, I was feeling that natural high you get when your child is happy, healthy and loving - more than you could have imagined - every second of an experience you spent time planning and packing for.
While perusing the museum, Natalie oohed and awed at the fish swimming around in the tank, the turtles relaxing on the log, the bees buzzing in and out of the hive. She raced toward the moose that stood stationary and staring. She pointed and gasped and shouted, “Look, Daddy! It’s a moose!” I watched as her daddy, full of pride and excitement to match, pointed her toward yet another exemplary exhibit. I snapped as many photos as I could for this was a day I wanted to document. It was a day full of light and laughter and love. It was a together day…one of those rare days during which you are sincerely, genuinely, thoroughly enjoying each other from one moment to the next. Your heart is full, brimming over with light and laughter and love. Euphoria is how I could describe the feelings I had while I watched Natalie shriek with delight as she ducked in and out of the water fountains in her sunhat and purple bathing suit – the one with the small pink polka dots and the butterfly on the back. Euphoria is how I could describe the feelings I had as Natalie leaned over to give me a kiss every time she put her sandwich down while we ate our lunch together under the towering white tent. Though she lacked the words to tell me, it was in this way she showed me how her feelings mirrored my own…nothing but love and gratitude so pure and overflowing for this gift of a day.
It wasn’t long before we were traveling home…Natalie sound asleep in her car seat as we reflected upon our day. We talked about the exhibits, the trails, the water features. We talked about Natalie, how good she was, how excited she was, how appreciative she was, how in love with her we were. We talked about the future, the near future…our summer. We went over the plan again. The plan. My plan. His plan. Our plan.
The plan was to get pregnant in July, finish my grad course at the end of July, get Natalie potty trained by the end of summer, have her “big girl bedroom” renovated by the end of January, have her sleeping in the new room comfortably by March, and welcome our second child in April. In my version of the plan, our second child was a son. In his version of the plan, our second child was a son. Our son already had a name. Our son was meant to be.
Driving home from Montshire, reflecting on our day, planning for the future, my husband said to me, “I’m really happy.” I said, “Me, too.” We were happy. In that moment, on that day, we were untouchable and unstoppable. We had our love, we had our light, we had together, we had each other, we had our plan. We had it all…until a few too-short weeks later…until the freakiest of Fridays.
On Friday, July 13th med students were brought into my room at Dartmouth-Hitchock Medical Center shortly after 6 am by the ENT specialist I had seen the day before. They gathered around me to check out my vitals and get a look at the swollen mass that used to be my neck. They were excited and eager to prove they knew something. None of them spoke to me. They asked questions about me, they looked at me, they touched me, but not one of them spoke to me. The ENT specialist spoke to me. He told me he would be back at 8, along with the doctors also working on my case. He would fill me in then. In the meantime, I could shower if I wanted because I would most likely be going home. He showed little emotion. From where I was sitting, there didn’t seem to be any reason to get anxious. I kept in mind the words I had been told by a
Dartmouth ER doctor the day before…this bleed could be the product of something as simple as a quick turn of the head. No big deal. I got in the shower. I got dressed. I got ready to go home.
The hour of 8 am came and went. My husband was getting restless and I was getting unable to tolerate the lack of communication from my doctors. My nurse was growing less and less patient with me as I questioned her for the fifth time that hour where my doctors were. It was nearly 10:30 when ENT Specialist walked in solo and solemn. He sat in a chair at the end of the bed I was attempting to sit on, instead of bounce out of to get going back home. My husband sat in the same chair he had attempted to sleep in the night before. We exchanged a look and waited.
ENT Specialist looked at me without saying anything, but hello. He was quiet as he leaned forward and put his hands together in front of his mouth. He told me he had just returned from looking at the MRI with a few other doctors. He took in a long slow breath and let it out equally as slow. He told me the MRI showed a mass in my chest. He paused. He watched my expression instantly morph from disbelief to confusion to obliteration as I processed his four letter word…the four letter word that leads to that six letter word. Mass. M-a-s-s. Mass. It leads to c-a-n-c-e-r. Cancer. There is a mass in my chest. The thought was now complete. He watched my eyes fill as I watched his eyes soften. He respectfully paused while my tears spilled over. There was no stopping them…no energy or even will to stop those tears from spilling over in small salty waterfalls. He let me cry. He looked sympathetic and uncomfortable when he said, “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t the news you wanted to hear.” The news I wanted to hear. The news I wanted to hear?!
“News.” Yes, it was news to me, the most shocking of news. I had been living my life, loving where my life was going, planning my future with absolutely no inclination of this news, this mass in my chest that could be cancer. I may have cancer. It seems like he’s telling me I have cancer. I have a daughter. She’s two. She’s beautiful, she’s happy, she’s two. She needs her mother. I’m her mother. She needs me. My daughter needs me. I may have cancer. My daughter needs me. Daughters need their mothers. Cancer. No. I’m too young. My daughter needs me. I can’t leave her. I can’t have cancer.
This was the inner monologue while ENT specialist said a few more words that I never heard. I never heard those words because I was transported to another place, a place that couldn’t have been farther than the happy, euphoric place I had been just weeks before. I can’t tell you where this new place was, but it was the scariest place I’ve ever been. I was alone in the dark. I felt as though I was standing on an island only big enough for me, with nothing but dark skies and dark waters all around me. It was a place where I felt the presence of my own death. I wasn’t sure how close my death was, but I was painfully aware it may be much closer than I had ever previously allowed myself to imagine. Instead of having my entire life ahead of me, full of plans and dreams coming true, in this place, I had only uncertainty and fear. The fear was consuming and penetrable. It was everywhere. I was so afraid.
I was afraid of being forced to leave my family, the one I made and the one I came from. I was afraid of not being a mother anymore, or a wife anymore, or a daughter any more, or a sister anymore, or a teacher anymore. I was afraid of being no more. I had always felt I was a person of faith. I felt I was spiritual and trusting of a higher, truer power and meaning, but in this place of darkness and fear, my faith left me…or I left my faith. Where there had been trust and calm in my heart and soul, there was now chaos and confusion. There was nothing and no one that could save me from the sickness and the sadness and the presence of death I felt for what was at least an hour or two until the next specialist would arrive.
In the interim, my husband sat still and staring while he held my hand. Those small salty waterfalls continued to flow. The tears streamed together in a continual outlet of fear and anxiety and disbelief. I was powerless to close the dam. Phone calls were made and texts were sent as I sat in the hospital bed and stood on my island. I would get myself together just long enough to think of Natalie, two years old, so happy and innocent, and start crying all over again. I was packed and ready to go home. I wanted to go home. I was safe at home. I didn’t have cancer at home. If I could just get off that island and go home… everything would
go back to normal. We could get back to our plan. But even though they would be letting me go home, I had to hear reality first. I would not be allowed to feel safe anywhere for any longer because I wasn’t safe. Safe was a myth and the next specialist to enter the room brought the proof in his laptop.
Thoracic Surgeon walked in with ENT Specialist a few hours after my first hearing of the “news.” He was tall and confident. He had a sense of humor. He opened the laptop so that he could show me the images that had been gathered from the CT and MRI. My husband and I, and a much-needed-cousin that had arrived crowded around the laptop with Thoracic Surgeon as he pointed out the mass growing between my ribs and my lung and explained what the mass most likely was. It was most likely lymphoma of some kind. He said the word “lymphoma” as a pediatrician would say the word “virus”… like it was simple and obvious.
Thoracic Surgeon was all business as he loudly, confidently told us of the next step, which was a biopsy. We couldn’t fight “it” until we knew what it was. I couldn’t fight for my life until I knew what I was up against. Who knew it would take so long to get to the fighting part?
Now that I’m in the cancer club – a club I specifically remember saying I wanted no part of – I know that there are steps to follow. The first step is identification. You have to know it’s there. Thanks to a dramatic bleed in my neck, we could consider my cancer identified – no more hiding out in efforts to take over and snuff me out. The second step is diagnosis, which doesn’t happen without a biopsy, or in my case, two. We’ll get to that next time. For now, picking back up with Thoracic Surgeon…
He went through the next steps, which sounded scary, but doable. He tried not to frighten me, but was upfront and honest. He came off as the no guts, no glory type. He was ready to hit this lymphoma head on. It wouldn’t be easy, but it sounded like a battle I could win. I was comforted. I chose to get off my island and step back into the land of the living. There was a long road ahead of me, but I was willing to take it. All I had to do was accept it and get moving, which as you will read in the future, is easier said than done.
My husband and I and my much-needed-cousin left the hospital together after the session with Thoracic Surgeon on that freakiest of Fridays…Friday the 13th. I couldn’t wait to get home, but I was also dreading it. There were people I loved that I now had to face knowing how scared they were and how scared I was. Could I face cancer? Would I be strong enough? Did I have the courage? The answer to each of those questions is “yes,” however, we’re all entitled to a little weakness at times…
If you’re still with me, thank you for reading. It means a lot to have people read and care about my story. I only know that you read it if you comment, but I understand if you have nothing to say…I wish we had a guest book!
