Today is my birthday! Well, July 29th is my birthday...this is getting submitted after midnight so it isn't technically my birthday anymore, but you get the general idea. I am officially 34! I had a wonderful day, spent with my Little Bear and the husband. I had no shortage of smiles and laughs today...which means I had a great day!
Little Bear, you made my day super special. This morning, when I went into your room to get you up, you greeted me with a huge smile. You said, "Happy Birthday, Mommy" because we told you it was going to be my day when you woke up. And you showed me your new trick...twirling your hair around your finger! You said, "Watch this, Mommy, I have a surprise for you." Then you wrapped a piece of your hair around and around your pointer finger...then you said "Da da ta!" In Bear Speak that means, "Ta-da!" Then you did it again with equal fanfare. It was the best birthday gift. I was so lucky to spend the whole day with you and then Daddy came home and made a delicious dinner and then we all went out to the Cheesecake Factory for some yummy dessert. Today, life was so, so good.
Of course, today I've also been thinking about my day five years ago. Life was definitely not very good for me then. It is not too dramatic for me to say: it was the worst birthday I had ever had. I was also scared it might be my last one. For the entire day, I was assaulted with unwanted, terrified thoughts such as "Is this my last birthday? Will I live to see 30? Will I live to see 35? When will cancer get me?" I was also in pain, physical pain. The further I got from my surgery, the worse the pain got. It was like I could feel the cancer eating me from the inside out. Sometimes the pain was so bad that I was on the floor, in tears, clutching my middle trying to keep myself together. This led to more unwanted and unhelpful thoughts. I felt like I had an alien inside of me; my body was not my own, it was foreign. I was scared of it. The otherness was overwhelming. I wanted nothing more than to rip the cancer out as fast as possible. Unfortunately, I was playing the waiting game.
I remember thinking it was so ironic that this, my 29th birthday would be my worst. For the months leading up to this day, my best friend and I had joked that this was my "magic birthday." I would be 29 on the 29th. That only ever happened once in a person's life. We had joked that we should have a big party to celebrate this magical milestone. I had looked forward to the day, thinking that 29 would be better than 28. I only had good things to look forward to. As you know, that all changed on the 22nd, one week earlier. Now I struggled to imagine my future. I was filled with fear when I even thought of my future. I also started torturing myself with the "what ifs." What if I died before I turned 30? What did I have to show for myself? What had I done in my life that brought me true happiness and joy? I started going over my life goals and wondering why I postponed them to go to school. School felt so trivial. I was suddenly embarrassed that I had put so much time and so much effort into something that I, now, would probably not complete and had, in the process, denied myself a life that brought me true happiness. I would never have children. This was a fact, regardless of whether I survived or not. I had missed my opportunity to be a mother. How could I ever possibly adopt? Who would give a child to a person with a history of cancer? How could I possibly afford it? It just seemed impossible (like everything else under the specter of cancer).
As you can probably tell, I was spiraling. I was spiraling down towards the dark. I honestly cannot remember anything about my 29th birthday other than all the negatives I was feeling and thinking. I don't know what we did. I don't know who I talked to. I don't know what gifts I received. I just remember that that was the start of "the funk." The majority of the phone calls were done. The plans had been set in motion to handle my work, social, and personal responsibilities. There was nothing left to do but wait. Wait and feel the world crushing down on me. My birthday was just another painful reminder. I wanted to hide, I wanted to numb the fear and the pain. So, I slipped into "the funk" where everything was so heavy and so hopeless that I just felt: nothing.
So, here I will end with how I feel today: a total sense of wonderment. Wonderment that in 5 short years, my life could be so incredibly different. Not only have I been granted that which I coveted on my 29th birthday, time, but I have my Little Bear. I have the family I thought I had lost to cancer. And you know the truly amazing part? In a way, cancer gave me the family I thought it took. I just had to make it through the funk and the fight and kick cancer's butt to get it. Onward and upward.
And that is the story of my 29th birthday, Little Bear.
Til next time...Always and Ever After.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Prolonged Nightmare...The Immediate Aftermath.
So tonight, I am just a couple of days from my birthday. This is always a time of reflection for me. After all, my cancer diagnosis and my birthday were so close in proximity...they are forever connected. Today I am thankful; thankful to be getting older and living to see my daughter grow. Birthdays, by definition, are wonderful things. Unfortunately, a lot of people complain/freak out about getting older and let that tarnish their special day. I suppose I used to be one of them. Not anymore. I'm glad I'm getting older. There was a time, not too long ago, when I didn't think I had many birthdays left. So, onward and upward!
When I was a kid, my siblings and I would try and freak out our mother by calculating and announcing our future ages. "In 10 years we'll be 20, 17, and 15 years old!" "In 20 years we'll be 30, 27, and 25 years old! And you'll be 60!" I'm not sure why we played that game...other than to see Mom quiver with fake fear of these seemingly impossible old ages (I mean those ages were SO. FAR. AWAY.)...but I vividly remember calculating our future ages. We never went higher than me being 30 though (I'm the oldest). I don't know if it was just that we couldn't imagine me being older than 30 or whether my siblings never wanted to imagine themselves in their 30s in our little game. Years later, as I rounded 25, I had the thought that I should start freaking out about 30. I was getting so close! And according to the age old adage and many staunch believers, 30 is when everything starts to go downhill. Wrinkles. Gray hair. No Metabolism. Loss of muscle, strength, eyesight, hair, memory, beauty, etc. After 30 you officially start wishing for your 20 year old body. So, I smiled and went along with the jabs about "pushing 30" in the years leading up to my big day. 30 didn't sound fun.
When I turned 28, I genuinely started to feel freaked out about my age. I mean, how many childbearing years would I have left? Even though I had the boyfriend (and we'd been together since the stone age, AKA the 90s), I felt so far from being in a place to start a family. I had work and school and the career to start. Kids would come later; I had always planned that kids would be in the picture, but down the road, in the future, later in the plan...but now I was almost 30. How long could I wait? The shocker to me was: I had already waited way too long.
One week prior to my birthday, I received the diagnosis. I was officially a cancer patient. The one with cancer in my social circles. The sick one. The problem was, I had no clue how to be a cancer patient. I know that sounds dumb. But in that week between "you have cancer" and my birthday, that was what I struggled with the most. Every night I went to bed hoping, praying, begging that this was a nightmare. It couldn't be real. It didn't feel real. It felt wrong. This could not be happening to me. Who got uterine cancer at age 28!?!?!? No, no, no. And my birthday itself loomed over me like some kind of sick joke. Would I live to see 30? Most definitely not a helpful question, but one that I tormented myself with repeatedly for far too long. So, I struggled. I struggled to accept that I was, in fact, a cancer patient and that everything now had to change.
After I came home from the doctor, after I could breathe with some regularity, after my boyfriend and I said "I love you" and "we'll get through this" (a lot), we sat on the couch. We sat so close to each other. I remember that most. Like we were trying to get every ounce of air out of the way; pressing into each other to remind us that we were both still there. I drew strength from that, from his warmth, from his physical presence that was not infected with cancer. We held hands. I could finally start talking and tell him exactly what happened, what was said, what we had to do next. He asked questions, he rubbed my back, he repeated our new mantra, "You will beat this. We will beat this. Everything will be okay." Oh how I wanted to believe him. I held on to that conviction with all my might. Even in my darkest moments, from that day forward, I would try to conjure up his voice saying "we will beat this" to give myself hope. I wasn't always successful.
During that first cancer conversation we discussed the logistics of having cancer, we made plans, and we talked about how to inform our loved ones. There were so many people to tell. Our respective families, our friends, our work colleagues. Who to tell when? How? How do you tell the people you love most in the world that you have cancer? (Spoiler Alert: It involves a lot of crying.) We planned out how we would both handle work. I needed to inform my grad program as soon as I could, I needed to set up referrals and transfers for my clients, and I needed to talk with supervisors about how to tell my clients. I needed to figure out the upcoming fall semester...would I take classes, would I take a leave of absence? What were my options? What did we want to do with the prospective options. We talked about what he would tell his work. There were appointments coming up. And not just any appointments, ONCOLOGIST appointments. This was a whole other level of reality. There was just a lot of planning on the couch that day. And a lot of planning in the days ahead.
The next few days were filled with too many tears to count and too many "I have cancer" proclamations. The same day as my diagnosis, I called and told my immediate family. Pain. Just pain. I remember telling my parents, "I'm sorry I'll never have your grandchildren." I also said that to my boyfriend. We were standing in the kitchen and I said, "I'm only ever going to say this once, but I want you to know...I'm sorry that I will never carry your children." It felt important for me to say that. It felt important for me to acknowledge, out loud, that I would never have biological children. It was my first step on the road to processing and accepting one of my new-found labels. During the conversation with my parents, I remember my mom crying more and my dad saying, "Any children you have, no matter how they come to your life, will be our grandchildren. You don't have to apologize for that, Sweetie." More tears. The boyfriend was equally supportive. For this day, at this time, there was no lack of love in my life.
In my non-quest to figure out how to be a cancer patient (I mean, who wants to figure that out?), I decided that 1) the more I said "I have cancer" out loud, to witnesses, the more quickly I would accept my new reality and 2) I needed to tell everyone I could think of personally so I could practice #1. Plus, I wanted to be doing something. I wanted to be doing something, anything, to get rid of the cancer, but, unfortunately, there was a bit of a wait on that. I couldn't get in to see the oncologist for about 14 days (seriously, didn't they know I had CANCER?!?!? How dare oncologists go out of town, EVER!). So there I was, just waiting with cancer inside of me doing heaven-knows-what with my innards. Better not to think of that. Much better to be calling people and practicing my "I have cancer" line. I freely admit that I lost my mind during that time. I was frantic. I held on to the planning and informing like a lifeline and used the conversations as a distraction from feeling frantic, hopeless, and terrified. One of the nice side effects of telling people you have cancer is, they keep calling you to make sure you're okay. Ah, more distraction, more chances to ignore the ugly stuff going on inside and focus on the external-I'm-doing-something-to-beat-cancer thing. I felt stronger. I felt more centered. I felt more sane. Unfortunately, those feelings wouldn't last.
And that is the story of how I first started to lose my mind over cancer, Little Bear.
Til next time...Always and Ever After.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Okay, let's try this whole "blogging" thing.
Where to begin, where to begin... I've rewritten the first couple of lines of this first post a few times. They were all terrible. So, I'm just going to start. Hi, my name is Malinda in case you don't know me. Writing down my story, my thoughts, my whatever has been weighing on my mind for some time. Over the last couple of years I have had many nights where I go to sleep thinking of things I want to write and how I want to write them. But frankly, I've been too scared to put them down on digital paper and put them out there. So, with fear in my heart, here I go.
I mostly wanted to write things out for my daughter. I want her to know my story which is part of our family story which is ultimately her story. I want her to know what led us to her on a warm January day in Arizona. And I want to write this out sooner rather than later as I am scared that as time goes on I'll forget. I love you, Little Bear...here's our story:
I'll start with cancer. Cancer. The Big C. F-ing Cancer. It has many clever monikers and has been written about, talked about, cried about, and screamed about in too many people's lives. People have lived their whole lives in fear of it. It's the first thing the news or the media in general jump to when they want to shock people. THE SUN CAUSES CANCER. EATING CAUSES CANCER. BREATHING CAUSES CANCER. LIVING CAUSES CANCER. The funny thing is, I had not one but two types of cancer and all of my fabulously, brilliant and wonderful doctors have no f-ing clue why. Fun, right? So, now that I'm "cancer free," I have no idea what to avoid to prevent more cancer in my future other than the age old don't smoke, wear sunscreen, don't-breathe-quite-so-much-in-case-there-is-a-toxin-in-the-air recommendations. Fortunately for me, my doctors did know how to kick the crap out of cancer and get it the hell out of my body. So, my glass is definitely half full and I am eternally grateful and forever in debt to several teams of wonderful people.
Five years and a week ago, my life was very different. I was feeling quite sick (more on that later, I don't want this to be the longest blog post ever) but was generally happy. It was summer break from graduate school. I was collecting data and working on my Master's thesis, I had had a short but wonderful vacay in Las Vegas a month before with very dear friends, and I was gearing up for a minor surgery that was supposed to cure my ailment. I knew my doctor well, she had performed this surgery on me before and I had minimal worries about it as both she and I were convinced this would solve my current health problems. After all, it had done just that a few years before. So, I prepped for surgery, signed all the paperwork in case I died on the table and wanted to sue, and looked forward to feeling better. I walked into the hospital on July 18th worrying more about how they were going to get a needle in my arm than the actual procedure. I had done this before.
When I woke up from the surgery I remember feeling really odd. It just felt wrong. This was different than the first one. I was in more pain...a lot more pain. I felt sicker. I shrugged it off. This is normal, right? Surgery and anesthesia make you feel bad. Pain is normal. Maybe she was more aggressive with the scalpel this time. Nothing to worry about. It was done and I was going home to start feeling better. The only problem was that I did not start to feel better.
I had been running a low-grade fever (think 99.0 to 100.5) for months. Every time I went to the doctor, my temp read high. Not super high, but not normal. My doctor wasn't sure what it was but she also wasn't concerned about it. I didn't feel feverish...sure I was hot a lot (but that was normal for me and it was summer so, duh) but I didn't have any other fever symptoms. There was also no reason that she could find that would be causing a low-grade fever, so we ignored it. But, after surgery one of the first instructions you are given is that if your temperature goes over a certain number (in my case 100), you have to go back to the doctor or hospital. My surgery was on a Friday, so on Sunday when my temp spiked to 101, I was back in the hospital trying to figure out what the hell. I spent 8 very uncomfortable hours getting poked and prodded and examined repeatedly with no clear diagnosis. The ER docs could not figure out what was causing my temp. So, I was sent home with antibiotics just in case and told to rest.
Monday rolls around and I get a phone call. It's my doctor's office nurse telling me that I have to come in for an appointment. And they've already scheduled me one for tomorrow: Tuesday, July 22nd. "This is weird," I thought. Isn't it the other way around usually...the patient calls the doctor to demand an appointment? But...I was just in the hospital with that weird, unexplained fever. Phew, she's just following up on that to make sure I'm okay after surgery. So, I blindly, blissfully, stupidly agreed to the appointment time that only I could attend as my boyfriend (now husband) would be at work. I think I mentioned to him that I had to go back to the doctor, but it really wasn't an important conversation on the 21st of July.
On the 22nd of July the importance of nearly all conversations in my life changed drastically. It was a bright, sunny day. I remember being a touch nervous as I drove to the doctor's...I mean WHY had they insisted on this appointment. No, no, nothing is wrong, Malinda...carry on. I walked into the waiting room and there was no one there. Not a single patient. While this felt weird, I was happy I did not have to wait long. The nurse came right out for me and she stood by my chair as I gathered my purse and put down the magazine I had no chance to read while waiting. Again, weird. She checked my vitals...again with the low-grade fever!...and sat me in a room to wait for the doc. I think I maybe had like 5-10 mins by myself. I checked my phone. I swung my legs. I looked out the window. Then my doctor came in. I brightly said, "Hi, how are you?" She gave me the oddest look...I can't even describe it. She didn't meet my eye and just said "I'm just okay" in a sort of sighing, quiet way. Then she sat down and my life exploded. She turned to me and said, "the results of your pathology came back. I'm sorry to tell you but you have cancer." I know it is cliche, but it is truth: Time Stopped. I stopped breathing. I stopped thinking. I stopped moving. I stopped hearing. I stopped seeing. For about 1 second, nothing happened and I was separate from the world. That was when the "otherness" was born. During that 1 second my life's timeline lurched onto this strange, other road. A road I had no idea how to handle. I didn't even know where it was, where I was, or where anything was. Nothing made sense. After that 1 second there was two of me...the one with cancer and the one who continually screamed in the back of my head "THIS IS NOT HAPPENING TO ME. THIS IS NOT MY REALITY. I DON'T HAVE CANCER." She didn't shut up for a few weeks...and made very uncomfortable appearances repeatedly over the next year or so. More on that later.
After that 1 second, everything started and time sped up. I started shaking. I started crying. I gripped my chair so I wouldn't fall off and my legs were swinging and my feet were tapping like mad. My vision returned but it was tunneled onto my doctor's face. She had to be wrong. My brain started thinking again but not very well. I remember wondering what the hell pathology she was talking about...it took a minute for me to figure out that, of course (!), they would have biopsied the tissue from my surgery. Breathing was hard. Remembering to breathe was hard. I consciously had to remind myself to take breaths. Then I would forget again. I was crying, but not sobbing. I didn't want to pass out from the fear and I was worried that if I went into convulsive sobs and desperate crying I would pass out. That would be so embarrassing. I was twitching. Ugh, I just could not stop twitching. I could not stop the tears. They just poured of their own free will. People have often asked me what it was like to hear those words for the first time. The best I can answer is that it was a total body experience for me. I was hyper-aware of every cell, every hair, every brain synapse for about 10 minutes. Up to that point, it was the single, worst moment of my life.
I don't know if my doctor said anything during my first freak out. I could see her face, but I was having trouble focusing on anything she said. Everything was confusing. There were too many questions in my head that I couldn't sort out to figure out which ones I should ask and when I should ask them. And how the hell was I supposed to remember her answers! I think she said some stuff and then asked me if I had any questions. I asked her what kind of cancer it was. She said "it is uterine cancer, but I can't tell you much more, I'm not an oncologist." Oh God. I have to have an oncologist...AN ONCOLOGIST. More freaking out. I asked her how bad it was. She got this really sad look on her face and said, "I don't know but the pathology came back as poorly differentiated. That means it is aggressive. I'm not an oncologist so I can't tell you more, but I've never seen anything like it. This is not about you having children anymore. This is about saving your life." Okay...more and more and more freaking out. Ugh, even as I type this I'm sweating. "Poorly Differentiated." That haunted my dreams for months. And the whole "This is not about you having children anymore. This is about saving your life." She said that I few times. Those exact words. They haunted me too.
I'd like to tell you all how brave I was in the face of cancer and how I handled my mortality with dignity and intelligence. Truth is, I was a blubbering idiot. I wasn't sobbing, but that meant I could talk which meant I sounded really dumb. I think I even asked her, "What about school?" To which she replied, "I don't know." I hate that question...it was so stupid of me. I really needed to get myself together. My doctor knew this, so she eventually told me to take as much time as I needed and to call whoever I needed to call. She asked me if I had someone who could pick me up. I said no. She told me she had a referral to the best gynecologic oncologist at Huntsman Cancer Hospital that she wanted to give me. She had actually already called his office and, when I felt up to it, I needed to let her do some tests on me (a blood draw and EKG) so he could get me started on treatment as early as possible. Don't worry, she had worked with him before and he did the best hysterectomies in town. Again, my lack of intelligence reared it's ugly head and asked, "You mean you won't do my surgery?" She gracefully explained that cancer hysterectomies were much more complicated and that she was not qualified to perform them. Cue yet more freaking out.
After she left I called my boyfriend. I tearfully cried into the phone that I had cancer. To this day he says he did not freak out, but what I remember is him yelling into the phone, "You do NOT have cancer. She is just wrong. We'll go get 2nd and 3rd and 4th opinions if we have to. You do not have cancer!" If I ask him about this now he says, "Well, I didn't want you to have cancer." That makes sense. I don't know why, but me trying to explain to him that pathology doesn't lie and it does in fact appear that I have cancer and we shouldn't waste time on 2nd opinions calmed me down. I stopped crying for a bit and was able to go through the tests without blubbering. Although the nurses followed me around with a box of tissues that I got to keep. Score.
After my tests, the doc gave me my EKG results so I could bring them with me to my oncologist appointment...just in case the results weren't entered into the computer in time. As I prepped to leave, I had to ask one more stupid question. As I said, I was hyper aware of every cell in my body and as a result I was hyper aware I had this low-grade fever. I could feel the heat. And I knew I had had it for months. It was unexplained. And I wanted to know exactly how long I had had cancer as the longer you have it without treatment the worse it is, so I asked "Does cancer cause fevers?" All she said was, "I'm sorry. I just don't know. Maybe." Oh God. How long had I had those fevers?? Months and months! At least since February. It was July. Had I had cancer running unchecked in my body for that long?
As I walked out of the doctor's office, I started freaking out again. The tears flowed. I remember wondering if the doctor thought she would ever see me again. Would she check up on me via my medical chart? Would she ever think of me again and wonder if I was alive or dead? Would I be alive or dead?? Ugh. By the time I got to my car I could barely breathe and couldn't really remember how to drive. So, I called one of my best friends. And I walked circles around the car crying and screeching "I HAVE CANCER." It was compulsive. It felt insane. This could not be real. The otherness was uncomfortable.
I don't know how long I talked to her, but I eventually was able to get into the car. I remember her telling me to go home. She stayed on the phone with me the entire way home. She used a calming voice. She didn't cry or scream or freak out. She went into her clinical mode and kept calm and kept telling me what to do. I honestly do not remember much of my drive home...I have no idea how I did it. I just remember her voice was a lifeline that I needed to not die in a car accident before cancer got a chance to kill me. So thanks for that, Jubbins. You probably saved my life that day.
When I got home, the boyfriend was waiting for me by the front door. I walked in and we crashed into each other in a massive hug and I finally sobbed. I mean, bone wracking sobs. He was the perfect support...no tears, just calm reassurances and a lot of, "I love you." After a few minutes, I was able to sit on the couch with him and tell him what I knew so far. That was the easy part. The next part was harder.
And that is the story of when I found out I had cancer, Little Bear.
Til next time...Always and Ever After.
I mostly wanted to write things out for my daughter. I want her to know my story which is part of our family story which is ultimately her story. I want her to know what led us to her on a warm January day in Arizona. And I want to write this out sooner rather than later as I am scared that as time goes on I'll forget. I love you, Little Bear...here's our story:
I'll start with cancer. Cancer. The Big C. F-ing Cancer. It has many clever monikers and has been written about, talked about, cried about, and screamed about in too many people's lives. People have lived their whole lives in fear of it. It's the first thing the news or the media in general jump to when they want to shock people. THE SUN CAUSES CANCER. EATING CAUSES CANCER. BREATHING CAUSES CANCER. LIVING CAUSES CANCER. The funny thing is, I had not one but two types of cancer and all of my fabulously, brilliant and wonderful doctors have no f-ing clue why. Fun, right? So, now that I'm "cancer free," I have no idea what to avoid to prevent more cancer in my future other than the age old don't smoke, wear sunscreen, don't-breathe-quite-so-much-in-case-there-is-a-toxin-in-the-air recommendations. Fortunately for me, my doctors did know how to kick the crap out of cancer and get it the hell out of my body. So, my glass is definitely half full and I am eternally grateful and forever in debt to several teams of wonderful people.
Five years and a week ago, my life was very different. I was feeling quite sick (more on that later, I don't want this to be the longest blog post ever) but was generally happy. It was summer break from graduate school. I was collecting data and working on my Master's thesis, I had had a short but wonderful vacay in Las Vegas a month before with very dear friends, and I was gearing up for a minor surgery that was supposed to cure my ailment. I knew my doctor well, she had performed this surgery on me before and I had minimal worries about it as both she and I were convinced this would solve my current health problems. After all, it had done just that a few years before. So, I prepped for surgery, signed all the paperwork in case I died on the table and wanted to sue, and looked forward to feeling better. I walked into the hospital on July 18th worrying more about how they were going to get a needle in my arm than the actual procedure. I had done this before.
When I woke up from the surgery I remember feeling really odd. It just felt wrong. This was different than the first one. I was in more pain...a lot more pain. I felt sicker. I shrugged it off. This is normal, right? Surgery and anesthesia make you feel bad. Pain is normal. Maybe she was more aggressive with the scalpel this time. Nothing to worry about. It was done and I was going home to start feeling better. The only problem was that I did not start to feel better.
I had been running a low-grade fever (think 99.0 to 100.5) for months. Every time I went to the doctor, my temp read high. Not super high, but not normal. My doctor wasn't sure what it was but she also wasn't concerned about it. I didn't feel feverish...sure I was hot a lot (but that was normal for me and it was summer so, duh) but I didn't have any other fever symptoms. There was also no reason that she could find that would be causing a low-grade fever, so we ignored it. But, after surgery one of the first instructions you are given is that if your temperature goes over a certain number (in my case 100), you have to go back to the doctor or hospital. My surgery was on a Friday, so on Sunday when my temp spiked to 101, I was back in the hospital trying to figure out what the hell. I spent 8 very uncomfortable hours getting poked and prodded and examined repeatedly with no clear diagnosis. The ER docs could not figure out what was causing my temp. So, I was sent home with antibiotics just in case and told to rest.
Monday rolls around and I get a phone call. It's my doctor's office nurse telling me that I have to come in for an appointment. And they've already scheduled me one for tomorrow: Tuesday, July 22nd. "This is weird," I thought. Isn't it the other way around usually...the patient calls the doctor to demand an appointment? But...I was just in the hospital with that weird, unexplained fever. Phew, she's just following up on that to make sure I'm okay after surgery. So, I blindly, blissfully, stupidly agreed to the appointment time that only I could attend as my boyfriend (now husband) would be at work. I think I mentioned to him that I had to go back to the doctor, but it really wasn't an important conversation on the 21st of July.
On the 22nd of July the importance of nearly all conversations in my life changed drastically. It was a bright, sunny day. I remember being a touch nervous as I drove to the doctor's...I mean WHY had they insisted on this appointment. No, no, nothing is wrong, Malinda...carry on. I walked into the waiting room and there was no one there. Not a single patient. While this felt weird, I was happy I did not have to wait long. The nurse came right out for me and she stood by my chair as I gathered my purse and put down the magazine I had no chance to read while waiting. Again, weird. She checked my vitals...again with the low-grade fever!...and sat me in a room to wait for the doc. I think I maybe had like 5-10 mins by myself. I checked my phone. I swung my legs. I looked out the window. Then my doctor came in. I brightly said, "Hi, how are you?" She gave me the oddest look...I can't even describe it. She didn't meet my eye and just said "I'm just okay" in a sort of sighing, quiet way. Then she sat down and my life exploded. She turned to me and said, "the results of your pathology came back. I'm sorry to tell you but you have cancer." I know it is cliche, but it is truth: Time Stopped. I stopped breathing. I stopped thinking. I stopped moving. I stopped hearing. I stopped seeing. For about 1 second, nothing happened and I was separate from the world. That was when the "otherness" was born. During that 1 second my life's timeline lurched onto this strange, other road. A road I had no idea how to handle. I didn't even know where it was, where I was, or where anything was. Nothing made sense. After that 1 second there was two of me...the one with cancer and the one who continually screamed in the back of my head "THIS IS NOT HAPPENING TO ME. THIS IS NOT MY REALITY. I DON'T HAVE CANCER." She didn't shut up for a few weeks...and made very uncomfortable appearances repeatedly over the next year or so. More on that later.
After that 1 second, everything started and time sped up. I started shaking. I started crying. I gripped my chair so I wouldn't fall off and my legs were swinging and my feet were tapping like mad. My vision returned but it was tunneled onto my doctor's face. She had to be wrong. My brain started thinking again but not very well. I remember wondering what the hell pathology she was talking about...it took a minute for me to figure out that, of course (!), they would have biopsied the tissue from my surgery. Breathing was hard. Remembering to breathe was hard. I consciously had to remind myself to take breaths. Then I would forget again. I was crying, but not sobbing. I didn't want to pass out from the fear and I was worried that if I went into convulsive sobs and desperate crying I would pass out. That would be so embarrassing. I was twitching. Ugh, I just could not stop twitching. I could not stop the tears. They just poured of their own free will. People have often asked me what it was like to hear those words for the first time. The best I can answer is that it was a total body experience for me. I was hyper-aware of every cell, every hair, every brain synapse for about 10 minutes. Up to that point, it was the single, worst moment of my life.
I don't know if my doctor said anything during my first freak out. I could see her face, but I was having trouble focusing on anything she said. Everything was confusing. There were too many questions in my head that I couldn't sort out to figure out which ones I should ask and when I should ask them. And how the hell was I supposed to remember her answers! I think she said some stuff and then asked me if I had any questions. I asked her what kind of cancer it was. She said "it is uterine cancer, but I can't tell you much more, I'm not an oncologist." Oh God. I have to have an oncologist...AN ONCOLOGIST. More freaking out. I asked her how bad it was. She got this really sad look on her face and said, "I don't know but the pathology came back as poorly differentiated. That means it is aggressive. I'm not an oncologist so I can't tell you more, but I've never seen anything like it. This is not about you having children anymore. This is about saving your life." Okay...more and more and more freaking out. Ugh, even as I type this I'm sweating. "Poorly Differentiated." That haunted my dreams for months. And the whole "This is not about you having children anymore. This is about saving your life." She said that I few times. Those exact words. They haunted me too.
I'd like to tell you all how brave I was in the face of cancer and how I handled my mortality with dignity and intelligence. Truth is, I was a blubbering idiot. I wasn't sobbing, but that meant I could talk which meant I sounded really dumb. I think I even asked her, "What about school?" To which she replied, "I don't know." I hate that question...it was so stupid of me. I really needed to get myself together. My doctor knew this, so she eventually told me to take as much time as I needed and to call whoever I needed to call. She asked me if I had someone who could pick me up. I said no. She told me she had a referral to the best gynecologic oncologist at Huntsman Cancer Hospital that she wanted to give me. She had actually already called his office and, when I felt up to it, I needed to let her do some tests on me (a blood draw and EKG) so he could get me started on treatment as early as possible. Don't worry, she had worked with him before and he did the best hysterectomies in town. Again, my lack of intelligence reared it's ugly head and asked, "You mean you won't do my surgery?" She gracefully explained that cancer hysterectomies were much more complicated and that she was not qualified to perform them. Cue yet more freaking out.
After she left I called my boyfriend. I tearfully cried into the phone that I had cancer. To this day he says he did not freak out, but what I remember is him yelling into the phone, "You do NOT have cancer. She is just wrong. We'll go get 2nd and 3rd and 4th opinions if we have to. You do not have cancer!" If I ask him about this now he says, "Well, I didn't want you to have cancer." That makes sense. I don't know why, but me trying to explain to him that pathology doesn't lie and it does in fact appear that I have cancer and we shouldn't waste time on 2nd opinions calmed me down. I stopped crying for a bit and was able to go through the tests without blubbering. Although the nurses followed me around with a box of tissues that I got to keep. Score.
After my tests, the doc gave me my EKG results so I could bring them with me to my oncologist appointment...just in case the results weren't entered into the computer in time. As I prepped to leave, I had to ask one more stupid question. As I said, I was hyper aware of every cell in my body and as a result I was hyper aware I had this low-grade fever. I could feel the heat. And I knew I had had it for months. It was unexplained. And I wanted to know exactly how long I had had cancer as the longer you have it without treatment the worse it is, so I asked "Does cancer cause fevers?" All she said was, "I'm sorry. I just don't know. Maybe." Oh God. How long had I had those fevers?? Months and months! At least since February. It was July. Had I had cancer running unchecked in my body for that long?
As I walked out of the doctor's office, I started freaking out again. The tears flowed. I remember wondering if the doctor thought she would ever see me again. Would she check up on me via my medical chart? Would she ever think of me again and wonder if I was alive or dead? Would I be alive or dead?? Ugh. By the time I got to my car I could barely breathe and couldn't really remember how to drive. So, I called one of my best friends. And I walked circles around the car crying and screeching "I HAVE CANCER." It was compulsive. It felt insane. This could not be real. The otherness was uncomfortable.
I don't know how long I talked to her, but I eventually was able to get into the car. I remember her telling me to go home. She stayed on the phone with me the entire way home. She used a calming voice. She didn't cry or scream or freak out. She went into her clinical mode and kept calm and kept telling me what to do. I honestly do not remember much of my drive home...I have no idea how I did it. I just remember her voice was a lifeline that I needed to not die in a car accident before cancer got a chance to kill me. So thanks for that, Jubbins. You probably saved my life that day.
When I got home, the boyfriend was waiting for me by the front door. I walked in and we crashed into each other in a massive hug and I finally sobbed. I mean, bone wracking sobs. He was the perfect support...no tears, just calm reassurances and a lot of, "I love you." After a few minutes, I was able to sit on the couch with him and tell him what I knew so far. That was the easy part. The next part was harder.
And that is the story of when I found out I had cancer, Little Bear.
Til next time...Always and Ever After.
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