A month ago, today, I found out that it was back. Again.
... I'm beginning to get superstitious about this time of the month. (Just kidding. That would be RIDICULOUS!)
Even now, it's hard to explain.
I'd had my scan in late January, but I had jury duty on Feb 4th and my next regular day off work was Feb 11th and I sure wasn't about to waste a PTO day just to go to a doctor appointment, so I went over two weeks between my scan and getting the results. Again, I felt like the results would show something there, but I kept telling myself that I needed calm down, because, surely, if it was bad news, the doctor would call and ask me to come in sooner.
February 10, 2011
I took the day before my appointment off work as a sick day. I'd been feeling a little under the weather, and on the 10th, my stomach was unsettled and that's all the justification I ever need to call in sick. I texted my boyfriend, Clint, that morning to tell him I'd called in sick. It took him a while to respond, which was unusual. When he did, he told me that he wasn't feeling well either.
- And before you get any ideas about us having made each other sick, let me just break right in and tell you that I hadn't seen him in two weeks. We'd had a date set for the weekend before, but he'd canceled because he needed to help his dad with some things. That Saturday had been a hard day for me. Remember, I had in my head that my cancer was back. I'd wanted, desperately, to spend that last weekend with Clint, unaware (or, rather, officially not aware/not "informed") that I was sick again. He canceled late Friday night. I woke up on Saturday, crying. I spent most of the day wrestling whether or not to tell him that my feelings had been hurt. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt that he hadn't canceled for a reason that had anything to do with me. I knew that his dad had a project that he needed help with. I knew that Clint was strapped for cash and it would surely be cheaper for him to stay home with his folks than spend any amount of time with me. (I am not a cheap date, people.) I knew that he wasn't trying to hurt me when he made a choice to spend time with family instead of me. I knew that I was having an emotional reaction that was rooted in fear and not reality. There was no personal affront intended on his end. I knew him well enough to know that he would never hurt me on purpose. ... But I was having a reaction to his not being there. I missed him. Desperately. It was that day that I made the decision that I wanted him in my life - permanently. We'd been exclusive for over a month, and that was the day that I turned a corner from him just being my boyfriend to being someone I didn't want to live without. So, I texted him (because I knew he was with his dad and having an actual talk about how I was feeling would be awkward, if not impossible) and explained that I knew that he hadn't hurt me on purpose, that I knew he had no idea what kind of emotional maelstrom I was in, and that I wasn't mad... but that I needed him to know that I was missing him, that I'd realized that I was totally in this relationship, and that as such, I needed to communicate how I was feeling and what I wanted. That afternoon of not spending time together put us in a place where we spent the next few days having some pretty serious talks about the future. We had (or, rather, he had) talked about marriage in loose terms since Christmas. It takes me a while to warm up to the idea of, you know, changing my entire life, so I had been a little hesitant. The truth of the matter was that I thought I would marry him. I knew it would be a while down the road, which is why I had been keeping one foot on the brake ("why rush into something?" has always been my motto) but I definitely thought that's where it would go.
Clint knew about the cancer, of course. It took me almost a month to tell him. He was the first person I dated after my first surgery and radiation, and I was more than a little gun-shy about having that talk. Cancer is, after all, kind of a big deal. It's not like having broken a leg, or having had surgery to repair an ACL. It's not one of those things that just heal right up, or you have one time and then they go away for ever, like chicken pox. It is the mother of all pre-existing conditions. The type of tumors I get are completely and utterly beyond any kind of human control. There's nothing that I do that causes them to grow, and there's nothing I can do to make them not grow. At that time, I'd been told that I had a 65% chance of recurrence. That's better than 1 in 2 (or, uh... worse than 1 in 2, as the case may be). He found out mid-November that I'd been sick over the summer. When he asked what I'd had, I started to cry. I was so scared that when he found out that I'd had cancer, he'd be out of there. But he wasn't. He wasn't freaked out by it at all, and whenever I would bring it up in discussions of what we'd be looking at if it ever came back, he'd dismiss it. Not in a jerky way, but he'd tell me that he just wasn't worried about it. He truly felt that cancer wasn't a road we'd ever have to go down. I didn't understand (or share) his certainty that it wasn't something we'd ever have to deal with, but I did love how sure he was that I'd be fine.
And now that we've had that small moment of foreshadowing, I'll go back to the story of Thursday. -
I slept most of the day, trying to get rid of a stomach bug and an overall achiness. I talked to Julie, because it was her birthday. Mostly, I just laid low and wondered why Clint was MIA. That night, he popped back up on my texting radar and told me that he'd been down for most of the day, too. I asked if we could talk/talk instead of texting, and he told me no, that his dad was in his room and he didn't have any privacy. That was weird. Totally not like him. I felt unsettled. I'd been thinking about asking him to go to the doctor with me the next day, because if we were gonna be in this serious relationship, that seemed like a serious relationshippy thing to do, but it was his weekend to see his kids and I a) didn't want to interrupt his time with them and b) was a little weirded out by his not having made time or found the privacy to have an actual conversation. I was nervous about the doctor appointment the next day and had a really sort of "off" feeling about the way we'd ended our conversation that night and I ended up crying myself to sleep.
February 11, 2011
At the time, I was working Monday-Thursday, so Friday was my usual day off. I woke up in the morning, still feeling a little weird about Clint, but he was back to texting me his usual good morning text and I figured that was a good sign. I asked what time he was headed up to see his kids, still thinking that I might ask him to come to the doctor with me, but our schedules didn't automatically and easily line up and I figured that was probably a sign that it just wasn't meant to be.
As I was driving to Scottsdale, my cousin Shelly called to tell me she'd been watching a behind-the-scenes special on TV and had thought of me, of my mom, of our grandparents and had just been overwhelmed with a need to talk to family. We talked (and cried) while I drove up the 101 about how grateful we both are for grandparents who taught our parents, who in turn taught us, to love musicals. (Shelly and I are such saps.)
I met my friends Christine and Christian at The Gyro Place for lunch before my appointment. It had been months since the three of us had gotten together, and we chatted and laughed while we ate. The girls asked how things were going with Clint. I told them that I wasn't sure, that earlier in the week I'd felt like we were fast-tracking it to being serious/serious, but that in the last 24 hours I'd felt a major shift. I explained that I didn't know if it was just me being weird about having my appointment, or if there was really something off, but that I felt like we were on the brink of a huge change - one way or the other. (Relationships: they are the best of times, they are the worst of times.) Christian had brought Christine a birthday present, because her birthday was within the week. - She brought me one, too, since I hadn't seen her since October, and she knows that I am a present-loooooving fool.
She brought me a photo box, some sparkly stuff and this blanket:
It's as soft and delicious as it looks, and it's a general fixture in my living room these days.
After lunch, I headed down to the doctor's office. I had my customary 30 minute wait in the waiting room before they took my blood (always wanting to see the red v. white cell count, you know) and then put me in an exam room. While I waiting for the doctor, I texted Clint to check in. He was on the road, over halfway there, and super excited that he'd be with his boys within the hour. I was happy for him that he was going to be with his kids, but sort of bummed that he wasn't there with me. (Not that his not being with me was his fault. I didn't invite him, or ask him to come. That was totally on me and I knew it.) I wasn't angry, just a little sad that I was alone right then. After a few minutes of our texting back and forth, my doctor came in to the exam room, sat down on his stool to the left of me, rolled it forward so he was sitting right in front of me, reached out with his hand to touch mine, looked me in the eye and said "I'm so sorry."
I had been right. It was back.
He had me stand up, so he could touch my back and point out exactly where the tumor was. He explained that it looked like it was on my left kidney, which was just above the original excision point. He drew a diagram on the paper stretched across the exam table, so I could see how big it was in relation to the organs it was on/near. He explained that I'd need to have another surgery, a surgery that may be followed by a round of chemo (much like my first surgery was followed by a round of radiation), but that the determination to administer chemo would be made after my tumor came out. "Right now," he said, "we need to focus on having your lungs checked and getting this tumor out of you."
He asked how I was feeling. I told him that I was not feeling awesome, but that I hadn't been surprised, that I had felt like it was back. This was just confirmation. He asked if he could hug me (the answer is always yes) and then he asked if he could do anything to help me, as a person (I love that I am not just a patient to this man). I teared up and told him that I was almost out of Ativan. He smiled and said "Now, that's something I can help with."
I left his office with a prescription in hand, having made a promise to call my surgeon right away, and made an appointment to come back in two weeks with an update of what had been scheduled, surgery-wise.
I called my surgeon's office as I was walking to my car and was able to get an appointment within the week. I was on the phone with my mom as I pulled out of the parking lot, and we talked as I drove. We talked and we cried, and she promised that she and my dad would help me in any way that they could, and I knew that she meant it. When I pulled up in front of Jo's house, I told my mom that I needed to get off the phone. I needed to go in and talk to Jo, and more importantly, I needed to hold her baby.
- Sally had been born mid-radiation and had saved me from feeling like I was lost and alone. In a world where all I really had was sickness, suffering and pain, a world in which there had been no one to hold me, I was starving for the basic human need of physical touch - until Jo had her baby a month early, and all of a sudden there was this perfect little person that I could hold on to. Sally saved me, on lot of levels. During radiation, when the burns got so bad that it hurt to breath, holding a baby up against me somehow soothed the physical pain at the same time that it fed my soul. She was a helpless little creature who needed someone to take care of her every need, and it helped me to have someone to focus on besides myself. She was a good, sweet baby and her mother knew that it helped me to hold her, so she let me hold her for every minute of every hour that I could, for days and weeks and months on end. -
I needed to go in and talk to Jo. I also needed to talk to Clint. Just then, he texted me that he was with the kids and soooo happy, and asked me how the doctor's visit had gone. I texted him back that it had gone ... not well. I told him that it was back and that I was so sorry I was sick, because I know that it can be a game-changer and I hadn't wanted him to have to deal with this. He immediately responded that I should never apologize for being I'm sick, that it wasn't my fault. He told me that he was sorry he wasn't with me, and sorry that he couldn't talk right now because he had his kids with him. He told me that he was so, so sorry that it was back, and asked if we could talk later. I told him that would be fine, and I mustered up the energy to get myself out of my car and up to Jo's door before I had another high-speed come-apart and burst into flames in her driveway.
I got all the way to the door before my eyes started to tear up. By the time Jo opened the door, I had tears streaming down my face. She, I'm sure, could tell before I said the words, but I said them anyway, "it's back." She started to cry as she hugged me and asked if I wanted to come in and sit down. I made my way to the yellow rocker, and as I sat down, she handed me her sleeping baby. I held onto Sally for dear life while I went through the details of what I had learned at the doctor. I gestured to where, exactly, the tumor was in my back. I did a diagram of how big it was when the scan had been done two weeks earlier. I told her that I didn't know what to do. I was angry that it was back. I was scared out of my mind. I'd used all 12 weeks of my FLMA leave the year before and wouldn't qualify for a medical leave from work again until June. I didn't know if if I still l had a job. Any savings I'd ever had were gone after having to live off 60% of my income while I was out on disability from June-October the year before. I knew I'd have to have surgery again, and possibly chemo, and the truly stinkiest thing was that I'd had this surgery before and I knew how brutal it was. I was lost, and scared and ... I had this weird feeling that my boyfriend was about to break up with me.
We sat and we talked. Dean came out of the office because he heard us talking. Jo looked up at him and said "It's back." (How in the world two words can carry so much weight is beyond me.) And we cried.
Within a matter of half an hour of leaving the doctor's office, I went from feeling like I was facing this alone to knowing that I had the support of my parents, my best friend and her family, my siblings, my cousins and a few of my closest friends who were on a texting tree.
Kirk called at about 5:00. He'd heard the news and wanted to know how I was handling everything. He and Mary had been planning on going to dinner, but when they got the news, Mary suggested that he take me out that night instead. (How much do I love my sisters-in-law? So. Much!)
Kirk took me to Cracker Barrel for dinner. I ordered french toast and bacon (two of my favorite foods in the whole wide world) and we talked and we cried. I gave him the same breakdown I'd given Jo. He and I worked for the same company at the time, and he was confident that they'd do the right thing and grant me a leave, even though I didn't technically qualify for one until June. (Bless Kirk for always seeing the best in people. And bless the company - because they sure did step up. They gave me a medical leave that they didn't have to give me and I was able to have my surgery without losing my job or my benefits. I will love them forever for that!) I talked to Kirk about Clint. I told him that I was really confused by the recent distance, that I didn't know what was going on or what to do. Kirk's advice was just to let it sit, that his guess was that Clint was trying to wrap his head around something he hadn't thought would be an issue, but that he'd come around and all of that weirdness would resolve itself.
When I got home from dinner with my brother, all I could do was sit on my couch and cry. I had felt that it was coming back. I wasn't taken by surprise, per se. I had known in my gut that it was coming - but it was still incredibly hard to process.
I got a text from Clint that he, too, was having a rough time. He asked for some time and space to think some things through. He told me that he'd know in a couple days what he needed to do.
This was the day that I found out that my cancer was back, and the man I loved was asking for time away from me to process on his end.
What the HELL?!
I grabbed the soft and fuzzy blanket that Christian had given me at our lunch earlier that day, crawled into my bed and cried myself to sleep for the second night in a row - only, this time, I had a concrete and certain reason for the tears.
-That blanket was literally a security blanket for my 36 yr old toddler self. I slept with it that night and every night thereafter until late Summer. (I'm not kidding. When I went in for surgery in March, it went with me to the hospital. It traveled from my bed to the couch to the recliner and back to bed with me through endless nights of heartache and pain as I went about the business of recovering from back-to-back surgeries until July, when I went to Utah and finally cut the cord, because it wouldn't fit in my carry-on. True story.) -
February 12, 2011
I woke up, clutching my blanket. Eyes burning, I got out of bed and got dressed and went into work. I didn't generally work Saturdays at the time, but when I'd found out that my cancer was back, I suddenly started regretting having taken a PTO day on Thursday. I called my boss and asked if there was any way that I could work Saturday to comp out my hours for missing Thursday. That wasn't something that we would generally have an option on, but given the circumstances, she made an exception.
I worked a 10 hour day on the phones in a call center that day. It was brutal, but having to talk to members who were going through their own crisis or needing answers to their questions helped me keep my mind off myself.
That afternoon, I took a call from a member who lived in New York who'd called in to report an issue with one of her creditors, and she just randomly started talking about her own health struggles. She'd fought breast cancer for years, had finally been in remission and felt like she could go on with her life in 2010, but at her last doctor appointment had been told that it was back. She just talked and talked and talked. And I let her. She talked about fear, anger and disappointment. She talked about faith, and believing that things happened for a reason, and her need to trust in the Lord. She talked for almost two hours, and I let her. She cried, and I cried. She apologized for taking so much of my time, and told me that she didn't know what had come over her that she would tell a perfect stranger these things. She told me that she was so sorry, and hoped that she hadn't been a burden. I assured her that she hadn't been a burden, that it had been a pleasure to be there for her, that I was happy to be able to listen to her and give her an outlet. I explained that I, too, believe in a greater power and I told her that I didn't feel that it was a coincidence that, in a call center with hundreds of employees answering phones, her call had come to me. I told her that I didn't usually work on Saturdays, that it was an exception to policy that I was even there. I told her that I, too, was a cancer survivor and that I had been told the day before that it was back. She sobbed. We talked about the miraculous way that the Lord puts both obstacles and people in our paths, that if we pay attention to the people, they will help us overcome the obstacles.
That morning, I had been feeling sorry for myself that I had to go in to work, because I knew that it was going to be hard. (Saturdays in a call center are the equivalent, I am sure, to Saturdays spent tending the fire in the pit of Hell. The phones are merciless. They just ring and ring and ring and you're lucky if you can go 30 seconds between calls, no exaggeration.) I hadn't wanted to go in, but I knew I would need all my PTO days later. Besides, I am a firm believer in the karmic payoff that comes from working every day that I can. That one phone call (that lasted more than half of my afternoon shift) changed the day for me. It changed my perspective. It helped me realize that if we look for ways to help other people and are open to seeing the hand of the Lord in our lives, we absolutely will see it.
I left work at 5:00 to head over to my brother's. I had dinner plans with my friend Charla and then I was going over to Spencer and Brea's. As I was driving over to the west side of town, I got a call from my cousin Julie. We talked and laughed at I drove. When I filled her in on the latest with Clint, she said "Now you have to write a book! They'll surely make a movie out of it, and the voiceover at the beginning of the movie will be you, saying "Today, I found out that I have cancer. Again. And now my boyfriend wants to break up with me." - Who wouldn't want to watch a movie with that as the leading line?" We laughed, maniacally. Because when it's a laugh or cry situation, we Ball girls like to err on the side of laughter.
Dinner with Charla was lovely. We went to Mimi's Cafe and I got a buttermilk muffin and an unlimited supply of restaurant butter. (Seriously, heaven!) We chatted for an hour or so, then I headed over to the brother's, where Brea talked me into having a sleepover.
I'd heard from Clint once that day. He'd texted to check in that night when I was with Charla. I told him that it had been both a hard and good day, but I was with someone, so I couldn't talk. He told me that his day had been much the same and told me he'd check in with me the next day. As I was falling asleep, I thought about how much my usually boring life had morphed in the last week and wondered what kind of drama the next day would bring.
February 13, 2011
Spencer and Brea had morning church and I had afternoon church, so I got up the next morning and headed home. Much of my day was typical. I went to church, sat in the back, did my own thing. After Sacrament Meeting, I was making my way out of the chapel when one of the single sisters in the ward stopped me to tell me how good I was looking. I thanked her, but we were in close quarters and I couldn't get away quickly enough to let that be the end of the exchange. She pressed, "No, really, you're looking fantastic! You've lost a lot of weight this year. How did you do it?" - "Cancer", I said, "and I just found out on Friday that it's back... so it'll be interesting to see what I look like by the summer!" She was, as you can imagine, shell-shocked. Poor thing, just trying to pay me a compliment, and here I am, lambasting her with the C word. (Sometimes I worry that my need to laugh at the cancer freaks some people right out. Oh, well.)
After church, I had a text from Clint. He was doing better, still working on processing some things, but thought he had come to a general consensus for what he needed to do.
- As a bit of a back story, and to put some context into what he had going on in his life, the man was a divorced dad who had shared custody. He lived here in the Phoenix area, while his kids lived with their mom up in the White Mountain area, which is about a 3 hour drive. He'd been unemployed for a while and was working towards opening his own business, but had struggled in getting things off the ground. He'd been able to move in with his parents to save money, which helped with getting the seed money he needed for his business, and it also allowed him to have more money to help with his kids. He was in a bit of a bind, financially, which was one of the reasons we weren't busting forward full-speed ahead. I loved him, and I wanted to be with him, but I also needed the security of knowing where and how we would live. He was working on figuring some stuff out, work-wise, and I had understood that and was willing to put in the time while he got himself where he wanted to be. I understand that starting a business can be expensive and time-intensive, but I believe that if that business can give you the lifestyle that you want with the paycheck that you need, it's totally worth it. So, between his work situation and the fact that the kids he loved were a good 3 hours away from him, the man had some stressors he was needing to find solutions for. -
I texted him back, telling him that I was glad that he'd been able to find some peace and decide on a direction he should go in, and asked if we could talk/talk, instead of text. His answer was no, because he had the boys with him. He explained that he'd been wrestling with where he should be, geographically. He felt like he was missing too much of the boys' lives and had been trying to think of a way that he could do his business from the White Mountain area, rather than in the Phoenix area. The long and short of it was that he'd decided that he should move, that he needed to put his children as his priority, believeing that if he put his family first, things would work out professionaly and financially. He told me that he'd been struggling emotionally and had realized that he felt most loved when he was with his children, and he needed more of that. He told me that he genuinely cared for me and didn't want to hurt me, but that he wasn't in a position to give me what I needed and he needed to take care of his family.
Again, I asked if we couldn't please talk about this. (I mean, I got that he needed to be closer to his kids. I wouldn't try to keep him from them. And if he really wanted to break up with me, there was nothing I could do, but I felt that a voice to voice converstation is better than phone to phone. I wanted him to hear my voice. I needed to hear his.) He told me that he really couldn't talk, because he had no privacy. He said he was sorry, but he just couldn't give me what I wanted and felt like this was what he needed to do.
He broke up with me. Via text. Two days after I found out that I had cancer. The day before Valentine's Day.
Now, I don't say this to be bitter. I am not bitter. (In fact, the timing and the way it all came down is really kind of humorous, in a dark and twisty sort of way. ... You know, a year after the fact, and as long as I'm the one cracking jokes about it.)
Was I heartbroken? Yes, I sure was. (I was so glad that he sent that last text as I was on my way to Jo's for Sunday dinner. Insert about 4 hours of solid baby-holding here. Once again, Sally saved me.) Was I angry? Yes. Was I hurt and confused and scared out of my mind about having to do the cancer without the man who'd promised me that I'd never have to do anything by myself again? Yes. Was it incredibly confusing to go from one end of the emotional lovey-dovey spectrum to the other in the space of one week? Yes. But guess what, folks - I survived. In fact, I'm going to go as far as to say that I flourished.
Now, I didn't flourish over night. There were days and weeks, and maybe even a few months that there was a hole in my life and my heart ached for the loss of what I'd had and would could have been. But over time, I realized that, while the timing of that breakup sucked, the timing was also exactly what I'd needed it to be. Had we broken up two or three weeks before then, I wouldn't have had that clarifying weekend when I had to really make a decision about what I wanted and commit myself to working and fighting for it it. Had we broken up two or three weeks later (or, heaven forbid, months later), I would have had him to lean on for part of Cancer, Round Two, but not all of it. I shudder to think how hard it would have been to come back from a breakup at the same time that I was facing the special kind of hell that is recovering from surgery.
I've been thinking a lot this week about what was happening in my life at this time last year, and at this time last month. There are some very obvious similairities:
I found out that I have cancer. Again. I am single. Again. (Okay, still.) I am unsure of where I will be in six months, on a lot of levels. Again.
There are also some stark differences:
I know that I will be okay, because I already have been. Twice. I know that the relationships in my life are what will get me through this, because the people who know me the best and love me the most have already proven to me that they're here for me, whenever and however I may need them. I know that wherever I am in six months will be exactly where I'm supposed to be, because that's what keeps happening in my life (both literally and figuratively), over and over again.
There are similarities and there are differences. I could list them for you all day long (you know I could - I heart lists), but at the end of the day, what I've learned is that I get to choose how I react to things. I may not often (in fact, some times it seems like I never) get to choose what actually happens in my life. My life is impacted by decisions other people make; it is impacted by friends and family members whose lives intersect with mine, by church and work and all manner of other stressors in my life. My state of health certainly impacts my life. There is a lot of happenstance that I simply can't control. There is a lot in life that just "is", but what I've learned is that I do get to choose how I react to what happens around - and inside of - me.
A year and another tumor later, I am more aware of the power of choice. Agency is the most important thing in my life. I'm grateful for the ability that I have to excercise choice every day, and for the peace that comes from making the choice to be happy and to find joy, especially when circumstances might dictate another emotion would be more fitting.
