It’s
been pretty quiet on the personal blog here lately. For a good reason. This is the most personal thing I’ve ever
written. It might get a little angry and
profane. If you’re easily offended by that, you probably should just stop
reading now.
It
was just an average late summer day. I don’t remember much about it, until that
evening. My wife Tanya and I were sitting on the couch in our family room. Out
of the blue, she tells me she found something on her left breast. Since it
wasn’t my hand, I knew it probably wasn’t good. The knot in my stomach
confirmed that. She had a mammogram scheduled and would I go with her? (As if
she had to ask.) She had noticed it the
previous Friday and then kept it to herself all weekend, wondering if she was
overreacting, panicking over nothing.
She
wasn’t.
The
mammogram found “suspicious” things in her breast. I have really come to hate
the word “suspicious.” It’s doctor-speak for bad news. The biopsy confirmed
what we feared: my wife, who I have loved for 17 years, who has put up with me
all that time, who gave me two beautiful daughters, who has never smoked, done
drugs, or intentionally hurt anyone her entire life, has breast cancer.
Holy
fuck.
If
there is a more horrifying word in the English language than cancer, I can’t
think of it. What’s your reaction when you hear that word in a medical sense?
Does it make you cringe? It means that person is going to suffer. You think of
chemotherapy, radiation, losing your hair, looking sick. It means people give
you that “aw, you poor thing” look. It’s just the fucking worst.
For
me, the initial shock was horrible. I can’t even imagine what it must have been
like for her. Almost immediately, we
plunged into a seemingly endless parade of tests and meetings with doctors.
Some of the tests came back with encouraging news. All the doctors agreed it
had been caught early, so the cure rate was very high. Surgery was scheduled
for Oct. 9. Tanya elected to do a bi-lateral (double) mastectomy to reduce the
risk of reoccurrence as much as possible. It sounded so severe to me initially,
but if it meant she is here to grow old with, then it’s a price we were gladly
willing to pay. We were scared, but optimistic.
Surgery
went as well as it could have. The first two weeks were rough. For Tanya,
especially, but also for the girls, her parents and family, my mom and stepdad.
I have this perpetual knot in my stomach that periodically expands and
overwhelms me to the point I can barely breathe. At least I have been able to
do things to help her so I don’t feel useless. But if you have ever watched a
loved one trying to recover from surgery or illness (or both), you know how
miserable it is to watch. I’d carry it all on me in a second if it meant she
didn’t have to go through all this crap.
Ever
since then, she keeps getting the rug yanked out from beneath her. Going into
surgery, we were told that her lymph nodes looked clear. That meant that once
the surgery was done, she should be 98% cancer-free. That didn’t last
long. The surgeon came out afterwards and
said that she found a lymph node that looked “suspicious” (see, there’s that
word again), so she removed several more so they could be tested.
Enough
of them came back positive for cancer that the cure rate changed and the
oncologist said the cancer was a more aggressive Stage 3 instead of the more
easily cured Stage 1. We were stunned.
Because
the body has thousands of lymph modes scattered everywhere, the risk of it
spreading is terrifying. Because of this, Tanya then had to undergo a bone scan
and a pet scan to see if the cancer had spread. The PET scan came back clean,
which meant that it wasn’t in any of her organs. That was a huge relief.
The
bone scan did not come back clean, goddamn it. The oncologist called Tanya
himself. You know that’s a bad sign. It is her left hip. The normal reading on
the scan is supposed to be a 2 or less. A “3” is considered suspicious (do you
get why I fucking hate that word now?). Her reading was a 9.3.
Oh
God, no.
A
bone biopsy and oncologist visit later, it is confirmed. Tanya’s cancer has
spread to her hip. This time, stunned doesn’t even begin to cover it. I’m still
speechless. I’m not a cancer expert, but I know what it means when someone has
cancer in his/her bones. It changes the cancer level to Stage 4.
It
is not curable. NOT. CURABLE.
Later,
to me, she says, are you fucking kidding me? How much more of this shit am I
supposed to handle? I have no answers. I only have shoulders to cry on.
These
past two weeks have been agonizing. Just a month ago, we were being told that
it was 98% curable. Come to find out it isn’t curable at all. The best that can
be done is to put it in remission. Our daughters are 11 and 9. Tanya has had a
long-running joke with the girls that she will live to be 112. That joke used
to make me laugh. Not anymore.
I
know cancer can strike anyone at any time, but this is just the most unfair goddamned
thing. I don’t want to hear any of this “Everything happens for a reason” bullshit,
either. There is NO reason for this to happen. Not to Tanya.
Our
daughters have asked why this is happening. I don’t have any good answers. I myself
have asked for, demanded even, an explanation for why. I have gotten nothing. I
need one, or else I will never understand this whole wretched nightmare.
I
have learned something during all this: most people are kind, decent and
generous. The support Tanya has received is nothing short of incredible. Some
of that support has come from unexpected places, which is heartening. On the
flip side, several people we thought were friends have vanished. POOF. Maybe it’s
because they don’t know what to say. It is a brutal situation. Believe me, words
often are hard for me to come by right now. While I can understand that, I can
tell you that I will no longer be one of those people who avoids a friend in
need. Paying it forward may be a cliché, but when you receive that kindness
from people, it gives you strength you never expected.
I
am hoping and praying (ambivalently) that Tanya keeps drawing on that strength
because she starts chemo tomorrow. If you are one of the vanishing friends, you
can piss off. I can no longer be bothered by people like you who can’t spare a
moment of their precious time to offer support to a friend.
Although
we’ve been dealing with this for a little over two months now, we’ve only
started down this hellish road. I don’t know how, but I will gather all the
strength necessary to help my wife and daughters make it through. In the meantime,
we plug along day by day. I don’t know what else to do. Like Tom Hanks’
character said at the end of Cast Away, we have to keep breathing because
tomorrow the sun will rise and who knows what the tide could bring.
