CANCER IS MY INFAMY

(Copyright 2014 TheBigCandMe)

Four years ago today, December 8th, 2010, cancer called my house. (Actually, Dr. S. called; he gave me the news here.) 

Fast forward two years, and in an attempt to put a Six-Word Memoir face on the beast that is breast cancer, I wrote these six words on this blog: "Cancer called. Wish I hadn't answered." 

Do I still stand by those words? 


No and Yes and No and Yes...

No, I don't regret answering the phone. (That would mean I was ignoring my cancer, not a good thing to do.) 

Yes, I was certain the news would be good. 

No, I was not (yet) out of my mind with worry. 

Yes, I was in denial. So much denial, in fact, that I hadn't even told my husband I'd had a biopsy until the night before that phone call! I was trying to spare him the emotional upheaval and unnecessary worry, because I was so certain the news would be benign. He had already lost his first wife to breast cancer; I couldn't imagine the universe being so cruel and unkind as to give one man two wives with this dreadful disease.

I was wrong.

One ring-a-ding-ding of the phone later on that breezy late-autumn afternoon (a day after December 7th, already a date that lived in infamy for me — not because of Pearl Harbor, but because it's the day my father died), and December 8th would now live in infamy too.

CANCER BECAME MY INFAMY.

Actual notes that I took while on the phone with Dr. S.

Here's how it went down four years ago:

Dr. S: "Well, I have your test results!" 

Me: "Yea! I'm so glad."

Dr. S: "Unfortunately, it IS cancer." 

Me (long pause): "I was not expecting that."

I struggled to comprehend the few words I heard Dr. S. saying: "Invasive Ductal Carcinoma... Well differentiated... Not a tumor... One inch in size..."

I ended the call, and immediately had what I now know to be a panic attack. I'd never felt such fear so fast. I couldn't get enough air in my lungs; it seemed to be missing from the room. I felt like I was going crazy. Like I was going to die. 

That's the one-two punch: I am going to die. And so are you. 

As humans, we are experts at suppressing our fears surrounding our demise. Our existence on this beautiful planet seems at once long yet short. We busy ourselves supporting and caring for the families we are part of and the families we create, sometimes forgetting to care for ourselves in the process.

Then cancer calls, and it shoves a huge cracked mirror in your face, and forces you to see it, feel it, taste it, touch it, breath it — the very thing you spend your life trying not to think about or address, the ultimate antithesis of this wonderful life: DEATH.

And death will not be denied. 

Unfortunately, neither will cancer. And that's really why I answered the phone four years ago. I had to know. (And then had to tell my husband.) 

Cancer is my infamy. So what have I learned over the last four years of "cancerversaries"? If there's one takeaway I can share in a single sentence:

The gist of the cancer journey is coming to terms with your fear of death, then managing that fear in your daily life.

How we do this (and when) is as individual as we all are. And an ongoing process. I'll share a few of the ways I manage my fear of death in an upcoming post. Stay tuned... Until then, take care. In the hustle of the holiday season, it's easy to overlook taking caring of yourself. Don't overlook YOU.

PS: Elizabeth Edwards died on The Date of Infamy —  December 7th — in 2010. I remember being completely shaken by the news. The next day, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.