ENGAGING INTUITION

"You have to leave the city of your comfort

and go into the wilderness of your intuition."

—Alan Alda

(photo ©2012 TheBigCandMe)

MANAGING CHAOS

I have a surgery date. Yeah! The scheduler gives us one of the dates my husband requested. Guess it pays to slow down, keep your wits about you, and ask for what you need.

A sudden calm melts over me when I hear the news. I haven't felt this focused since before I learned my mammogram was weird. It's amazing how having "a plan" brings with it such a feeling of control. It's like stumbling on a well-worn trail when you've been lost for weeks in the woods.

But in order to keep my calm, I have to learn how to manage my chaos. I took cancer from an angry rolling boil down to a simmer by determining the who, what, when, where, why and how of my diagnosis. This not only gave me a path and a direction, but a sorely needed compass.

Once you figure it out, managing your cancer chaos gets much easier.

The who, of course, is your medical team — who will your surgeons and physicians be? Your life depends on your choice and their expertise; choose wisely. Make a list of every question you can think of (I found The 10 Best Questions for Surviving Breast Cancer, by Dede Bonner, M.D., to be very helpful).

Take someone with you to your appointment who is a great listener and note-taker, and afterward, listen to your gut instincts. Get more than one opinion if you feel unsure about anything. Remember, you know yourself and how you process things; this is NOT the time to shortchange yourself. Give yourself as much time as you need to think things through and talk things over with your trusted confidants. As my surgeon wisely said to me, "Your cancer has been growing for years. Waiting a few more weeks to make sure you are making the best decision for you will not make any difference at all in your treatment."

Ah, the what. Uncertainty is a killer of the soul — and cancer courts uncertainty with devilish and unbridled abandon. Waiting for results that reveal whether or not you have "The Big C" is excruciating and, honestly, the worst part of the whole dang process. 

Once you know what you have, you can proceed to the biggie, when — everything hinges on knowing when surgery will happen. Don't have any procedures you are not ready to have. Doctor's offices will work around your schedule. (See OPERATION WIG-OUT for more on that.)

Next up, where will surgery be? Once you know the hospital, you can start stringing all the missing medical pieces together and making sense of the cancer process. 

Last but not least (and forever shrouded in mystery) is the why and how did you get cancer? My friends, you will never know. But you'll still spend countless hours contemplating what you might have done differently. If only you had exercised more, eaten less, taken vitamins, lived in a less-polluted area, worked at a less-stressful job, had more fun, never used a cell phone, left a bad relationship sooner, started menstruating later, used a different antiperspirant, thought more positively, felt less negatively, meditated more, partied less, prayed more, worried less, slept more, feared less... blah, blah, blah. The list is, well, endless. 

If not getting cancer was as simple as not doing this or that (or even a combination of this or that), then the people that already aren't doing "this or that" wouldn't also have cancer! (And we would have a cure.)

As one who has swum in the wicked whirlpool of why, my advice to anyone struggling with a cancer diagnosis is simple. Save your energy for the positive things you can control. The entrance to crazy land lies just beyond the moment we are living in right now, so stay in this moment as much as possible. Oh, and make time for meltdowns.

Like a 12-Stepper, I have learned to dance with my cancer one day at a time. I make an effort not to get mentally ahead of myself. And in that small space, people, is where my peace resides.

What's next? Pre-op Road Trip!

INTUITION

A question that comes up often when people first hear about my diagnosis is, "Did you know?" What they really mean is, did my gut tell me? Yes and no. My gut knew; it was my head that didn't. To wit:

1. When I'm called in for a second mammogram to get more compression views, I think nothing of it. Yet, subconsciously, I know there is more going on than just "dense tissue."
2. When the ultrasound technician tells me I need a biopsy, I don't ask her any questions, though she gives me plenty of opportunity to do so. I make the appointment but don't tell my husband.
3. When I have a core needle biopsy, I tell myself the procedure will simply show what benign breast tissue really looks like.

The evidence is adding up — yet I don't do the math.

Then one night I have a dream. In it, I'm telling both my parents that I have breast cancer. And I'm very sad because I realize that my father — who passed away three years ago — will never know that I have it. 

I awaken with a haunting feeling.

It was only after my diagnosis that I recall my dream and acknowledge how wise the subconscious mind is. It always knows.

Next up: Dr. A and Dr. J.

TELLING HUBBY

Good news travels fast. Bad news travels faster. Especially when it comes to cancer. The words tumble like rocks on a thin, plate-glass window. First it shatters your life, then its shards shatter the lives of those around you.

My breast cancer news doesn't need micromanaging, it needs entrusting — to three key players: My husband, my mother and one girlfriend. The game plan is to have my husband tell our 'couple' friends. My mom will tell our family. My friend will tell my other friends.

But I can't call my husband at work and tell him I have breast cancer. I just can't. Because his first wife also had breast cancer. They spent 10 years fighting it. She left behind a grieving family. How can I possibly break the news that I have breast cancer, too?

We sit down for dinner and I nervously wait for him to ask if Dr. S. has called — he knows today is the day I'm supposed to hear back about my biopsy, and this is my opening to start "the conversation." But my husband doesn't ask! We are still clinging mightily to the Isle of Denial. So halfway through whatever it is we're eating (probably salad but I really can't recall), the wait is too much for me to bear. I blurt it out: "I got the call." I look up from my plate and look him straight in the eye as I say, "It's Cancer." Then I start to cry, the kind of cry that comes from the bottom of your being. The kind of cry associated with death.

My husband, who has quite a honed sense of intuition for a guy, oddly doesn't bat an eye. He calmly tells me he knew the minute I told him that I had had a biopsy that it would come back cancerous. (Don't ask me how he knew, he just did.) Thankfully he did not share those feelings with me then.

The next few minutes are a blur: tears (mine) coupled with quiet absorption (him). I can't help but notice how unruffled his composure is — he seems detached. What is that about?

Oh, right. He's been down this road before.

(copyright 2011 TheBigCandMe)

And that is both the blessing and the curse. A curse for obvious reasons: What are the odds of one wonderful man having two wives who wind up with breast cancer? (I was initially more upset that he had to go through this a second time than I was about going through it myself.) And a blessing because he is not terrified of my diagnosis. He has a vast, multidimensional knowledge base of this disease from which to draw, and he has to believe things will get better — for his own emotional health, as well as mine.

So here's what he says to stop my crying: "It's different this time. You caught it early. You are not going to die from this." And I believe him. I have to. Like I said, he's very intuitive.

Telling hubby? Turned out to be pretty easy. Telling everyone else? Not so much. 

(See Isle of Denial for more.)