A Year Ago Today: Diagnosis of Cancer. Hilarity Ensues.

I sat down to breakfast with Danny & Gabriel on Saturday, 8/8, and I said very matter-of-factly, “A year ago today I had my biopsy.”

Danny smiled and said, “And hilarity ensued.”

And then a year ago today, August 11, I got the call from my doctor that I had a tumor, and it was malignant.

After I got that call, I never once thought of where I would be a year from then. It was all I could do to keep it together day by day. But I certainly didn’t think I’d have the good fortune to say, a year after my diagnosis, that I am cancer-free. But they found out after surgery that it hadn’t spread anywhere else, and I’ve had two MRIs and CT scans since then, and both have been clear. I can’t believe how blessed I am.

For those of you who don’t know, I went through six months of chemo, starting the week of Thanksgiving and ending on May 27, 2009. The best way to describe chemo is a quote from Bart Simpson: “I didn’t think this was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows.”

I had my chemo port put in around mid-November. It’s about the size of a quarter, and it’s like a little rubber stopper with a line going into one of my veins. They would use that to administer the chemo through an IV, instead of sticking my arm every time. I can’t feel it except when I lie on my right side, or when I’m showering. My son invariably will hit it by accident, and when I cringe, he now says, “Hit in the port?” When I say yes, he will say, “You OK, Mommy?”

I was on a mild form of chemo, so I didn’t lose my hair, but it really kicked my butt. I was constantly queasy for three months. The anti-nausea medication helped me not throw up, but it didn’t get rid of the queasiness. They finally changed my pre-meds in March, and I felt much, much better. I also started to put weight back on. My doctor was pleased about that, though. The oncologist is probably the only doctor who’s glad to see you gain weight, because that means you’re feeling well enough to eat.

The staff at the Winship Center is wonderful. They make it as bearable as possible. I never had to endure a cranky nurse. They put you in a little “station” during your treatment. They give you a heated blanket, and put you in a very comfortable reclining chair, and you even have your own little TV to watch. They have perpetually cheerful volunteers who come around with snacks, soft drinks and magazines. The worst part about chemo (besides the side effects) was getting the needle put into my port. Once I was past that, I was OK. I could sit and read and relax for a little while, and that personal time was very renewing.

It seems so odd, thinking where I was a year ago. As my friend Robert put it, “a scary bump in the road.” Who gets to describe cancer that way? The fight I went through was difficult, but I know that it pales in comparison to what others have had to go through… years of surgeries, and chemo, or radiation, or desperately turning to other treatments when conventional medicine doesn’t do the trick. I remember crying one morning before going for chemo because I didn’t want to go. Then while I was waiting to get my blood drawn, I noticed a man in the waiting area who had a cooler and backpack with him. I said something like, “Wow, it looks like you came prepared!” He told me he would have to be there about 15 hours for all his chemo treatments, so he had his snacks for when he got hungry, and his laptop with him to help him pass the time. I couldn’t believe it. “Fifteen hours!” I gasped. He asked, “How long are your treatments?” I was ashamed to tell him that mine only lasted 45 minutes, and that I had cried earlier that morning about coming in for chemo. He said, with so much patience and empathy, “That’s OK. I cried too, and if I had to come for only 45 minutes, I’d still probably cry.”
Here was a guy who had to have chemicals pumped into him constantly for hours, and I had been crying because I had to endure 45 minutes of chemo. No matter how bad you think you have it, someone else is worse off. And that’s very sobering when you have cancer. What you have is bad enough; you don’t want someone else to be worse.