I'd been having the time of my life, wandering around the country worried only about where I'd stop the next night. I felt FINE; nothing in my body told me anything was amiss; nothing alerted me I needed surgery. I needed to be cut open, because, why????
Stupid lump. It brought my trip to a screeching halt. There were tests and more tests. I managed one more quick two week journey between the last test and the time my new apartment was ready for me to move on in. It was a bittersweet reprise, a chance to say goodbye to my dream.
I had a wonderful time those weeks despite my underlying 'what if' concerns, the miles made almost unbearably precious by the awareness these might be the last I'd travel. I went south and west, staying with family and friends. I can still see the winter-barren landscape of northern New Mexico, the spot I pulled off the road to talk to the breast surgeon. I remember the burnt-yellow grasses and tumbleweeds, the blue sky striped by winter-gray clouds, the rising hills, the barbed wire next to the road, the sense of unreality as I looked at the beauty around me while we hammered through the pluses and minuses and decided that yes, I wanted to go ahead with a double mastectomy.
I felt fine that morning nine years ago - but knew I wouldn't in a few hours.
Near as I can recall, I was outwardly calm as I walked up to the desk and checked myself in like the adult I'm supposed to be, not letting any sign of my inner screams of terror show. Because we were behaving, the hospital staff let me have six (or so) of the allowed two friends in the small curtained cubicle where we waited for surgery to start. I was grateful for the distraction; glad to not be alone with my fears surrounding the brutal amputation to come. (Brutal, yes. But the best chance I'd have to have more days to travel new roads.)
They started an IV, wheeled me down the hall to the operating room. My memories start again in the hospital bed sometime late that afternoon, those same friends still there, talking and laughing and distracting me as the drugs wore off and the pain sauntered on in to stay for a spell.
Along with the pain, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief at the wonderful news awaiting my return to awareness. My lymph nodes were clear. They'd gotten good margins around the tumor. All evidence of disease was successfully removed. My chances to survive for some time were good.
Nine years ago. It feels like it was yesterday. It feels like it was three lifetimes ago, maybe four. It's been a tumultuous nine years - filled with loss and new life and hard lessons to learn and wonder at the power of Good. As grateful as I still am that mine was the kind of cancer we know how to make go away for a while, I know it was chance's whim that mine wasn't the sort of aggressive cancer that killed my sister, Libby.
I've traveled far. And while (maybe, because??) the awareness that the cancer can and probably will reappear one day is never far from me, I've learned to do my best to live each of the days I've been given. To try not to mourn the might-have-beens, the once-wases, the will-never-bes, but to look for the good in every day, because when I remember to look, good is there. Every time.
Nine years later, I am still here; my story continues.
Good Is.
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