Tomorrow is a very big day -
I'm back at the hospital to find out exactly how big a threat this cancer is.
When they operated, they took out three lymph nodes to test to see if it had
spread, and it had, so they then removed all the right armpit lymph nodes to
test the rest. Having read everything I can find to read about it, I now know
that there is a direct correlation between how many lymph nodes are affected,
and my likelihood of survival. It's all terribly exciting really.
I'll also find out if they got enough of the
lump out during surgery, or if they need to go digging around again to find any
more cancer-contaminated tissue. Straight after surgery they told me it was
bigger than they had thought, and that they "didn't like the look of"
the surrounding tissue, so I'm fairly convinced they'll want another go at it,
and also that maybe this time they might want to go the whole hog and do a
mastectomy.
Then, just to ensure that they do what they can
to completely ruin my day, I'll be told what treatments they're planning for
me. Isn't "treatment" a funny word? I think of treats as
ice-creams and trips to the theatre, or a decent bottle of red wine, but I
think they're more inclined to "treat" me with therapies of the
chemo, radio and hormone variety. It's debatable as to which would do me the
most good.
I'm actually really looking forward to knowing
whatever they are going to tell me tomorrow - at least then I'll have a much
clearer idea of what's going on, and where we go from here. This no-man's-land
of uncertainty is much harder to deal with. Whatever the truth is, I can deal
with it far better once we have tangible facts to think about.
Apparently I'm just like everybody else who
gets a cancer diagnosis. When they say the word "cancer", we all initially
hear "death sentence". Our close family and friends also fear
the worst, but then follows several weeks of quite hilarious dancing around the
subject. In my case, I wanted to acknowledge that death was at least one of
several possible outcomes, but no one else wanted to have that conversation.
Instead, everyone was annoyingly upbeat and dismissive of any negativity at
all. I could see that fear in their eyes whenever I tried to manoeurve the
conversation towards my possible early death, and I could almost hear the cogs
in their brains working in overdrive as they invented new and creative verbal
dance-steps in an attempt to outwit me, so they could bring the subject safely
back into the realms of happy, nice, sunny, positive thinking.
Positive thinking is all well and good, but not
at the expense of dealing with the here and now realities of the situation. I'm
a single parent with three disabled children, and it would be the height of
irresponsibility not to at least make rudimentary contingency plans. My own
mother died when I was only 19, so I know how devastating it is to lose a
parent far too early. If there is anything I can do now that might minimize the
effects of my potential premature death, then let's do it.
So the week before surgery, I wrote a will,
with clauses to protect the financial interests of T, my profoundly disabled
child. Complicated, but it felt really good to tick that box. It's ridiculous
really, it should have been done years ago, but this has galvinized me into
doing it. When the final draft of the will had been agreed and was ready for
signature, I was actually very nervous crossing the road to the solicitors
office in case that proverbial bus with my name on it decided to visit. That
really would be pants, to have cancer AND to fall under a bus. Then there were one or two other, tediously boring
but essential bits and pieces to do, just so I could give myself a little bit
more peace of mind.
When I'm good and ready, my positive thinking
will have me flying, and will terrify any last little cancer cells into
submission - I'll have them running for the hills like they never knew they
could run. However, it will have to be on my terms, after tomorrow when I not
only know the full facts, but I've come to terms with them properly. Until
then, I reserve the right to screech like a wounded animal if I need to over
the next few days, and to behave like a perfectly disagreeable human being, and
then some.
This whole possible dying malarkey is
fascinating really. One day it will definitely happen, I just hope to be in my
nineties when it does. Meanwhile, there are loads of things I can do to make my
longevity much more likely, and I've read up on loads of stuff that really can
help to increase the odds. There are no absolutes with cancer - some people who
seem like they have cracked it don't make it, and others whom the medics gave
up all hope for, are still around decades later, like my aunt.
One thing I really hate is the semantics
surrounding cancer recovery or otherwise. It's all so military and aggressive.
I have absolutely no intention of seeing myself as a "victim" who has
to "struggle" to"fight" and "battle" this "bravely".
Whether I win or lose this thing, this vocabulary is really unhelpful, and the
inference is that those who didn't make it were in some way "losers"
or didn't "fight" hard enough.
I am not brave, and I am certainly not a
victim. I have cancer at the moment, but that is only a tiny part of who I am
and what I am. I'll find a way to handle this that's right for me, however odd
or quirky it might look from the outside.
Just a quick update on how I've been - totally lousy until today. Won't bore
you with the details, other than to repeat what WM said to me this
morning, "Oh my God you must be better, because you're being really
annoying". Ha ha ha I must be back in business!
