Yesterday I wrote about the young parents who both were diagnosed with advanced cancers within 9 days of each other. Turns out the woman has a blog and writes quite well. This is her post about finding that her BC is actually Stage 4:
SERIOUSLY????!!!!!
Well, there's no way to sugar coat this so I won't. My PET scan revealed spread of disease. That's the doctor's nice way of saying-spread of the cancer-to my liver, many lymph nodes, part of my pelvic bones and parts of my spine. This classifies the cancer as stage 4. Now if you are offended by swearing jump down to the next paragraph or better yet skip this post all together because I need to get Brooklyn right now. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, PEOPLE? This is me. Elisa. I don't get cancer much less the really bad, terribly serious kind of cancer. It just doesn't suit me. Heart disease. I could see that in my future with all my emotions running wild, but cancer? Or diabetes. That's a likely disease for me. I have PCOS and it's in my family. But CANCER? No way. Give me a break. This is fucking ridiculous. Fuck, shit, mother-fucking, what the fuck? AHHHHHHHHHH.
Sorry but I needed to get that out and I'm sure there is more coming so I apologize if I offend anyone's sensibilities but I have cancer so fuck your sensibilities. As one of the nurses said to me yesterday when she heard that Nathan and I have cancer at the same time and were diagnosed 9 days apart, "This is some shit!" It is. It is beyond absurd to me.
Besides, the swearing, I am virtually speechless. "What? What? WHAT?" That's all people can say to me and that's all I can hear in my head. "What?" I only have one plan right now and that is to dive head first into denial and stay there until I can figure out my escape plan. Perhaps if I just get on a plane to South America I won't have cancer. If I can just get out of this place, I can leave it behind. It's all a big mistake. Each step of the way, they have been talking about someone else. It's not me. This is NOT my story. Fuck the plane, I need to run. Get out of my way. MOVE. I gotta run. I just have to runaway. But I can't. Sadie. Nathan. Nathan and Sadie. This can't be. This can't be their story either. There is only one option; the treatment works. I survive. I thrive. This can't be Sadie's story. There can only be one ending to this because I didn't go through a horrendous pregnancy, 39 hours of non-medicated labor and delivery, a broken vagina for 9 months post-delivery and no sleep for the past 17 months not to get to watch this beautiful child grow up, graduate, travel the world, speak six languages, win So You Think You Can Dance, solve the Middle East peace crisis, cure ALL cancer, invent an app for teleportation, find the perfect partner, have kids and grow old. I mean it is a lot of pressure but I know she can do it and I'm not watching from the nose-bleed seats in the sky. Hell no. I want to be here on terra firma. I totally believe in an afterlife, a very beautiful and well-populated one. But I'd like to have this life for many more decades before I get my passport the "other side".
I am so mad. I am so sad. I am ________. I don't know. I don't who or what I am. How can this be going on inside my body with no symptoms? Besides the lump in my breast, I'm as healthy as a horse. If someone put a gun to my head I could probably run a marathon. It would hurt but I could do it. I look and feel perfectly healthy. Okay, I could lose the 20 lbs I still haven't lost from my pregnancy but come on. My hair is longer and healthier than it's ever been. My nails are even long and manicured. It is not me.
I know I will have to get around to accepting that it is me and rather quickly so I can "fight" this but I hate that. I hate all the "you're going to fight this", "we're in this fight together" crap. Really?! What am I fighting? It's a ghost. I'm fighting a ghost. It's lurking in my body but I can't grab it by it's throat and punch it and kick it and yell it and punch it some more. It's a part of me. It's embedded itself in me. I have to trust that the drugs and the poison they're going to put in me knows how to fight a ghost.
Sorry but I needed to get that out and I'm sure there is more coming so I apologize if I offend anyone's sensibilities but I have cancer so fuck your sensibilities. As one of the nurses said to me yesterday when she heard that Nathan and I have cancer at the same time and were diagnosed 9 days apart, "This is some shit!" It is. It is beyond absurd to me.
Besides, the swearing, I am virtually speechless. "What? What? WHAT?" That's all people can say to me and that's all I can hear in my head. "What?" I only have one plan right now and that is to dive head first into denial and stay there until I can figure out my escape plan. Perhaps if I just get on a plane to South America I won't have cancer. If I can just get out of this place, I can leave it behind. It's all a big mistake. Each step of the way, they have been talking about someone else. It's not me. This is NOT my story. Fuck the plane, I need to run. Get out of my way. MOVE. I gotta run. I just have to runaway. But I can't. Sadie. Nathan. Nathan and Sadie. This can't be. This can't be their story either. There is only one option; the treatment works. I survive. I thrive. This can't be Sadie's story. There can only be one ending to this because I didn't go through a horrendous pregnancy, 39 hours of non-medicated labor and delivery, a broken vagina for 9 months post-delivery and no sleep for the past 17 months not to get to watch this beautiful child grow up, graduate, travel the world, speak six languages, win So You Think You Can Dance, solve the Middle East peace crisis, cure ALL cancer, invent an app for teleportation, find the perfect partner, have kids and grow old. I mean it is a lot of pressure but I know she can do it and I'm not watching from the nose-bleed seats in the sky. Hell no. I want to be here on terra firma. I totally believe in an afterlife, a very beautiful and well-populated one. But I'd like to have this life for many more decades before I get my passport the "other side".
I am so mad. I am so sad. I am ________. I don't know. I don't who or what I am. How can this be going on inside my body with no symptoms? Besides the lump in my breast, I'm as healthy as a horse. If someone put a gun to my head I could probably run a marathon. It would hurt but I could do it. I look and feel perfectly healthy. Okay, I could lose the 20 lbs I still haven't lost from my pregnancy but come on. My hair is longer and healthier than it's ever been. My nails are even long and manicured. It is not me.
I know I will have to get around to accepting that it is me and rather quickly so I can "fight" this but I hate that. I hate all the "you're going to fight this", "we're in this fight together" crap. Really?! What am I fighting? It's a ghost. I'm fighting a ghost. It's lurking in my body but I can't grab it by it's throat and punch it and kick it and yell it and punch it some more. It's a part of me. It's embedded itself in me. I have to trust that the drugs and the poison they're going to put in me knows how to fight a ghost.
From Elisa
I liked her comment about 'going Brooklyn" (She lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn). I wrote earlier about the Brooklyn Alphabet (F**ing A, F***ing B...etc)My in-house Brooklynite does NOT swear, at least not often and winces painfully if I do.
But cancer indeed is a ghost. It can cause a lot of damage before one even knows it is there. Scary, scary, scary.
Yesterday was non-stop precipitation here so I held off on running until today. I saw a herd of deer run through the fields near me. When I was a child, I never saw deer in Southern Michigan. Now they are over the place. There is a small herd that lives on the property where Steve works.
More studying today and maybe I will try to fatten Ms. Maya up. I certainly have no trouble keeping myself fat.
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