One year ago four words changed the course of my life as I knew it.
"You have breast cancer."
The battle was on. Every ounce of my being became about the fight for my life. The future ahead of me and the information I received from my doctors on a daily basis felt like a battle ship parked on my chest. Crushing me. That first week was all about breathing. Several times each day reminding myself, "Breath in, breath out. Do it again."
I went through the motions of each day numb. "Please God. Please NO!" I lived a charade of acceptance and positive outlook. That's what everyone else needed to hear, and its what I had to tell myself. I didn't FEEL positive. I lied. While I told myself and my loved ones, "I'll get through this, I'll be fine. I'm good." it wasn't what I was thinking inside. Inside I felt death stalking me. At night I was plagued with dreams of rotting flesh, breasts falling off in the freezer isle of the grocery store, and hospital morgues filled with not bodies, but boobs. Hundreds and hundreds of boobs.
And then I started chemo.
Chemo is the epitome of the battle between good and evil; pumping poison into our bodies to keep us alive.
Chemo caused the loss of myself, and I watched as I disappeared into a chemical haze. Swimming through the murky cloud was all I could do, like sea life covered in oil after a tanker spill. Only by the grace of God, because he loves me so, was I able to keep moving each day. Swimming in thick, greasy, muck, my limbs exhausted with the effort.
I was still a mother.
I bathed the children.
I read to the children.
I fed the children.
I did the laundry.
I scrubbed toilets.
I did all the things the mothers do. In the haze. In the oil and muck. In the filth that is chemo.
I did all the things the mothers do, only it wasn't me because I was gone. I was lost inside myself and I didn't have anything left for anyone else, but I did it anyway.
The days I was in agonizing pain, I eased myself into a steaming hot tub of water, tears streaming down my face as each wave of agonizing pain washed over me, threatening to crush my knees and hips into bits of nothing. I cried out to God, "Please God. Please…please…please make it stop. MAKE IT STOP!" And He would answer my prayer every time as I drifted off to sleep in the scalding hot water. As it cooled to room temperature I would wake, groggy and ready for my bed. The pain nearly completely gone. And I would sleep. I would rest knowing He was still here, even if I wasn't.
It took months to come out of that fog. As I did, I realized my body held so many remnants of the attack. My finger and toenails had turned gray with black streaks, four deep ridges running across each nail, evenly spaced, one for each round of chemo. My body was void of any hair. Over the next few months I watched my nails slowly change, the discoloration growing out to the ends. Each time I clipped my nails I was clipping away the evidence of my toxic bath. The color of my skin slowly improved. My eyebrows, lashes, armpit and pubic hair returned.
Then came the darkness.
Triggered by a combination of chemo and the stress of several surgeries I was thrown into menopause. Thrown as in, "The woman was loaded into a cannon, the fuse was lit and she was shot directly into a brick wall which has been reinforced with steel rods. SPLAT!"
Women who go through menopause naturally experience the changes over a period of years. Mine happened in a week. I was irritable, and I was depressed. I was all about doom and gloom. I said "fuck" a lot. I had finally made it through chemo's oil slick into clean waters, but I was still drowning! I was swimming as hard as I could, kicking and paddling but still sitting on the fucking bottom of the fucking sea!!!! I've never been a good swimmer really, so its no surprise I couldn't save myself. But God! He reached his hand deep down into the waters and ever so gently brought me to the surface. Not too fast that the pressure change would kill me. Just fast enough that I could look around a bit. Get my bearings. Regain my balance.
When I finally broke the surface I gasped at the freshness of the air. I marveled at the sunshine, even in the midst of our Minnesota winter. So much time had passed! I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs, expanding them, for they had been crushed by the depths for so very long.
Only recently have I found my way to the shoreline and basked in the warm breeze, letting the sun warm my body. Alive. Rested. Energized. I was finally ready to leave the shoreline to explore life once again.
I began to find the joy in my days. The joy in the mundane. Each morning to be greeted by the amazing people in my house. Those sleepy hugs from Asher that he saves for only me. Angela a young woman ready to graduate high school in a couple of months. Axel, tall an strong, responsible and helpful. Abel with his nervous chuckle, wanting to please me. Audrey, joyful, determined to be heard by all.
And my love.
How I love this man God blessed me with. My true partner, walking through each day with me, both of us perfectly in step with one another. Finishing each other's sentences. A team matched by the God who knew what was ahead. I was so lost for so long, but when I returned he was right here, waiting to pick up where we left off, only better. We are BETTER than ever, so in love that sometimes I wonder how it could be that my heart ACHES with it?
A year.
The journey of a lifetime.
I am back!
