POTHOLES – No Noble Journey Here…

I read a lot of the cancer books, websites, commentary and fund raising sites and people talk about their breast cancer “journey”.

I live in a major metropolitan area, and except for college trips last year to Mankato, I haven’t really been out of Minneapolis much in the past three years. I used to travel all the time – taking real journeys to Hawaii, Canada, Haiti, Nigeria, Liberia, England, Cameroon and other places inside of those countries. Used to travel more in the US – Michigan, Wisconsin, South Dakota, and Iowa.

I don’t go many places any more. My journeys have been mind journeys only. And now I’m supposed to be on some noble journey from breast cancer terror to breast cancer (caregiver) survivor.

Pardon me but I don’t feel particularly noble…rather than the Yellow Brick Road, I feel like I’m on a Minneapolis side road; like, say, Washington Ave around West Broadway, spring 2011. THAT road is so full of deep potholes that I actually saw a car on the side of the street with a broken strut.

THAT is the road I am on; no noble YBR leading to freedom. No straight and narrow. A Minneapolis side road full of spring potholes that threaten to smash me into pieces. A pothole that might drop me into oblivion…one of things I’ve felt lately is that there seems to be little…attention…for me. I don’t want to bask. Just have people ask what I’m doing – not “how” I’m doing in relation to my wife; just “How ya doin’, dude?”

I remember something like this happening to Liz when the kids were born. Everyone clustered around the adorable baby. No one noticed the adorable mom. No one asked how the mom was NOT IN RELATION TO how the baby was. It’s hard to get used to.

I can get used to it. I just sometimes feel really, really close to the edge of that monster pothole.

This was a REALLY useful site when reading the official pathology report:

http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/types/dcis/diagnosis.jsp

image: http://blog.silive.com/latest_news/2009/03/medium_03-13-staten-island-pothole.jpg