Coming Up On One Year -- All About Me...

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…

If you clicked on this to get information or find wisdom, you should click the return arrow and go back to your search. All you’re going to get here today are musings.

On March 18, 2011 Liz found out for sure that she had breast cancer. I detail the initial roller coaster in my first post (http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/search/label/Introductions).

It’s now nearly a year later and shortly, we’re going to return to the hospital where it all started and talk with the breast cancer doctor who worked with Liz from the beginning.

My feelings run in ripples I feel in my muscles as I flash back and forth between the past and present. The biopsy day makes me shudder and my breathing catches in my throat.

The day of the mastectomy makes me feel numb as I can’t remember much except that I was surrounded by people who loved me – I wasn’t up to returning the love that day. I DO remember walking around the hospital in the cold with my sister. I remember walking around the hospital with Kathy. I remember Abbas coming to be with Mary. Other than those peculiar memories – and the bagels my sister brought. And the warm, grizzled redheaded embrace of my best male friend, Jon. See…it all comes in waves.

The choked conversations with my family after the biopsy.

The unholy terror of our first time at chemotherapy and the shock of the nurse dressed in goggles, mask, gloves, and gown injecting the red devil into Liz’ bloodstream to slaughter the invading cancer cells (http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2011/10/adriamycin-whats-it-do.html) and my thought of: “If it’s so dangerous you have to suit up like you’re going into an infectious disease ward, then what are you doing injecting into the heart of a cancer patient?!!!!!”

The repeat visits and watching Liz go from positive and chatting to lethargic and nearly unconscious were frightening. If I didn’t believe it was the effect of the drug trashing cancer cells, I would have refused to take her to the hospital again.

Ever.

For anything.

Then there was the guilt. Every one of the Neulasta shots (http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2011/11/neulasta-whats-it-do.html) cost $12,000. WHAT? How could I justify that? What were we doing to the poor? Shouldn’t I be doing something MORE to make the price come down? How could I explain this to the students I work with every day – some of whom are homeless? Can you put a price tag on a human life? What’s wrong with me? I shouldn’t even be THINKING about the price tag – but here I was, thinking about it! What kind of man am I to question this? It’s my WIFE of 25 years, for God’s sake!

But there I was, wondering about it. Struggling with it. Calling myself a douchebag.

So now it’s a year later and we’re going to go see the doctor again at the Breast Cancer Center. What’s he going to say? What’s next? Where do we go from here? Will life ever get back to normal?

*sigh*

See – no wisdom here. No hopeful pronouncements here. Only tentative thoughts of the future. Only breath holding. Only a closing of the eyes and a pretending to forget. Only a running of my hand through the baby-soft hair on Liz’ head. Only a sitting so close you can’t slip a hand between our thighs; only seated on opposite sides of the room, doing our own computer work and feeling guilty because I should be sitting so close you can’t slip a hand between our thighs because time is ALWAYS short, even for the granddaughter we’re waiting patiently for.

Maybe one thought, as trite as it sounds, as Disneyesque as it appears above: keep moving forward...

That’s what I’ll do.

Image: http://marc.digitalcitymechanics.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/moveforward.jpg