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…
There were so many
things that changed after the initial breast cancer diagnosis. I can’t speak for
my wife because while I’ve been here the whole time, I can’t read her mind,
either. I don’t know where her thoughts flit from moment to moment.
But, I DO know
where my mind has gone.
I can tell you that
I act as if nothing’s happened in the past; that there “was no breast cancer”;
that everything has been totally normal.
Then, it all comes
rushing back – like last weekend when she cut her thumb on one of our new
knives. They’re incredibly sharp, and I cut my finger on one the first week we
got it. She was using what’s called the “Chef’s knife: has a blade between 6
and 14 inches long and 1½ inches wide, with a curve that becomes more
pronounced near the tip.” We were going have dessert after a hamburger and hot
dog meal, and she was slicing a new watermelon. She slashed her left index
finger near the end and was dripping blood.
I’d had a similar
cut earlier, but my wife also has several factors against her – most notably,
she has Von Willebrand Disease. Her brother and at least one cousin were born
with hemophilia, but she can’t get it because the disease is only survivable in
males (it was also called “bleeders disease” and is the absence of a clotting factor
in the blood. You imagine the scenario…) At any rate, my wife has, “…a genetic
disorder caused by missing or defective von Willebrand factor (VWF), a clotting
protein. VWF binds factor VIII, a key clotting protein, and platelets in blood
vessel walls, which help form a platelet plug during the clotting process.”
In practice, it
means she clots very slowly. So, we headed to the hospital where they stopped
the bleeding, cleaned her up, and used skin glue to seal the cut. (In 1980, I
took an Organic Chemistry class where the professor shared he was doing
research on MAKING skin glue. It didn’t exist at the time, making my wife a
direct recipient of the work Dr. Kowanko was doing when he and his colleagues, “glued
steaks together to see if they would stay stuck”…)
While we were
there, my wife commented, “It’s a good thing it wasn’t my right hand that got
the cut.” My daughter-in-law, who was with us for arm support and emotional
support (my daughter is seven-and-a-half months pregnant and would have struggled
to be her usual staunch supporting self…), asked “Why?”
My wife shared
that if she had cut her right hand, her body would have responded by flooding
the arm with white blood cells carried by lymph – which is a good thing.
However, she’s missing most of the nodes in her armpit, which had been taken
when she had a double mastectomy to remove the breast cancer – which is a bad
thing as instead of being returned to the body, the lymph now pools in her arm,
making it swell (lymphedema).
A major cut like
that would have caused a major reaction, and we’d have had to go to the lymphedema
specialist, then she’d have to wear the sleeve as well as use the “sleeping
sleeve”, and it’s the middle of summer…and it would have been miserable…
At any rate, like
I said, every once in a while, the fact of breast cancer in my wife’s life all comes
rushing back. In this case it was only an alternate future where that happened,
but still, my heart near-to-stops when I think of what MIGHT have happened.
Evidence that breast cancer and the aftermath is only a heartbeat away from our
new normal…
Resource:
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