under the elephant

There are a couple of things you are advised to do before surgery. Go to the dentist. Remove the tail end remnants of toenail polish from the summer. Have your wedding ring cut off.
Of course that is only for those of us who can’t just slide it off. I’ve worn my wedding band for 31 years, despite being a widow for 8. Shall we just say that my finger and ring were one? A few years ago a psychic told me that my husband wanted me to keep my ring on. I laughed because it really wasn’t an issue, I couldn’t get it off! But the pre-surgery nurse told me to have a jeweler cut it as the surgeons may do well with flesh, but they are not so good with precious metals. So off we went to the jeweler who brought out his little tool (apparently they do this all the time) and told us it took only a second. Ten minutes later he was still grinding away. After I told him about the psychic, he began to address Jack. That worked. The ring is off, waiting to either be resized or made into a necklace, my finger left bare and hideously misshapen.
All these things were taken care of, and work continued, all the waiting and anticipation gathering until the night before finally arrived, where of course, there was the fast, beginning at midnight and even worse, the no water rule.
In the trick time has of slowing and speeding up, I finally found myself being rolled into the operating room. Why are operating rooms on TV always dark? This room was blindingly bright and I had a nurse attending me named Alla (pronounced Allah) and another tech named Angel. It seemed a fortuitous beginning. I asked if they were going to page Jesus as they pulled my arms out and strapped them onto what seemed to be a cross. They laughed and that is the last thing I remember from the surgery.
So it is good to make these preparations before surgery. I had good advice. Unfortunately, no one mentioned the elephant-- the one that was sitting on my chest when I woke up.
Later I asked my mom, who had a mastectomy 14 years ago, “Why didn’t you tell me about the pain?”
“Well, I didn’t want you to go into surgery with any apprehension,” she answered.
Good plan, I’m glad I didn’t know how painful it would be.
The nurses asked about my pain often, “on a scale of one to ten…” for some idiotic reason I kept choosing 6 or 7, when it was clearly a 12. My roommate (also a redhead, also a widow, also with breast cancer) kept telling her nurse, “I’m not in pain at all.” It reminded me of the roommate I had after delivering one of my kids, who kept telling everyone that her labor was only 45 minutes and didn’t hurt at all. I wanted to smack her. Why was I such a wimp? It turns out my roommate hadn’t had a double mastectomy.
And as she pointed out, it all evened out, she didn’t have pain, but I had flowers and the window.

sisterhood

An emergency meeting of the Moms Night out group was called for the Sunday following my Friday diagnosis. This is a group of women I have known for over twenty years. It began as a playgroup, morphed into a monthly dinner away from the kids and evolved into a group of friends, who trust each others’ opinions on things like doctors, contractors and hairstyles, who use each other as sounding boards and who have stood by each other during weddings, funerals and the emptying of our nests.
Mostly, we have fun. We are the loud group of women in the corner of restaurants that you hear howling with laughter. To be a member of the MNO group it is a prerequisite to have a sense of humor and be able to tell a good story.

I have always valued friendship. I still exchange Christmas greetings with a childhood friend I have not seen since I moved away from Michigan over 40 years ago. (But I know that she married and has children and grandchildren now.) I spend a weekend every year with my two best friends from high school, catching up and supplementing letters and phone calls with new experiences. I am part of the “magnificent 7” a group of women brought together by one common friend who wove her friendship with each of us into a net that enclosed us all. Because I have lived in so many places and worked in many schools, I have a treasure chest filled with women friends who are like sisters to me.

It may be the fact that I grew up with three sisters that I so value my women friends. My sisters all live in different states now. It is true that we can go weeks without calling or e-mailing, but it is equally true that my sisters have always been right here when I needed them. Once when I was pregnant and had the flu, one of my sisters drove an hour through a snowstorm to come help me put my son to bed, then put me to bed. My youngest sister walked into the hospital room when my son had emergency surgery—despite the fact that she lived 500 miles away. My oldest sister will be with me for my surgery.

The truth is (and as women we all know this) women take care of things. We solve problems, we know what to say, we know what to do, who to ask and when to hug. As I relate the stories about my sisters and as I receive so many cards, supportive visitors and well wishes from my friends, I hope that I reciprocate in kind. I hope that I am as good a friend to my friends as they have been to me.

At the emergency meeting there was wine (green tea for me) and healthy snacks. A list of cell phone and e-mail numbers was put together to later become a spread sheet that included my kids’ information and my two best friends from high school. I was told to tell my family that I would never have to go to a doctor alone.
My friends asked me what I needed. How they could make me feel good. I told them “I feel good right now.” So it was decided that some outings were in order, a movie night, and even, the weekend in Michigan we had planned earlier.

As I sat there with my friends, I felt cared for. I felt surrounded by love and I felt invincible. Surely the healing has begun already.

the you-stupid-ass phase

I understand that one of the stages of coming to grips with a cancer diagnosis is the “why me” phase. I did spend some time puzzling over God’s opinion of how much I could handle, and I have checked the sky over my house for a black cloud. Nothing there.
The truth is I don’t wonder why me. I’m not surprised at all; I was a sitting duck.
News Flash: Being overweight increases the odds of getting breast cancer. There is a complex scientific estrogen-stored-in-fat explanation that I couldn’t begin to describe here, but I have read the blurbs countless times in women’s magazines. It is why I am always starting a diet on Monday. Alcohol isn’t good either, it feeds tumors. My bedtime beer was not helping my odds.
News Flash: Being inactive increases the odds of getting breast cancer. Walking the dog around the block apparently doesn’t do the trick.
News Flash: Having a family history of breast cancer increases the odds of getting cancer. Check.
News Flash: Being under stress can undermine your body’s defense system. Living with stress is the norm for me. When I am not worried about something, I’m convinced something is about to go wrong. And not all of these are imaginary stresses. Most of my worry comes from real, clinically charted stresses. Becoming a widow. Working during the day and going to school at night to become certified to teach. Being told after three years as a teacher that I am “not a fit for their needs.” Working three jobs to make up for no longer being a teacher. Spending the last three years in gentile poverty. Selling my house in the era’s worst housing market. Moving. It’s an impressive tally for stress on any scale.
So instead of the “why me” phase, I went through the “you stupid ass” phase. I was seriously pissed off at myself. True, I couldn’t very well avoid the family history. But everything else was my own damn fault. My weight, my inactivity, even the series of events that have made my life so stressful--all essentially related to my own failure and if it can be argued that they aren’t necessarily MY failure, then at the very least I have to recognize that I have clearly not dealt with my stress in a healthy way. (It seems there are two kinds of people: those who can’t eat when they are stressed and those who eat too much when they are stressed…)
In this “you stupid ass” phase I ranted and raved. I cried. I carried on. I was very angry. Then my older sister suggested that perhaps this way of thinking was counterproductive.
Oh.
And my friend suggested that what matters now is what I do from this point on.
True.
So for the 175th time I turned a new leaf, and it wasn’t even Monday. I went on the internet and researched the cancer-fighting diet. I cleaned out my refrigerator. Hot dogs, ham—anything with nitrates—gone. Processed foods—aka Trans fats—
gone. Ditto potato chips. Diet pop. And all the white stuff, no more freshly baked Jewel bread for me.
Then I went to the grocery store and explored the organic food aisle. I loaded my cart with fruits and vegetables and whole wheat bread.
And I called my friend, “What exactly, do you do with lentils?”

One in Eight

On a normal Tuesday in September, I walked the dog as usual at 6 A.M., thinking about what to wear to work. It promised to be a pretty fall day, so my major problem was whether to go sleeveless. It was sure to be warm by the lunch hour for outdoor recess, yet cold in the air conditioning of the classrooms. You can see the dilemma.
Once the dog and I returned home, I checked my email, ate breakfast and stepped into the shower.
And just like that my life changed.
‘What the hell?’ I had my finger on a lump. Not a tiny lump either, a how-haven’t-I-noticed-this-before-sized lump.
There ensued many phone calls; I called in sick, I called my gynecologist. Throughout the week there were doctor’s visits, waiting and then a mammogram, an ultrasound, and finally a needle-biopsy. There ensued more waiting and much praying.
I found out that I had breast cancer on a Friday while pacing in the school corridor, trying to get better reception on my cell phone. It was our lunch break. I had leftover pizza in the microwave and my new work colleagues sat stunned as I came in and sat heavily at the table wearing the news on my face. I’ve only known them a few weeks and this is pretty personal, serious business to share with near strangers. Stupidly, I went to get my pizza out of the microwave. As if I could eat. I was having trouble breathing. They sat and watched me try not to cry. They were kind and warm, sometimes meeting my eyes with sympathy, sometimes looking down at their plates. It was the consensus that I should go home.
I called my daughter in the car. She was calm and pragmatic, “Grandma and Aunt Boo got through it, and so will you.”
When I got home I called my sister. I told her I didn’t think I could handle it. She said, “Oh really? Exactly what does that mean? How do you plan to not handle it?”
Good point. Whining to my younger sister who went through surgery and chemo therapy just two years ago for the same kind of breast cancer, is perhaps not a wise move. And it only points out how un-unique this diagnosis is. Within the same hour that I discovered I had breast cancer, 20 other women were learning the same thing. Roughly 200,000 of us will be diagnosed this year. Which, whittled down to a neighborhood friendly statistic, one repeated often during cancer awareness month, is 1 in 8.
There ensued crying. I sobbed into my dog’s fur and she ducked her head into me to comfort me. I called my other daughter and my son. I called my mom. Then I called my best friend. She was over within moments. As the day passed into evening, more friends showed up at my door. My children showed up. Within two hours I had recommendations for surgeons and oncologists. I had assurances of well being and loving support.
And with my friends and family’s help I began to handle it.