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Journal
Vicki,
Thank you. I am so sorry you were alone when you found out. I understand the need to tell everyone that it will be all right. I still want to protect my family from the worst of it. I knew it was bad the day the young woman who did my ultrasound wished me luck while she was avoiding looking at me. I had a terrible sense of urgency but it seemed like no one else did. I wanted everything done right then. The surgeon didn't seem concerned at the time. If I had left it up to him it would have taken several more days to find out the results of the lumpectomy. I knew the head of the lab at the hospital where they were processing my tissue samples so I was able to get it expedited a little and I had them send the results to my GP who got back to me as soon as he heard. I knew before the surgeon did. When I saw him he was very negative. Terrible prognosis, on and on. When I went back to him to get my port he started again, asking me did I realize how bad this was, how terrible the side effects would be, etc. I finally pulled out the information on the chemo from the oncologist and laid it in front of him. The port he put in never quit hurting and when it quit working two months into this I refused to go back to him and had another surgeon replace it. It seemed as if he thought that I wasn't taking it seriously because I wasn't crying. I have cried very little. And I would not cry in front of him.
I have been on the verge of tears many times lately, which seems a little backwards since I had that wonderful PET scan that nobody expected last month. I was sitting on the deck yesterday holding a calico kitten and wondering if she would outlive me. Just a passing thought. I have realized that my life has irrevocably changed and I will never again be without this cancer. I will never again take so much for granted. I know that I will come to terms with it in time but right now I don't feel that I even have the words to explain what I have lost.
Several good things have come out of this, though. In 1999 I was taking a medication called Reglan and one of the side effects can be clinical suicidal depression. It took me months to get over this. My mother died two days after I got out of the hospital. I have always loved to write and during this time words literally failed me. For the first time in my life I could not write. It gave me no comfort. If I tried I could not focus. Poetry could not comfort me. Now I feel that I am able to write again. So maybe this time words will help me find a way through.
Leslie
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