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Unexpected Journey

I started a new journey early this year. It isn't a journey of choice but of necessity. In February I found out that I had breast cancer. I was stage four when I was diagnosed. I would have preferred a trip to Fiji. Fiji just doesn't seem to be a part of the plan right now. Almost weekly trips for chemotherapy, immunologic therapy, and hormonal therapy take up a good bit of my time. Recovery from these procedures takes up more.

I am an artist who does faux finishes, murals and art. With the help of my youngest daughter I have been able to continue working, although a little less. I married the love of my life in January of this year. Dale and I have been friends for over twenty years and have been together for the last three and half years. He has been the source of much my strength through the last four months.

The first couple of months were a whirlwind of confusion, minor surgeries, and education. My immediate reaction was to stay busy. So we remodeled our bathroom and started on our bedroom. During all of this I had a lumpectomy and had a port put in and started treatment. I learned to deal with everyone's questions; one of which is "What is your prognosis?", which often seems to be a veiled version of "Are you going to die?' My oncologist answered that very early in one of our brief conversations. He said that this would probably be what I died from, but not now.

I found this quote shortly before my second PET scan. "En el mundo del Destine, no hay statistica" - In the world of destiny, there are no statistics (attributed to Martin Alberto Filches and quoted in Stuart Archer Cohen's The Stone Angels). I found it in one of Melanie McFadyean's articles. It has great meaning for me. In my moments of fear I repeat this to myself.

When I was first diagnosed, my PET scan lit up like a Christmas tree. My liver had feathery spots all over it. My right breast glowed with radioactive light. The doctor felt like the lesions in my liver were too small and diffuse to biopsy. Two months after treatment started, my oncologist had another PET scan done. He decided that he might want to biopsy my liver after all. There was a possibility that what the PET scan was showing in my liver was a fluke. When we met with him after the second scan, he told us that nothing showed up. My husband asked him if he meant that the PET scan didn't work. No, it worked. But nothing showed up. Still in shock, I asked him if he meant that there was nothing in my liver. No, nothing showed up. I did not have surgery because of the metastasises to the liver. Now I have no way of knowing if the cancer had actually metastasized or not. So this is a mixed blessing. We are continuing with treatment as if it had. I am beginning to learn to accept the uncertainty.

My hair did not fall out when I expected it to. It has taken four months and finally I had my husband, Dale, buzz cut it last Saturday. I still had hair but it was sort of dead 'possum hair. All that was left was gray and lifeless and very thin. I have many things to celebrate and I thought the hair would be a minor issue. I have never spent a lot of time on hair and makeup and I thought that I could easily deal with this side-effect. It is harder than I thought. I am grieving for my hair. I know that it will grow back. I know that things could be so much worse. I don't know the person in the mirror as well as thought I did. The person I see looking back at me is longing for hair and eyelashes, feminine clothes, pretty things. She is angry and defiant. Her face is too full from the Decadron used to help alleviate the symptoms of her treatment. And her hair is gone. She doesn't feel like me.

Wigs are hot in this Mississippi summer, scarfs and hats take getting used to, and so I wander around my home and yard with my head uncovered much of the time. The wife of one our local politicians showed up at our door unexpectedly a couple of days ago. Just as I answered the door I remembered that I didn't have a hat on. It was too late. I felt sorry for her. I had really startled her. She just didn't know what to say. She couldn't get away fast enough.

My friends and family don't seem to  pay a lot attention to this new look.  They have been very supporting. A couple of strangers in the dentist ofice this week were less so. I had on a hat, as luck would have it, a bright pink baseball cap. It was my first time out in public without hair. That mother-daughter duo stared until I was really uncomfortable. I have been trying very hard to be nicer and more understanding of other people's differences but it was all I could do not to walk over to them and tell them that my hair would grow back but rudeness was forever.