Cancer bits from 2 peas in a pod

It’s Monday, June 1, and on Monday, March 2, I found the lump. Turns out it wasn’t THE lump – that intruder was hidden in my throat; it was the spread of the lump- every cancer patient’s worst nightmare, and I say that on the good authority of having received two separate cancer diagnoses; doctors say, “It’s metastasized”. Thankfully, my brain was conditioned to categorize: lump first, metastasized second; and I thought that for the first three weeks! Probably the main reason I didn’t Forest Gump it to Kingston! 

Here’s a neat thing. I fell on the driveway shovelling snow the week before and, perhaps arrogantly but certainly I insist- this is not my norm! And I especially have never fallen in my life where my hands did not web out to soften my landing. Imagine Homer Simpson when Marg is pissed, except I fell on the left side of my head. Doctors think it shuffled my noggin around a bit and moved the right side lump – directly across from where I fell- out of hiding. You know when you kick a box, the left side items will slightly slide to the right? 

A few days later, I was sitting at my table talking to my sister in Italy, and I brushed my neck – as I had my breast decades before- and felt a lump. But that wasn’t the biggest deal. The biggest deal was the internal lightning strike that vibrated throughout every cell of my  body- the exact same feeling I’ve only ever felt once before. I KNEW I had cancer. I went through all the motions of hoping and observed real statistics that said I had about a 3% chance to have cancer. I told Marsh I knew; he thought I was crazy, but I wanted to prepare him gently. I talked about the lump around my kids and dared them all to touch her, my very own RBG. Marsh would stroke her and say hello – we sound nuts, I know, but it lightened the weight of her presence; and her presence was everywhere, in every moment, the elephant in every room. A  little gallows humour doesn’t hurt anyone; so much time we waste trying to ignore death. By the time of my diagnosis, we were all pretty much expecting no less. You see, there’s a pattern for everything in nature, and a common pattern in being diagnosed with cancer is that one test turns into another test and they all graduate in importance. So you  might go from an ultrasound to a CT Scan to a CT Scan with dye to an MRI to an MRI with dye. The higher you climb that ladder, the more likely the chances you’re not going to end up with the lucky 97% of people who just got a scare and can now go home and watch their favourite shows and read their favourite books and drink their favourite wines. 

This was all three months ago, and so much more has happened since then. You all probably know by now that Jessica, our 36-year old daughter, sister, partner, cat-mom, educator extraordinaire, was diagnosed with breast cancer that had metastasized (there’s that word again!) to her lymph nodes only a few weeks after my diagnosis. This is the first time I’ve written those words; writing is therapeutic for me, and for the last three months it has helped me to process and accept. But those words I have not written until now. How can it be? And yet it is. Even my doctors have been gutted for us when they heard my daughter was diagnosed at the same time. Is it a coincidence that Jessica Norma-Marie was born on my birthday 36 years ago?! Are we about to die together now?! We’ve moved from the 3% of people to a more narrow group of 1%. We are asking together (Jessie and I ) not, why? I mean, why  not? We’re asking that WE CAN BEAR IT. Today. Tomorrow. The next day. And so on. It’s kind of a special kind of heaven to get to step into this narrow void and find peace. 

I’ve decided to start writing a bit about what’s going on and how we’re feeling about it. No format, no editing, no timing, no expectations, no rules. Just a bit here and there. It’s really to keep a record of events for later reference and healing; this can feel like an out-of-body experience at times. If you’d like to come along, cool; maybe we’ll teach one another our tricks! I’m not on any social media platforms so it might feel good for me to socialize as well. Anyhow, talk to you soon. You know, I’ve lost feeling below my chin to my upper chest, but I’ve gained so much more feeling in my heart, I don’t think I’d go back and do it any other way.

Kim