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| Ct test at Hotel Dieu, Kingston, Oct 15, 1012 |
That day I could not speak of it. Sometimes you need to try it out on someone a little less close to you. Does that make sense? When something is going to be very hard to say I "practise" it on someone else first. So I wrote an email to my cancer friend Janet, who lives in Saskatchewan. I have never met Janet in person but we have been email friends since 2008 when we found each other on a rare cancer support group online.
Dear Janet
You are the friend I write to when I don't know what to say to anyone else. I am so grateful for you. Yesterday I got the test results we never want to see. Only three months after surgery there is an other cancer tumor growing in my belly. But there is more...now it looks like it is metastasis to my lungs. Not confirmed yet, but there are two suspicious nodes, one in each lung. I have never had lung spots and with the momentum the cancer seems to be gaining I am pretty darn sure this is the tip of an iceberg. I am at that disbelief, out of body stage where I am thinking about it but have not taken it inside. Do you know what I mean. I am just kind of circling around the information and just touching it with the fingertip of my emotions. Yesterday I felt very sad. This morning I find myself thinking about how I will help my family go one without me, what can I give them as tools to cope with the rest of their lives. Tears are at the edges of my eyes but have not yet fallen. I think it's because I am still holding this outside of me. Not yet ready to let it in. For the moment that is all I can say.
For the next few days I just let the news sit with me. I didn't force myself to make any decisions, or even consciously ponder it...I just let it be in me. Somehow when I do this I start to find peace and then strength to cope. How does this happen? It think its grace, God's grace. I turn my fears over to him, my weakness, my inability to cope and he helps me with it. Fierce grace. I noticed that for a couple of days I felt very sad. Not angry, not depressed, not worried - sad. I knew my close friends could see something was not right but I was not ready to talk about it yet, so I avoided them. Didn't let them see me too closely. About a week into it I knew it was time to talk to Mike. This is the very hardest part always. I absolutely hate having to tell Mike something that is going to hurt him. The cruelest thing about my cancer journey has always been those moments when I see the pain cross Mike's face. How does one do this? How does one tell their life partner bad news? Well, you just start. I say I have something to talk about. He glances over and says what? I say sit down with me, it's important. Now he gets more serious looking. I sit close to him, because I need to touch him somehow...usually just with my leg on his leg. Holding hands would be too much. And I start talking. I can hear my voice, it's as gently and quiet as possible, trying to soften the words. I can't remember exactly what he says but he pulls me closer, this I remember because it is exactly what I needed at that moment. Because he has a choice, he could choose to push me away and protect himself from the hurt. Even for just a moment. But he does not. And in this moment, in this way, he affirms that he will always be there with me. And that is the best thing anyone can ever do for someone you love.
"When we honestly ask ourselves which
persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who,
instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our
pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be
silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an
hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not
knowing, not curing, not healing, and face
with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who
cares." Henri J.M. Nouwen
I would like to tell the world "I have the best husband in the world" which I say for many reasons. I just wanted it in writing.
The next hardest step is telling our children. And my parents. My sister already had it figured out and bless her, she let me get to talking about it in my own time. If I could wave a magic wand and make anything magically better it would be this business of having to tell bad news to people you love.
The next phase might be best shared with my next email to Janet.
I am so sorry I have not written to you since my initial panic filled email. There has been a lot going on in my life but first of all I want to jump up and down with you with joy to say I feel great today. Now, to back up a bit....
Cancer stuff - I have seen my doctor in Kingston and he put some perspective on the new growths. They are slow, very slow growing. And they are all in very operable locations. So, his take is that when the time comes, and it could be 6 months to a year, the surgery to take these out will be possible and not too difficult. This has allowed me to calm down and breathe again. I have been very sick though. Happy to say I am better now but I was sick for about 6 weeks and I did wonder if this was my new reality. What happened is my digestive system got all messed up. I had all this cramping and pain in my small intestines and bowel, really intense stuff. Vomiting, inability to eat or even take liquids some days, I was dropping a pound or two a day in weight, I was quickly becoming a shell of myself. Doctors were not helping much. They said it was side effect of all the surgery and adhesions that form because of it. It was up to me to solve the problem. I found osteopath massage - have you ever heard of it! wonderful stuff! massage of the fascia...basically she massaged my insides to break down the adhesions and scar tissue and help my organs get back to where they needed to be. Lot of enzymes and probiotics too. I lots 20lbs over it, have gained back 5lbs now and am at a healthy weight. My energy is back, my body feels strong, and I can eat again so now. It was rough, scared me I will admit but now I can put it down to yet another learning experience.
My next step is a second opinion with the doctor in Montreal which I go for this Thursday.
Your friendship means the world to me. I read your reply to me over and over and gathered so much strength from it. You knew just what to say. You are the friend that knows how to just sit with me, hold my hand and feel the pain with me. God Bless you.
Love
Teresa
My appointment with the doctor in Montreal (still not sure if it is considered correct or incorrect to blog the doctor's real names) helped settle me even further. He also agrees that these new growths are small and seemingly slow growing. And there are still good treatment options to consider when the time comes to act; a radiation technique called stereotactic radiation, second line chemo drugs and surgery. The plan is to do a Ct scan again in January and reassess the situation then. I am comfortable with this plan.
I should have been able to blog after this appointment but there was one thing I had not take care of yet and it wasn't until today that I knew it was the missing link. My dear friend Louise, who not only walks my cancer journey with me, but guides me. Best explained by sharing the email from today.
Dear Louise
There is much I need to catch you up on. I have held back sharing with you as I sensed your plate was very full and I was okay to handle things myself. It's only because of you, and what you have taught me these past years, for which I am so grateful, that I felt okay to go it on my own for a bit. ...explanation of test result and doctors opinion was here...finishing off with what I heard from the doctor in Montreal... He didn't feel it was a terrible turn of events, he made us very comfortable that my disease was still well under control. It's a chronic disease he reminded us, one that we are still in control of and I am living a good life with.
Love Teresa
and Louise replied:
Dear Teresa,
The past few months of your 'quietness', regarding your health, gave me the sense that all was not well.
Even so, I told myself that you would let me know when you were ready. Yesterday morning, after
reading your words, revealed to me that it was I who was not ready. I had no words.
Sometimes, we hope against hope that all of this was not true. Not for you, not for your Dad, not
for Bill and, certainly, not true for the little children of Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Life hurts us and makes us cry a thousand tears and then a thousand more. But, we also know
great joy and sweetness ... sometimes, we just have to look for it.
That you have found your own joy and sweetness, as shown in your writings to me and to others
on ACOR (support group online), goes a long way to give meaning to living a life of 'truth'.
You are brave and an inspiration. I thank you for your choices ... and sharing those choices with
those who may need to look at them, know them, and borrow them for ourselves.
Love,
Louise
I feel that this chapter of the story is complete and the next chapter is ready to begin. An ending and a beginning. More tests will need to be done, more decisions will need to be made. More lessons have been learned. Life is fluid, always flowing, like a river. There are rocks in my river and at times the current is not so strong but it is always in motion. The river my life is will find a way around (or over, or under) the rocks, it will gather strength, it will be fed more water, it will flow on. And it is beautiful as it flows.
Fluid motion. Fierce grace.
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| our Owyhee river adventure, 2012, learning the river |
