Five Years

This time of year always is a little odd for me. My Facebook memories pop up and I remember those final days where I was awaiting my biopsy results and unaware that I had cancer. I was supposed to find out on a Wednesday. On Tuesday, June 14, a client had canceled so Daniel took the day off too and we lounged and watched a movie. I fell asleep. Was that the last good rest I ever got? Sometimes I wonder.

I left to go to the store and pick up Claire from an appointment. As I pulled out of the Trader Joe’s parking lot, I got a call and answered it. It wasn’t my doctor, but a different from the practice. Because my provider wasn’t in the office she “Just thought you would want to know your results had come in, so I thought I would call!” She sounded upbeat, if not downright chipper. I exhaled. “The biopsy did show a cancer.” A CANCER? What the hell does that mean? A CANCER?

Then she started spouting off all kinds of information and what my choices were and where I could log in to find X, Y and Z. I picked up Claire. She asked to stop and get a poster board for a school project. I said we could when we left to pick up James, who was now just over 2 years old, from daycare in a bit.

I walked the groceries in and began putting the cold stuff in the refrigerator. Daniel and Claire were play-fighting and laughing. I walked past them up to our bedroom. Pacing, pacing, pacing. Eventually texting Daniel to come upstairs. We lost it for just a brief moment in time, then began calling my doctor repeatedly until she picked up. (She was our landlord, after all, so we had her number). She said she was call us back when she figured out what was going on.

Then it was time to get James. Daniel left to get her and picked up sandwiches on the way home. I barely ate and would lose about 10 pounds in the next week. After dinner, I gave James a bath. I was in shock and on autopilot. I have this photo of her so happy and smiling from ear to ear. Her little butt sticking out of the water.

I often wonder what mom I could have been, had that day been different. I did my best during treatment, but I was tired. I still am. Would I have set better boundaries? Would I be more patient? Would everything be different if, for nearly all her life, she didn’t have to be careful around me or worry that she was going to bump one of my “boo-boos.”

For that reason, I really and truly hope I’m done with my surgeries. My incisions from my most recent procedures are still a bit tender. She’s all arms and legs and they’re always bumping and poking me right where it hurts most. I try to keep quiet, but sometimes I can’t help it.

I guess it doesn’t do any good to think about what could have been. Who I could have been. Who I might have been had things gone differently. But I’m grateful to have a clean bill of health and finally feel like I’m clearing away some of the cobwebs that have clouded my path to healing. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally.

After a yearlong relationship that proved to be a distraction from healing, the last year has been eye-opening. Who am I, what do I want and what am I doing (or not doing) that will get me there. Pandemic-imposed solitude has proved to be a good thing for me, I think. While some probably are struggling with having had more time with their thoughts, I’m (mostly) grateful for it. Aloneness, conversations with a select few, some good books and a surprise friendship with a blast from the past have all propelled this healing forward. And others are healing too. Three people reached out to me after seeing the book “How To Do the Work” by Nicole LePera on my coffee table in an Instagram post. Maybe this time has beneficial for more than just me.

While I’ve worked most of the last year, I tried to take advantage of those weeks of unemployment, spending time with James in a way I’ve never quite been able to. Since I’ve been back to work, I’ve been busier than ever but I’m finally finding some balance after a change in our parenting schedule and figuring a few things out with my cooking schedule.

I’m navigating the idea of cooking less and doing more birth work, which is imminent. Other than a friend’s recent birthday, I’m not going to do any parties or weekend work unless it’s something I just can’t say no to. Sundays are now for James. Mondays and Tuesdays an insane amount of cooking. Then on call for babies most of the rest of the week. Starting now, my partner and I are taking over the birth doula practice of my mentor, who will soon start a six-month maternity leave after the birth of her sixth baby. She normally does 4-5 births a month and we usually have 2-3 a month, so we’ll be busy. Last week two very busy doulas also decided to hang up their birth doula hats, so that might bring us more mamas too. I. Am. Ready. Bring on the babies! It’s not easy or all baby-snuggling. But I truly feel at home and that I’m making a difference when I’m supporting a family in this way. Seeing them move forward into parenthood with peace of mind and confidence changes both of our lives.

Health-wise, there is nothing new. The ovaries and tubes are out and are healed. A few weeks later I had some high-grade, pre-cancerous cervical lesions removed. Other than total panic over the course of a weekend during which I read “Did not get clear margins — ALERT” on my chart with no call back to explain I was FINE for several days, it was uneventful. Daniel took me to the procedure and Claire stepped in to pick up James from school when they called that she was in the office with some allergy symptoms. That was a nutty day including my alternator on my car going out and texting with clients until the second they wheeled me into the OR like in the movies almost. Ha. But it all worked out.

I graduated from ever having to see my oncology surgeon and radiation oncologist ever again. Still figuring out the osteopenia stuff. I will likely start Prolia ever six months soon. Fingers crossed the side effects don’t hit me hard and I move forward with no additional challenges than I already have. Then my regularly scheduled six month check-up in the fall.

By that point, Claire will be in Seattle, beginning her first year at University of Washington. James will be in second grade, hopefully in person all day — please and thank you. And I’ll keep doing what I’m doing, one day at a time. <3