The C-Word & William Wallace

The C-word has hung in the air for awhile. One morning while in the hospital, a tall brown haired man showed up at 7am at the foot of my bed and squeezed my toe. I ignored him at first, thinking it was the result of pain medicine like the spider dreams I'd had the day prior. Then he introduced himself. He was an oncologist and although they weren't certain what the mass was, he had come by to introduce himself to my mom and me and let us know we would work together to figure it out.

Mom and I looked at each other, taking in the word. Oncology meant cancer. That hadn't crossed our minds yet. I burst into tears.

A few days later my surgeon returned to check on me, asking if I'd met the oncologist. I still tried to shrug him off as part of my drug-induced dreams, perhaps he really was a figment of my imagination. But Erin, my surgeon, said that the local hospital couldn't figure it out in pathology and would be sending it on to OHSU (Oregon Health Sciences University) to see what it was, but since it was spring break we would have to wait two weeks for results.

The waiting game began. I was discharged to go to my parents where my days were spent sleeping, reading, faithfully monitoring Facebook and Pinterest to keep my mind off the what if questions for nearly two weeks.

Last Friday when I went to see Erin to get the staples removed, she dropped into the chair, looked at me and said, "Well...it's cancer, but we don't know what kind. We had to send it to the Mayo Clinic so we should know more in a week."

There was that damn c-word again, only now paired with the looming phrase "Mayo Clinic." I'd been to Mayo once to visit a college friend who was a nurse there. It is a beautiful building to someone simply visiting; to someone on the brink of a cancer diagnosis, it's terrifying. Mayo is the big-wigs of medical research....where you go when no one knows what's wrong with you and other doctors see you as beyond their scope.

My eyes welled. Fucking c-word. The waiting game continues.

I cried with my parents in the car. We drove down to the river and watched the sunshine cast diamonds on the water. Just keep breathing.

I quit using my walker that day, my determined spirit bound to do something on my own for the first time in weeks. Perhaps that is the lesson for a woman who is so highly independent I have a hard time asking for help. I have been able to do nothing on my own for weeks - bathe, prepare meals, get out of a chair, get dressed, carry anything...it's so humbling.

That evening I tried putting Neosporin on the visible parts of my wound where there is no paper-tape and nearly fainted...the wound isn't fully closed in parts yet and it made me woozy. My dear mom had to bandage me up as she has the past two weeks.

Everything feels woozy. Tears come out of no where constantly. I'd rather have some definite "yes" or "no" to wrap my head around, the waiting game is so difficult. In the mean time I read...books on nutrition for cancer, blogs on cancer and career, recovery stories, inspiration quotes and I meditate.

One of the books said that visualization is highly important and to imagine sharks eating your cancer cells. I've decided it's much more effective to imagine William Wallace leading his army to attack cancer anyway...