This year has been a tough one health wise for me and mine, which you can probably figure out from my other entries. Two of the big-big ones are cancer.
My mother has breast cancer, and is currently finishing her third out of four months of chemo . And my friend Jay, upon finishing six months of chemo for colon cancer, was told that he had a new tumor in his liver. It would require surgery and then another six months of very harsh chemo (as if any chemo isn’t harsh). Not good odds.
The day I found that out, I just started crying. Sitting in my cubicle at work. I kept cycling through fear of losing Jay, and not wanting to tell my mom. Who, I knew, would ask. And who, I knew, would be able to hear the lie in my voice.
I lied. She figured it out. If not right then, over the next several weeks. And Jay… well, I’m sure you can guess how those weeks felt for him. He documented the whole experience.
But today… Today I got to call my mom and tell her that Jay doesn’t have cancer. That his biopsy was negative, and he doesn’t have to go back on chemo. That his odds are a great deal better.
Cancer isn’t the sort of thing that just goes away. It lurks around the edges. It comes back when it can. But for today, for right now — my mom has just one month of chemo left. And Jay does not have cancer. And I am sitting in my cubicle again and crying, but things are so much better. So very, very much better.
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Oh, hon, I feel for you. I really really really hate cancer. My mother-in-law (who happens to be my best friend as well as the best grandma of all time) has incurable (treatable, though) lymphoma. My neighbour across the street just finished radiation therapy for breast cancer; she’d already finished chemo and had a double mastectomy. One of the identical twins in my Mother of Multiples group has leukemia and recently from his Make a Wish Disney trip.
I hate cancer.
Ouch. What does treatable mean, functionally, for lymphoma?