My first blog post after baby has been put off by newborn life. I now have two big kids and an infant to juggle and a busy business to run. Life is at peak crazy and the universe just tossed a cannon ball in my lap.
The strangest day of my life
We had just arrived at the Magic Kingdom to start an epic trip to Disney World for Christmas. I planned this trip for a year. I booked dining back in June, mapped out our days at the parks and pool days, and woke up early when Penny was only four days old to book Fast Passes to the rides my big kids most wanted to experience. In the middle of the first day at the park while we were strolling down Main Street, the doctor whom I had just met called me to inform me that I had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
I’m sorry. What?
I am under forty and I have three kids, one of which was only nine weeks old and nursing full time. Evidently from a cancerous breast.
I calmly let her explain to me what my biopsy results had shown but a violent vortex of thoughts and questions thrashed through my brain. She started saying things like “chemotherapy,” “surgery,” “receptors,” and “MRI” as I passively observed my kids dangle on a fence enjoying Mickey and Minnie sing Christmas carols while my husband tried to coax them into eating $15 corn dogs.
How is it possible that this lump was breast cancer? My OB and her colleagues had repeatedly assured me it was “just a lymph node” and “definitely not a malignancy” for three months. When I was sent for a biopsy, I was all but certain it would be something related to breastfeeding.
“We don’t have your receptors back yet, but that will tell us more about what kind of cancer it is.” There is that word again, I don’t know this word, “receptors.” She explained that there are three hormone receptors that pathology will test my tumor sample for, and depending on the results they will know more about how to treat me.
To treat me. Because all of a sudden I’m a person who needs treatment. A cancer patient. What the actual fuck?
“It’s cancer.” I mouthed to my husband whose face was twisted into a tortured, worried scowl. He looked as though suddenly Disney World had run out of breathable air.
I had to ask, because I needed to know right away, as scary as it was, so I pled with her to be completely candid with me. I looked at my husband and three babies and turned away. I tried to focus on the deliriously happy Disney cast member peddling red and green Mickey Mouse balloons while hot tears started to escape my eyes and streak my face. I managed to say with a quivering voice to her on the phone, “am I going to live?”
I held my breath until she replied, thankfully without hesitation, “yes.”
I don’t even remember how the rest of the conversation went or how I hung up the phone. Terry embraced me as I melted into a fountain of tears right there on Main Street of the happiest place on Earth.
My mind raced but my kids brought us back to reality. “We have to get to Dumbo! What time is our Fast Pass for?”
Right. Time for Dumbo. Time to indulge these kids in Disney. Who knows how long it will be until we are able to come back. The vacation we planned, the year that we planned, all of the plans are now on their heads.
The next day I learned all of my receptors are negative. That gives me what they call triple negative breast cancer. It is rare and aggressive. They believe it to be at stage IIb with no lymph activity, which is partially due to the size of the tumor. The tumor which was smaller when I first brought it to the attention of my OB the week of Labor Day.
Oh, and by the way, I need to stop breastfeeding immediately.
I looked at my sweet baby’s face as she snuggled into my breast and my heart is seared with pain. We only had nine weeks of this special time. Guilt washed over me when I considered how long I nursed my other kids, but complained bitterly about that breast pump. To have those problems again.
With this extra set of bad news on the heels of the original bad news, Terry and I made the decision to come home. To face the cancer right away, meet my “team” and learn about the treatment plan that will dictate and tear apart the next year of our lives while saving mine. The news, coupled with the postpartum hormones is suffocating.
I sobbed in the Beast’s Castle. I sobbed on It’s a Small World. I sobbed by the pool of the Waldorf Astoria. I sobbed in my seat on the airplane. I sobbed at the United gate in Newark to embark on the final flight home, the one we were not supposed to have to book.
And now we’re home. Home to deal with it. Home to treat the cancer in my breast.
I keep thinking about our life together. Our marriage. I have written before that times were tough when we were young. That we went through some crummy stuff before we could get our lives off the ground. I really thought we had checked the “terrible shit” box off of our list. Apparently it just laid the groundwork for the year ahead of us, what will be the hardest year yet.
On our tenth anniversary I wrote about what an older colleague once said to me. I am reminded of that now, reluctantly. “The best steel is forged in the hottest fire.”
When these hell fires subside, a woman, a marriage, a family, a community of steel will be towering. But seriously. Fuck this shit.
