Tuesday, October 9, 2012

The monster never sleeps...

Y'know in those horror films where toward the end the monster has been killed or maimed or sent back into the bowels of hell and the young college girl walks back into her house...and you just know it's not dead? Welcome to my pathology results. Today heading back into my not-yet-final-but-getting there visit to check the surgical site and hear results from the mastectomy, I was told that cancer was there. Not there/there, but there. It's called DCIS...ductal carcinoma in situ. It means there is cancer in the duct - non invasive, stage 0 but answers to the name cancer so it gets a seat. There are no changes in treatment, no course I would have been offered that would be better than cutting it off, literally, at the foundation...nothing really but it was a greeting card of huge proportions from the one I loathe the most. For some reason I can't seem to shut the door flush enough to lock it. I can sleep but not deep enough...I can adore moments with my kids but never long enough to not worry I may not always have them. I can't just be left alone. It's the monster at the end of the movie letting us all know - even subliminally, that there is a sequel in the works. Please hear me - or maybe I just need to hear me - nothing changes. I burned it, poisoned it and cut it off...there is nothing left to do but because no one knows, or will know, which came first, no one knows or will know what to think. Was it always there? Is it new? Does it matter? Will it change my life? If it's mesthatic, there is no cure - is it? No way to tell. So does it matter? I guess not. Joseph said he felt punched in the stomach. I felt that too. Are we both jointly devastated? Yes. The ayes have it. There's a family at my daughter's school right now who is preparing to bury their recently and tragically mortally wounded son. Hard to feel sorry for myself now and really even later but the truth is - after two years of fighting this, I am just tired. I'm tired of outrunning this thing that keeps gaining on me. I'm tired of slamming the door only to see its fingers creeping under the door. I'm tired of being a banner for survival and a cautionary tale. Spare me the pink ribbons but do hand me a camera...my life is on record now. Memories, never more precious. Life, never more colorful. Pain, never more intense. Moments, never more meaningful. Y'know me - I go in stages...acceptance, anger, fight, flight and muffin. So I'm in. I'm never out but I am angry...pissed actually. I really thought I was taking the breast preemptively only to find out cancer had already set up shop. I would have taken it anyway - I just wanted to be first. And I wanted to rest. I wanted some peace. I will have it - just not today.

2 comments:

  1. I have no words. I love you, Dawn. Keep being strong. Your humor will pull you through. I just know it.

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