Oct 18 2008
Life.Love.Cancer: Part I
Editor’s Note: This is part of a ten-part series written by The Butterfly Temptress.
For information on how you can help, please read yesterday’s post or go directly to the http://thebutterflytemptress.com.
Before I was what I am now, I used to play the ‘What If…?’ game. As a nurse it was a favorite game to play when you spent your life surrounded by illness and death. In the game, I was always so sure of what my actions would be if…I were paralyzed…I was diagnosed with HIV (a very real possibility for anyone in health care professions)…I was told that I was dying of cancer.
So the day finally came that I wasn’t playing the ‘What If…?’ game anymore. I was originally diagnosed with cervical cancer that was so progressed that it has spread to my lymph nodes. The situation wasn’t easy to fix and the treatments were more complex than I’d ever imagined them being. I’d worked with cancer patients. I’d played the game and I was so sure of what I would do, how I would handle everything.
The reality, however, is that I wasn’t sure at all. Somewhere between playing that game and a terminal diagnosis, I’d fallen in love. I’d dealt with my issues and I’d moved from working as a nurse to living my dream of writing for a living. Suddenly all my thoughts and resolutions, my decision to never fight cancer if I were diagnosed, had fallen by the wayside.
Immediately after meeting him I no longer lived my days surrounded by death and illness. Instead, I’d started to live my life surrounded by love. My days were filled with hopes and dreams. The words that I wrote flowed from my fingertips like a river to the sea and I finally believed in myself. At the age of twenty-eight I had found true and unconditional love. And at the age of thirty I was told that it was a temporary thing.
I remember that day, just barely. He picked me up from the hospital and took me home. I waited by the phone for the call. After the curt voice on the other end I was in a state of disbelief. Numb, shocked, I walked up the stairs and crawled into our bed. A million thoughts tumbled around inside my head and I couldn’t make sense of it. I couldn’t breathe and for the longest time, I couldn’t cry. All I could think about were our five children and about how this would affect the people I loved the most.
It wasn’t long before my (then) husband-to-be made his way upstairs. He didn’t say anything at all. He just held me close until I told him what the doctor said. He still held on but he also began to tell me how strong we are, how well we’d do, how quickly we would put this behind us. I wanted to believe him, needed to believe him, so I did. He’d never let me down before.
The day came for chemo and radiation to start. The first round consisted of oral chemotherapy combined with radiation. It was great at keeping us in a holding pattern. Things were no better but then again, they were no worse either. I bounced through it almost without any issues whatsoever. My attitude was positive and I felt that our relationship was fine.
Then the doctor told me that it had stopped working; the cancer had spread to my lymph system.
