Welcome To Stage IV
buckle up, it is likely to be a bumpy ride
I participated in a group call last week with several other women who also have Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer. We were all anonymous — I don’t know who the others were, and they didn’t know who I was. We discussed a lot of things, but mostly mortality. As opposed to immortality.
It brought up a lot of interesting questions for me, since I tend to err on the side of extreme positivity balanced with dark humor about my situation, of which by the way
!SEVEN YEARS!
!IT’S BEEN SEVEN YEARS!
7 YEARS!!!!!
LATE APRIL EARLY MAY!!!!!
Ergo, it will likely be seventy-seven years until I get in my pod and blast off to Never-Never Land.
I mean, to quote #PaulMcCartney, as I often do, What’s the use of worrying? (He actually followed that line with what’s the use of anything? but that doesn’t suit my narrative so please forget I just noted it here).
One of the women on our aforementioned conference call was obviously very young — from her voice, it sounded like she was in her 20’s. Every time she spoke, tears came to my eyes. I’m middle-aged. In my early 60’s. Not that cancer is ever fair, but COME THE F**K ON, what’s right and righteous about someone in their 20’s having metastatic cancer?
That’s right.
The answer is NOTHING.
It’s unfair, and brutal, and hideous, and wrong every which way to Sunday.
People have told me, frequently, how brave I am and what an inspiration I am. And I am absolutely delighted to hear that and very honored. I want to help other women in this situation. I want other women to be energized and know, deep down, that they need to be their own boss. Their own Sheryl Sandberg, as it were. You dig me?
Lately I’ve gotten the moon-in-Gemini feeling that I have to do everything, all at once, right now. I haven’t been sleeping well, I get up and I’m wide awake, so I work, or write, or watch TV. I am also really emotional, thank you Tamoxifen which plays my hormones like a violin.
I don’t consider myself brave or special, however. I’ll tell you who IS brave and special as far as I am concerned: Sam Fuentes, who vomited live on stage at the #MarchForOurLives rally in Washington D.C. because her nerves gave out on her. I don’t come close to her bravery: she watched her friends get killed by an automatic weapon at close range. She herself was shot. She was in the hospital for days, maybe weeks. And she not only walks now, but she was on stage not long afterward speaking about her experience to the world. That is brave. And special. She is in freaking high school. She’s a KID.
Also, bravery is Rosemarie Melanson, one of the victims of the #massacre in #Vegas last October. I read about her in the Washington Post on March 10 through my tears. She had been in the hospital for 131 days since the shooting at Mandalay Bay. Her husband works during the day so she can be covered by his insurance and he was only able to visit her at night. She cried when he wasn’t there. Don’t tell me I’m brave. Just the thought of Rosemarie and her husband makes me dissolve into tears.
She is brave. She is special. She is alive.
I had two surgeries last year on my spine, surgical cement injected into my crumbling vertebrae, and then platinum rods were inserted so I could overcome debilitating spinal stenosis. I was in a hospital bed for nine days. I had radiation aimed at my spine for ten treatments through my stomach and my back.
It took a good six months to really recover from this physical trauma, and after that I continued to walk with a cane and still do occasionally. I can’t do stairs very well. I walk much more slowly than I used to, and I take a lot of breaks to breathe and collect myself.
Now I’m on a cocktail of oral chemo and tamoxifen, which alternately has my stomach upset, my skin burning hot and dry and itchy, and all I want to do is float in a pool and feel water all over me. All the time.
But brave? Not half, as they say in England. You know what? These side effects suck, but I’d rather be alive with annoying side effects than not alive with no side effects. Bring on the side effects!
Anyway, I’m burying the lede once more, so back to the point. That young woman who sounded like she was in her 20’s said something very pithy on our call at one point.
She said, Welcome To Stage IV.
Yes, welcome. Come on in. And no one that age, or younger, or any age for that matter, should have to face this diagnosis, or any terminal diagnosis. Or any serious illness.
But we are, and we do.
And it’s not bravery. It’s life.
#FuckCancer
