Part 13: Not Bad — Just Older, Chemo 6
On the morning of my last chemo, Bruce showed me what he had bought as a gift for Dr. H and my nurse: two double magnums of red wine and two boxes of chocolates. I said, “They work in a cancer centre. They’re probably tee-totalling sugar-free vegans.” I meant it tongue-in-cheek, appealing to Bruce’s edgy humour. He said, “Good point.” Then he went away and came back, having swapped the double magnums for regular magnums. “Better?” he asked. “Perfect,” I told him and thought — there’s that funny husband of mine again.
We headed to the chemo centre, wine and chocolate in hand, and went through the motions for the last time. My red blood cells, haemoglobin and iron numbers had fallen through the floor. Dr. H said that we had accurately gauged the chemo, taking my body close to what it could withstand. I equated the last chemo to the last 6 miles of a marathon — that they are as hard as the first 20.
Bruce and I went out for dinner the weekend after my last chemo. I had recently asked Bruce to read this blog you are reading right now. He told me that while the moments in the blog about the possibility of being healed, about the hope that we were clinging to, while those were impactful — nothing, nothing — and then he started to hold back tears — nothing compared to that moment when I asked him to pull over in the car and told him that I had ovarian cancer. He shook his head and said, “You know what I’m like, Kristin.” And I knew exactly what he was talking about. Bruce always sees the worst-case scenario. Not because he’s negative, but because he’s rational. He always seeks to understand and manage the risk — he is naturally wired that way. At dinner, he told me what the dark days in the beginning were like for him, when we were deeply in crisis. He said that he would think about me not seeing the boys grow up and them not having a mom. As he described this, his brow furrowed, and he couldn’t get any more words out. I knew what he meant, though.
We moved on to happier topics — my upcoming Wim Hof Expedition, our new puppy born in February and coming home in April, and what we wanted our life to look like in the coming years. At the end of dinner, the restaurant owner slipped Bruce a Grappa, and I said, “I’m driving, clearly.” Bruce grinned as he countered with “No, you can’t drive! YOU’RE ANAEMIC!” There’s that funny husband of mine again.
The next morning, I was getting ready for my usual morning walk. I popped downstairs to get my Air Pods from the office. I was sucking wind on the way back up the stairs and had to stop halfway to catch my breath. I fully expected to be that weak — my red blood cells were on the floor and I’d been increasingly anaemic for many months. I pulled up the compression stockings that I had been wearing since the day the nurses put them on my 74-kilo body in the hospital — I was still afraid of developing lymphedema. Without twisting, I bent down to put my shoes on. With a scar like mine, it was second nature now not to twist my torso. I looked in the mirror as I put a beanie on my bald head, noticing how much I’d aged — the combination of chemo and menopause had been hard on my skin and I looked about ten years older. I didn’t look bad, just older: crinklier and wrinklier.
I put my Air Pods in my ears, picked up my phone, and scrolled through the various podcasts and videos I had bookmarked — all part of my ongoing education and learning on cancer. None of them jumped out at me, and I didn’t feel inspired. And then it came to me — why hadn’t I thought of that before?
I went outside and shut the door behind me. I searched “Life after Cancer” and with a deep sense of hope and curiosity, I stepped out into the rainy February morning. Every breath tasted like gratitude.
