Making Wishes

“30 you’ve only just begun” those few little words on a birthday cake candle were enough.  I couldn’t help but think of my own thirtieth birthday just three years ago and if I’d only known then where I would be now.  Tears started to well up in my eyes and though I willed them not to fall, they fell anyway.  I kept it together until we were in the car on the way home and then I just lost it.

Questions running through my mind. Will I make it to forty?  Should I stop contributing to my 401k?  We could really use the money now but if I stop contributing is that a sign I don’t plan on making it to 59 ½?  Will I outlive my dog?  Voices of others saying “making it three years is great” floated in my head.  A former client’s death certificate on my desk at the office that reads “cause of death: metastatic breast cancer. Time from onset to death 3.2 years.”  I don’t want just two more years. I don’t want just twenty more years. I want to be old when I die. 

Should I think about things I would regret not doing if I were on my death bed?  I think about last Friday, Sean’s birthday, when we went to Nicholas for dinner and the woman at the table next to us said eating there was on her bucket list.  I don’t really believe in bucket lists.  What happens when you finish the list?  Do you kick the bucket?  You’re done.  Finished.  Nothing left on your to-do list.  No, I don’t have a bucket list.  I won’t make one either.

I’ve been trying to bargain.  Unsuccessfully play “let’s make a deal.”  No one is listening.  No one is taking any of my offers.  I’ll trade you stage 4 triple negative breast cancer for stage 2 triple negative with a double mastectomy, chemo and radiation.  No?  Okay, how about celiac disease and an allergy to meat?  How about severe food allergies and alopecia?  How about you just knock me down to stage 3?  Someone just wake me up in the ER and tell me this was a dream and I broke my sternum.

I look in the mirror and my face looks naked.  I am all paleness with two icy blue circles, my smiling eyes gone with my eyelashes and most of my brows.  With my glasses on I am a cartoon character. My face is monochromatic.  It’s strange.  I should remember to put on makeup. When I remove my wig after work I feel like a witch from the children’s book “The Witches” by Roald Dahl.  Maybe I should start to wear gloves too.

It has been a tough week for me.  Monday was a chemo day.  Cycle 3, week 3.  Things did not go as planned.  I left the house without half of my usual chemo bag packed (I think I knew inside I would be getting sent home early), the traffic made us half an hour late, and then my port wasn’t working.  They pumped me full of saline to get it to work but it just wasn’t happening.  Eventually they put a medicine in my port to de-clog it.  How gross is that?  While the medicine was doing its thing they decided to draw my blood the old fashioned way.  They had to poke me twice before that worked.  Once my blood work came back they saw my white blood cell count was too low to give me treatment, plus I was running a fever.

I’ve only made it through one full day of work this week.  I’ve just been too exhausted and not feeling well.  The mouth sores are back.  I can barely talk or eat; it’s just too painful.  I’ve had a high temperature on and off.  Not feeling well dredges up ugly thoughts.

I watched Joel Osteen the other week.  He said something about if your prayers aren’t being answered maybe it’s because you aren’t asking for enough, your full potential. You have to ask for something great.  Well, here it is, I’m not going to bargain anymore.  I’m going to ask to just plain old beat this.  I’m going to ask for a miracle.  I’m asking to be cancer free. NED - No evidence of disease.  Healthy.

Today I am open to the presence of miracles. (Deepak Chopra)