One Year & One Day

Yesterday on the one year anniversary of my diagnosis I decided to be brave and I did two things - I went back to that emergency room to see the doctor who diagnosed me and I did it without a wig or a scarf on.

I arrived at the hospital with tears already in my eyes. I tried to dry them as best I could before approaching the reception area and asking to speak with the doctor. They eyed me suspiciously asking why I needed to see her. When I replied I wanted to thank her, they were more than willing to oblige me.

I waited nervously for her to come out to see me. I wasn't sure if she would recognize me since I look different and she sees a ton of people each year. I tearfully told her she had given me very bad news last year. She finished my sentence with, "I told you that you have cancer, didn't I."

"Yes you did," I replied. "But I just wanted to thank you for being so kind and to let you know I'm doing pretty well considering my diagnosis."

She agreed I was doing well.  As a matter of fact, she excitedly told me I was clearly doing much better then well and seemed to be thriving. She told me to come back any time and if I needed anything to call her or stop by.  She does a lot of work with the local resources as a way to offset having to give so many people such bad news.  I wish cancer wasn’t such a big deal that she feels she needs to do that.

I tried to busy myself the rest of the day and went off to derby practice.


After getting home I made myself some hot chocolate and got ready to relax on the couch.  Through this past year I have learned to absent mindedly check my lymph nodes, breasts, and ribs for potential tumors.  And so, on the one year anniversary of my diagnosis, I found a lump.

The next morning, this morning, when I went in for my routine ecco test, I stopped by the hospital to see the nurse practitioner. She checked the lump, and while she doesn’t think I should be overly concerned, she moved my progress scan to next week.  The past two days have seemed like a week and the next week may feel like a month. Waiting for scans and results may actually be the hardest part of all this.  I’m trying not to think about what is going on inside my body. I hope the tumors are shrinking and the lump is just a swollen lymph node.  My current treatment has given me a chance to feel normal again and I don’t want to give that up.  I worry about what my next treatment will be like, this is my third one this year.  I want this to be the treatment that does the trick; the one that brings me to a place called NED, no evidence of disease.  I want to stay on this treatment.  I want to look back on this post next year and think I was silly for even thinking it wasn’t working.  I want to get to a point where I am only sad on this day because of a storm that happened outside and not in my body.

Hurricane Sandy will always mark off the years since my diagnosis.  A time so surreal you only know it happened because you haven’t yet woken up.