I Don't Want to Understand...

Fast forward after the phone call. I am in the office, waiting for the doctor. The call was generic, I know them, I have requested them so many times in the past, I forget that there is worry on the other end. It is never good when a doctor wants to see you again so soon. Especially after a major procedure, test, or routine screening.

We seem to be in the same boat, the ladies in waiting and I. All fidgeting, looking at our phones, hiding from the what ifs. There is no escape, just pretending. I wonder if the internet tracks these things. I wonder if the internet tracks traffic at a medical office. I think that this is where the biggest spike is. People don’t care about the news, Facebook or IG, they are that distraction will save them from what it to come. It won’t. We all know that, but still, we scroll. I am rambling, even in my head, rambling to avoid. A coping skill from long ago. I wish I could say it works…

I do not look around, I wait quietly with everyone else, even though I could escape to my office, a place I love and have created as a sanctuary. It is close. Too close. I want to be in the waiting room; some reason calls me to stay. God? Who knows, again, going off on a tangent to escape the knowing…what is to come. It hits me like an iron fist, fast, hard and so painful I can’t even think, the knowing.

I still don’t get it. What am I supposed to do with that? She told me it would be fine, not to worry. But I worry, I can’t stop worrying, like ever. She knows that.

When I walked in, I knew something was off, I knew there was a problem, “An issue” she said. Really? That was an issue, a giant blow-up-your world catastrophe is not an issue. Softens the blow, I guess, we are all trained to be softer, kinder with bad news. And now here I am. Again, at the place I started, two years ago. I thought I was done, I thought we were through the “bad” stuff, but all the while, it was waiting, hoping I would relax, be “chill” so it could come screaming back in like a fighter jet.

I do not feel chill, or calm or even “fine. What the hell just happened? I don’t understand. I do not feel much, I realize. Sick? Maybe. Scared? Probably. The anger wears like a heavy winter parka. A parka I have not worn in years, since the move to Arizona, warmer climate. All the chill, cold and darkness of winter left behind. Of that place, left behind. I needed the big change, needed to escape. Funny how that seems to be the word in this moment, escape. I wish I was better at it; I am not. I am aware that it is a band-aid, a bad dad joke, or a silly song. Nice in the moment and quickly forgotten.

Well, it is just the challenge of life, they say. “Shit happens,” they say. The stupidest saying ever, and yet, there it is. Front and center of my frontal cortex. In my mind’s eye. The brains way of coping, resilience that I don’t feel but fully embrace, knowing it is there, my love, resilience.

Dear God, what just happened? Breast cancer, it came back. With a vengeance, apparently. After dodging it, working on diet and exercise, chemo-Ing and all the other “doing” things, it came back. Why? How?

I am gutted, hopeless and pissed off. Pissed off the most, really. I can’t understand how all the treatment, pain and suffering was for nothing. Here I sit, wondering and waiting. Again waiting.

And then, in walks the doctor, my salvation, my hope, my lifeline. She is there, report in one hand and my beating heart in the other. I can’t relax, I can’t breathe, mindfulness be damned.

“Hey, well, I looked at the report and it’s bad. I know you prefer the “get-to-it” approach, so here goes,” She plows ahead, knowing I hate to wait, and she wants so badly to prolong the pain we will both feel. The telling and the shock, sickness, fear, all rolled into our friendship, our shared practice.

“It looks like it spread to your lymph nodes and lungs. I do not have a plan together yet, but we will start chemo as soon as possible and move quickly. It has spread quickly, the last MRI, 6 months ago was clean, well, you know. You saw too.” She speaks so very quickly, my calm, measured friend. It is never so easy with a friend, the diagnosis, the shock no one ever wants. The pain or suffering hangs in the air like smoke, too light to see, too heavy to move. You have to wait for it to be clear, everyone knows that. And when it does, it feels infinitely easier to breathe, move and live. She is strong, looking directly at me. Maybe there is a tear, maybe they are mine.

“Am I going to die?” I ask, more statement than question. The obvious but all I can muster after my years of training, practice, and medicine, I am reduced to the visceral basics we all want to know. Even knowing the answer, I ask anyway. I do not even expect and answer, or maybe I expect a miracle. It was a mistake, gee, I picked up the wrong file. Oops. But I know better, I mean after all, I am a cancer doctor too.

“Um, it does not look good, but we will do what we can until you decide enough is enough. I am so sorry….” She is ever kind, even in her directness, I feel loved, cared for and some tiny brief flicker hope of. She has always been the better one in my eyes, better doctor, a better friend and better person.

There is nothing more to say, nothing more to convey in this appointment. I know it all, and now I understand.