tentwentyfour

"every plan is a tiny prayer to father time"

you can barely tell today, but two years ago today an incision was made in the soft tissue at the base of my throat. some lymph nodes were tested right there in the operating room, and before anyone i love, before even i found out, a room full of strangers knew. i had cancer.

i have cancer.

the incision healed surprisingly quickly. the steri-strips holding it together fell off a couple of days later. the stitches were removed the day i began chemo. i thought they had dissolved, but there was a little left, itching me. the tender skin's red color diminished. when i got my first radiation tatoos, one of which you can see, barely, in the center of the photo, just above my nearly invisible scar, there was just an inch-long line to show how it all began.

and now, you can barely see it. only if you know what you're looking for. and most people don't.

my other scars hide from the world as well, either under clothes or appearing seemingly unsuspicious on the surface.

a spot on the underside of my left forearm. eight inches along my right shoulder blade and ribs, arching across my side, under my armpit, still numb to the touch. a strange bump of skin on my right side on my ribcage. an inch-long, half-inch high red mark below my right shoulder. radiation tatoos under each arm, down the center of my chest, and on my right clavicle.

there are also the collapsed, tired veins of my right arm, welcoming only to the tiniest of needles for blood tests. it is nearly impossible to get an iv in. red marks on the inside of my left elbow from the chemo iv's. marks where i've bumped or scratched myself over the course of the last eight months and haven't healed the way i used to.

there are also other things, some were stashed away after the first time and never made their way back out. like the flannel sheets mom bought for me when chemo started the first time. and the pile of winter hats i won't ever wear again, even if i have to lose my hair again sometime, because i just can't bring myself to look at them. the size 26 pair of jeans i bought when i was at my skinniest and my favorite jeans just kind of hung on me. the bandanas and scarves i bought when the weather warmed up. i can't even buy the shaving cream i used to shave my head with because the smell makes me slightly sick. other things have been brought back out since the second time began. books about chemo and cancer. cookbooks about comfort food during chemo. my big binder full of doctors' reports, precertification notifications from the insurance company, my box of cards from friends.

there has been a lot of laughter. christmas 2006, just days after a toxic chemo treatment, i remember laughing a bit. i cried, too. there are always tears, sometimes happy ones, sometimes frustrated ones. maybe i do more crying than other people. sometimes the only thing to do is cry together. because at the end of it, we're laughing. that's something cancer's taught me. end the cry with some laughing. everyone feels better. i also end a lot of the crying by muttering, emphatically, shit! or, fuck! because, really, this is shitty. and it is pretty fucked up.

it has been two years, and it feels like a lifetime. only 15% of lung cancer patients with my diagnosis make it five years. i am 2/5 of the way there. maybe i lived with cancer for a year, or two, or three without knowing. those years don't count. time from diagnosis. when i first found out i knew i would make it that long. and longer. i would do the chemo, have the surgery, do the radiation, they would fix me, and i would have my life back. the old one. it became clear to me eventually there was no going back. only forward. that's something cancer taught me. there is no backwards. only forward. and it is always different. it just isn't the same, and that isn't a bad thing, really. so then, i was sick again. am sick again. or something. getting to five is still on my list of things to do. but i don't get to be cured. i don't get to be fixed. i get to fight like hell. that is the new life i have.

cancer also taught me things have to happen one day at a time. when it is at the worst, things have to happen one minute at a time. one step. there is no tomorrow quite yet, there is a second from now, a minute from now, an hour from now. there's the meal i am eating now and the one i will have in a couple hours after a nap and a walk. maybe tomorrow there is a bike ride. sometimes, when i am at my best i can look out months at a time. there is thanksgiving in rhode island. there is new year's in the hampster. there is, when i am feeling really good, skiing in january. but to look farther is asking a lot of my psyche. there is an edge i get to, where looking ahead becomes dangerous, because i am very let down if things don't go the way i've planned. or wanted to plan. so then, i am thrown. i have to go back to a minute at a time. and at times, that's fine with me.

other times, i wonder what the hell happened along the way. how am i here and not living out west or in new england somewhere? wasn't that the plan?

and i go back to that day in october two years ago.

they have been, really, two of the best years. hard earned, beautiful in unbelievable, unthinkable ways. simple things are gifts as they never were before. a frosty morning run as the fog burns off. the sound of the snow crunching under my feet as i load the car for a day of skiing. the warmth of the sun in the summer. a nap in a sun filled room. a dinner with a friend. in trying to cram as much as i can into my life i've found myself in beautiful places, with people i adore. i've met amazing people who know what it is like. i've met people who want to fix me as badly as i want to be fixed. and somehow, here i am. two years later, and i am still putting one foot in front of the other. i ride my bike, i run, i ski, i cook, i laugh, i cry, i sleep.

so, happy birthday to me. it is different this year. but isn't it always?