Thank you, Cancer! Without you I wouldn't have decided to leave an unhappy marriage and travel the world.
Much like a wedding, a cancer diagnosis is less about you than how everyone in your life is dealing with your illness. Here are some things that may help you as you navigate the early stages (whoops – didn’t mean to throw a C word around), days of your diagnosis.
1) Conversation stopper: Once your immediate family is told, you may experience many hushed conversations ending abruptly when you enter the room. Everyone’s faces will be instantly transformed into false cheer and jovial conversation will erupt to reassure you that everyone is perfectly confident you’ll be fine and nobody is worried. Still, your mom’s eyes will well up with tears every time she looks at you, belying her attempt to look casual and unafraid. Your illness will take her a while to process and her tearfulness will actually get worse, especially when you lose your hair, before it gets better. But she will come around – give her time. If your kids are really little, you will have to explain that even though it doesn't look like it, you’re sick, but not the kind with germs that are catching. Your mom will buy them picture books like Our Mom has Cancer and you’ll feel simultaneously grateful and sad such books exist.
2) Your colleagues: If your colleagues are like mine, they will offer unwavering support and immediately start delivering meals to your house. You will be incredibly grateful because not having to cook really is a huge help. You can plan to not cook for a good six months. If you’re really lucky they will even throw you a “boob voyage” party and you’ll get all sorts of cools gifts like fancy PJ's to wear during your hospital stay, spa-type stuff you love, and gifts for your kids. They’ll even make cupcakes that look like boobs. Even after you leave that job, those awesome people will be your lifelong friends.
3) Preparing for chemo: You’ll need to explain to your kids that you need really strong medicine that will make your hair fall out but that it will grow back. They will process this news with mild curiosity because they don’t really get it, but that’s ok. Your very generous sister will pay for a really expensive wig that will even fool your oncologist who has experience with this look. The salon where you bought your wig will offer you a private room and, if you're lucky, a stylist who will make you laugh by giving you all sorts of decade-specific silly hairstyles until he’s finally forced to take out the razor. His good humor and playfulness will help you cope as what’s left of your hair gets buzzed off and you run your hand over your stubbly scalp. It’ll feel really weird for a long while, but your getting-ready time will rival that of a guy. You’ll promise yourself that when your hair comes back – and you’ll panic that maybe it won’t, but it will – that you’ll never complain about a bad hair day again. And you won’t.
4) Preparing for reconstruction: The anxiety of your diagnosis may cause you to lose eighteen pounds without trying. When you go to your plastic surgery consultation and he is explaining reconstruction options besides implants, such as using your own belly fat to create new boobs, he will tell you that you’re too thin and lack enough tissue to create boobs even close to the size you have now. He’ll elaborate but you won’t process any of it, so elated are you that you're “too thin” for anything besides gastric bypass surgery that nothing else registers, and you’ll temporarily forget you have cancer. You’ll happily pick new boobs from an implant catalog, seeing as how you’re too thin and all.
5) Preparing for your mastectomy: It’s best not to think too hard on this one. You know you’ll be in the hospital for a week so focus on leaving endless lists all over your house as random things occur to you that nobody else will think of or know how to do. You’ll fill your house with your kids’ favorite foods and attack all laundry with ruthless efficiency. You’ll have another big party with your family the night before your surgery and arrive at the hospital hung-over (though you drank nothing after 11:59 pm) at the crack of dawn, reminiscent of when you went there to have your babies. Your sister, who is a doctor at that hospital, will have arranged for you to have the hottest anesthesiologist you’ve ever seen, even on TV, and as you're on the gurney about to enter the OR, he will hold your hand, his head inches from yours, and tell you that you’re beautiful and always will be. Even if this is his standard pre-op pep talk, you'll get cartoon heart eyes and imagine he's your boyfriend. Despite, or perhaps because of, your dire circumstances, you’ll have an overwhelming urge to lean in and kiss him right there, but you won’t., you’ll just have wild fantasies about him. This will be the last you see of your libido for some time so enjoy this moment. Don't worry- it'll be back. Trust me on that one!
You’ll soon learn that there are so many people that love you and want to help that having cancer can make you feel like George Bailey at the end of It's a Wonderful Life. Your attitude will set the tone for how people react to you and your natural inclination to reassure everyone in your life that you are totally cool with the whole cancer thing will actually help you cope. You can and will get through this and life on the other side will be sweeter than you ever imagined. You may even be grateful for this entire experience and find yourself saying, "Thank you, Cancer."
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