You Said You'd Be Here, So I Knew You Would...

Last night was a bad one. And I wasn’t going to write about it, because I don’t want anybody to see me weak, but then I wouldn’t be honest with you and I want to be honest, even if it’s not easy for me.

Yesterday I was filling out a family history form for the genetic testing (which I think is quite ridiculous anyway…if I’m paying thousands of dollars for you to do genetic testing to see if I have gene mutations for cancer, why do I have to do all the work?!) ANYWAY, I do. I have to fill out this very in depth family history. While working on this, I remembered that my aunt had given all of this to me in an email a while back. I searched through my old emails and I found the email. I also found next to that email, an email telling her that I wanted the family history because I was making an overdue gyno appointment because I had a “soreness in my left breast” and I “had even convinced myself that I felt a lump a couple of days ago” but now it’s no longer sore and I can’t feel anything so I think it was probably all in my head and was probably just a strained muscle.

I read that and I almost fell out of my chair. I didn’t even remember that! And it wasn’t something that I had even mentioned to the doctor then because I couldn’t even feel it after that.

What if… What if I would’ve told her two years ago? What if I would’ve insisted on a mammogram then?  What if this shit has been there that long? Here I thought it just popped up a month ago, but what if it’s been there for ages? What if it has take over my entire body? And I’ve read the statistics on that once it’s spread. I don’t have a snowball’s chance in Hades if it has spread. The dreaded "what ifs" that plague every one of us.

And then I got up from my desk and Oh My Gosh! My back! My lower back! I have had lower back pain for at least 10 years but at that moment I was sure that the cancer was now in my back and that’s why my back was hurting so bad.

I made it home and plopped down in the chair. I needed to go get some groceries but I was drained. And sitting in the chair felt good. Getting up felt bad, walking felt bad, bending over felt bad. Sitting and laying down felt ok.

I looked all over for the stupid heating pad and I couldn’t find it. And I kept having to bend over to look for it. Mental note: Never store a heating pad where you have to bend over to get it because if your back is hurting, that really doesn’t feel great.

Never did find the heating pad, but I finally found a heated throw and turned it up on high and laid on that. It was better than nothing. I laid back and I began to sob. It was just the culmination of everything. It was the realization that this may have been there longer than I thought and the danger that goes along with that, it was the feeling of despair and fear, it was thinking of how people think I’m so positive and I’m just a big, fat fraud. And then on top of all of that, my stupid back decided to stop working! I was crying so hard that I thought I was going to hyperventilate.

My sweet boy and I were the only ones at home at this time and he walked in on me. He said he heard me and asked what was wrong. I did what any good mother in that situation would do. I lied like a dog. I told him I had been reading something and it made me cry. Which technically I have been reading all kinds of things that have made me cry, but that wasn’t the full truth at that moment. He looked up and he gave me a hug and kiss and then went back to watching something on his iPad.

I want to be like him. I want to be child-like and not have this fear inside of me.

I was supposed to have lunch with him one time at school. As usual, I was running late. I ran in right at the last minute and I said, “Oh my gosh! Did you think I had forgotten?!” He calmly replied, “No, I knew you’d be here. You said you’d be here so I knew you would.”

That’s faith. He has complete faith in me. “You said you’d be here so I knew you would.”

Through this journey, I need to remember that statement.

When I think for a minute that God isn’t with me, I need to remember “You said you’d be here so I knew you would.”

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble—aka 

“You said you’d be here so I knew you would.” 

It could be the school cafeteria or cancer.

My husband has had a hard couple of days also. It’s not just me who got the cancer diagnosis. He got it too. And our kids. And our family and our friends and our community. We all got it.

I don’t know what it’s like to be married to someone with cancer. Hell, that may be harder than having cancer. He has to try to be strong for me and the kids and he has to keep going to work and be proficient in his job and then come home and help with everything at home and then he sees me in my bedroom crying into a pillow. And he has to put on a brave face and put all of his feelings on hold to lift me back up.

Last night my friends stepped up and encouraged me when I was in that dark place. They prayed hard for me and they sent me pictures of survivors (one of the pictures was me.) They calmed my fears and told me that cancer could not jump around like lice and fleas and spread when I told them I was CERTAIN that has already happened. I had some sweet peas come to my door last night with flowers and cupcakes!

See, I told you I’m not the brave one here. You guys can’t see because you are on that side, but you are the brave ones. YOU are holding me up.

Keep up the good work.

-lightningbug