In a normal year, the Wednesday before a holiday weekend, when Thursday is an all day office outing at a ball game and Friday is a personal time off day, I'd be cruising into the weekend by now, thoughts of relaxing and fun at the top of my mind, as I take a little break before our planned vacation in a few weeks (the week after school ends and before camp begins). This is not a normal year. This is the week after my 41 year old wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and everything changed.
To those who don't know, all seems normal. I went to a work barbeque with my son over the weekend while my wife went to a dance recital with our daughter (last minute scheduling boo-boo). We both still go to work and the gym. After school activities with our children continue. The chores get done, the groceries shopped for, the children fed, the dogs walked ... oops .... good thing we have laminate and hard wood floors. Next week, when my wife goes to see the breast surgeon (never knew how long it takes to get records transferred 60 miles) that will change with me picking our daughter up from dance class in lieu of my wife. Probably the first of many changes. Cancelling the vacation will probably be number two (we were supposed to have our wood floors repaired, we had a leak in our slab under the floor, plumber had to chop floor to get to pipe).
It took until the weekend, but I finally got on the same page with my wife. I realize now I was basically sitting Shiva, mourning what was, last week. But, just as when my father and brother died, I began to accept what was and got ready to move forward, something my wife had done a week earlier when she had seen the MRI, a week before the official diagnosis. My mood is generally positive, with patches of sadness and "why us?" pity thoughts now. Otherwise, there is not much new on the cancer front. Plan is to still see the surgeon on the 30th, get staged and hear the options. We've been looking up lumpectomies versus mastectomies but, basically, aren't deciding anything until the surgeon tells her what her options are. Both have pluses, both have negatives. The lump is under her breast, almost on her rib cage, so we're not sure what that means and can't really find information on what that means for her surgical options (and that is assuming the cancer hasn't spread or she doesn't have the Jewish genetic gene). Adding in we are the parents of the young children makes for an interesting twist.
The waiting is the hard part. We are ready for battle but am still waiting for the order to head to the front. Last night, she took some of her anger out on me. Of course, "it wasn't about the cancer," it was about something else. When I talk to someone professionally, I am a "just the facts ma'am" type of guy, especially if I am talking with someone I do not know. My wife is not, providing details not germane to the conversation, especially when she is nervous or upset about something, as she has been since her diagnosis, sort of like my wood floor story above. Yesterday we had to call our bank to set up some automatic payments and transfers from her account to mine (has nothing to do with the cancer). We were on the phone with the customer rep during our lunch breaks, and she started talking, giving details that weren't important (we opened this account to do X etc) when I cut her off and said, I just need to know what to do on their site. We both had to get back to work and I could see she was in a wandering mood. Later that night, just before bed, she told me she thought that was abusive that I did that in front of the rep on the phone. That got us into a short, intense fight about a subject that wasn't important. She accused me of being angry with her for getting sick. I replied, I was angry that we were having a stupid fight about my usual trying to get to the point in a professional conversation. It ended with me telling her I'm not going anywhere and to knock it off. I guess this is the first of many stupid fights. I've heard stories of marriages falling apart in times of crisis, I think I am beginning to see how that starts.
The other thing we've found comforting are emails and calls we are getting from breast cancer survivors we know, but didn't know who had had breast cancer. For example, one of my mother's cousins told me she was diagnosed at an age 4 months older than my wife is now. I didn't even know she had had cancer. Now, almost 20 years later, she is retired and traveling around the country with her husband, as healthy as can be (she had a lumpectomy and radiation). My wife talked with one her gym class instructors (my wife has been doubling down on the gym while she can) who also had a lumpectomy 25 years ago (was diagnosed at an even younger age of 38) and is also going strong. I also talked with someone in our temple whose first wife died from breast cancer, saying if things don't go as hoped -- my wife, who is able to read people fairly well, said the silence was deafening when she told the nurse at the biopsy that it is good the cancer was caught early -- he will be there for us. I haven't really talked to the cousin whose mother was diagnosed when we were teens, who ultimately dies from the disease about 15 years later when the cancer came back.
Another concern for us are, of course, our children. I've already made sure our 11 year old is carrying his key and given him instructions on what to do if no one is home (open door for him and his sister, lock it, watch TV and wait for someone we know to come over) when he gets home from school and, if he doesn't have his key (usually leaves it in his book bag) where the hidden key is. Our rabbi says he has at least 10 people lined up to help us and a general e-mail from the caring committee has gone out, so that is a relief as we don't have family in the immediate area (my brother lives 15 miles from us, but he travels constantly and he and his wife have an 8 year old and a 2 year old).
We told our son's teacher about my wife's illness. Our daughter, who is 7, doesn't want us to tell hers, though we probably will shortly as school has another 3 weeks left. After that we have other child care issues to deal with as we have a week without camp or school and then camp only 3 days a week (I work from home a lot and the plan was to save a few dollars by only having the kids go to camp part-time -- something I am hesitant to change as my wife goes on part time FMLA when her sick and vacation time begin to run out and I start working less OT hours to help her). One day at a time I suppose.
So that's it for now. I'm still not sure why I'm writing this, aside from getting it off my chest. Maybe I'll look back on this one day and laugh about how nervous and worried I was and how self-centered I seem to be as these words come out of my hands. Maybe I won't. If nothing else, there will be a note on some future search engine of what a lump under the breast means (especially as I finally figured out how to add meta tags to the new Blogger).
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