Cancer runs strong in my family. My mother had kidney cancer at age 60, her brother died of pancreatic cancer at 53, her mother died of ovarian cancer at 75 (though my grandmother, still mourning the loss of my grandfather the year before decided not to treat it so she could reunite with her love of a half century) and several of my grandmother's siblings died of cancer. I always thought I was the one with the ticking cancer time bomb. Turns out I was wrong (at least for now). The bomb was in my wife.
My 41 year old wife's breast cancer is Stage I. She had a lumpectomy two weeks ago and this week we read the pathology report that told us her lymph nodes were negative and her margins were clear. All good. But the pathology report had other information. The tumor itself, although small at 1.2 cm, was a high grade aggressive cancer which means there is a higher risk of relapse. Also, from the time of the initial
biopsy just 4 weeks before surgery, the tumor had grown and was about to
be on the move. Not good. However, this isn't the dark ages of the mid 20th century and I need to keep reminding myself of that.
Even without the results of her Oncocyte DX test my wife's oncologist is already looking to put her into a
clinical trial that will put her in an aggressive chemotherapy regimen (once every 2 or 3 weeks for at least 4 1/2 months) because her Bloom-Richardson score was so high. The Bloom-Richardson score information is used for prognosis / risk of recurrence and scoring
an 8 out of 9, which my wife did, means that the risk of recurrence is higher than someone whose
tumor was a grade 2 or 3. Additionally, because the the tumor was hormone receptor positive for estrogen and progesterone she will be put into a medical menopause so she can take inhibitors to take all the estrogen out of her system (she can't take Tamoxifen due to potential blood clots). At least no more birth control.
I grew up in a home where my parents got sick while I was still young. I know how insecure that has made me and how I over worry about every little thing. When you become a parent, you hope you can learn from your history and not make the same mistakes your parents did. Unfortunately, this is one "mistake" (cells going rouge) that is out of our control. I worry that the cancer will come back, though I know I shouldn't waste
my time on something I can't control.
And then I still get angry at the unfairness of it all, especially when I see happy, healthy, older people. We are not 60 or even 50 when you realize something like this can happen. We are in our early 40s, the prime of life. We are still young. But now, suddenly, we are not. Forget about coming to the
realization that we may not grow old together, I worry that she won't
even see our children finish high school, especially our youngest who is
only 7. And I feel sad not just for me and our children but for her too. Who plans to check out in the middle of the game?
I have had thoughts about life as a single parent but have
decided to file that away if/until I need to think about them again as they are incredibly unfair to my wife (thoughts like I can always sell the house to pay for college if we are a one parent/one paycheck family when the time comes). And then I get mad at myself for thinking me, me, me and not her, her, her (although my me, me, me thoughts tend to revolve around the possibility of raising the children on my own, the thought of being with anyone else really does not feel possible). What is worse, is that I am really worrying about something that is, at worse, a few years off or, at best, may never occur or not occur for decades. It is as if I have forgotten how to live in the moment, doing normal things like enjoying life, saving for a new car or vacation (though my wife's illness is forcing me to reconsider my preference for saving and paying in cash over borrowing as who knows if we'll all still be here the day I can pay in full comes -- she wants a mini-van to replace her small passenger car, I'd buy it tomorrow except I really want to make sure she doesn't run out of sick time first).
Writing about this and seeing my thoughts on screen helps a bit. So will the therapist I will start seeing once the dust settles (still trying to decide if I see one on my own first or just go into family therapy with the children). Like most people, I can be a real jerk at times and this isn't helping. While I am trying my best to correct
those bad habits, some so ingrained that I don't see them, such as
yelling at my children as that was how I was raised -- everybody yelled
in my neighborhood, it will take me time. And time may be running out.
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