Had my appt with No 2 Surgeon last evening. Not that he's secondary in anything mind you, just he's literally the No 2 surgeon who'll be working on me at the same time as my primary breast cancer surgeon. He's responsible for my reconstruction, will be re-building the tay-tahs for me.
I was all like, Nurse-y-modern and cool with the office visit, but I must admit when he came in the room & brought a med student with him my stomach churned, hard. I gulped like some wacky cartoon character in a fix, reflexively pulling my flimsy paper gown around me. The student caught it and so did the surgeon and they both froze, the student holding the door open to leave if I was throwing him out.
I thought about how many times I was a student over my career, how priceless those learning opportunities were to me & how I valued them. I humbly thanked each patient for allowing my participation in their care & grasped how that experience would stand me in good stead with all the patients whose care I'd be responsible for in the years ahead. I figured I may as well pay that forward, all those patients who said "yes" to me, with this shiny-faced Resident.
I instantly felt goofy-foolish for being so awkward about it and agreed the Resident could observe. I cringed when I had to open my gown and tried to find some spot on the wall to focus on. To say I am naturally modest would be an understatement. Having your breasts handled & measured with a tape as if they are melons in the market was....difficult. "Breathe---just breathe through it" my RN Brain was whispering. Neither Doctor disrespected me, mind you, they were both incredibly professional and while clinical ,not so much so that their humanity evaporated.
Both were clearly sensitive to how this might affect me and acted accordingly. It was just my own shit mucking it up, that miserable feeling of utter vulnerability I loathe so.
So much about cancer reduces you to bare-knuckle vulnerability. It's bloody hellish. I keep thinking I can transcend it, I will transcend it...but yesterday evening I didn't. My usual matter-of-fact self took a hike on me right when I needed her the most. Tears pooled in my eyes while he was conducting his measurements. RN Brain was all like, "Are you REALLY gonna cry?!?" and Woman Brain was like, "Yes, dammit and ain't nobody measuring YOU for the big cut, 'k?!"
It wasn't just the embarrassment of bare chest before utter strangers that bothered me so bad, it was why we were all there in that room.
I learned I may have to have a skin graft during the lengthy surgery. They can't decide that until they're in and see the blood supply through the tumor. I was given the surgical consent to sign that included the skin graft and did so with the gravitas it deserved. Praying I won't need that skin graft on top of everything else. Literally.
This is happening. It's all rushing at me hard & fast, a boulder tumbling off a mountain, straight for me. I think of all the cancer patients I cared for in my career--did they feel this way, too? Was I kind enough, compassionate enough? Was I able to pause the clinical thing sufficiently to make them feel genuinely cared for? God, I hope so.
I want to say something funny and slightly smarty-pants, be brave and stalwart and all 'I-got-this'.
But I don't feel that way today.
Today I'm sad, down in a trench. I see that.
I walked with my dogs this morning, their favorite thing in life...we do two miles of my dirt road as they sniff the creek bed and deer tracks and chase the frantic foolish squirrel who runs across the road ahead of them. I paused to consider my creek, swollen to it's banks by recent rains, the way the vines curl & spiral around the trees and bushes, the blackness of the water and the reflection of trees in it. I spy the animal tracks in the mud that defintely aren't my dogs'. I watch them each with their tails up, happy, trotting, running, sniffing and cavorting. Back to the house after our walk, I enjoy the roasted-bean aroma of coffee brewing on my gas stove. Such little things, and yet... so much joy in the doing of them.
I know my days having this grand measure of physical freedom are limited; I know soon the time is coming when there'll be no walks, or at least, very little walking as I recuperate from surgery and then undergo radiation treatment. It's not that there'll be no more, not that I am losing these loves from my life forever, but that I am losing them for a period of time I cannot determine the limits of. It takes months to recuperate from the drain of radiation, the numbing fatigue it brings with it. Months. That feels like a prison sentence to me. You're probably thinking "But it'll make you BETTER!".
Nope, there's actually no guarantee or reassurance of that whatever. I keep looking for a silver lining. With breast cancer there just isn't one, no matter how bad you want it to materialize. You can have the biopsies, the surgeries, the radiation and chemo and tamoxifen for five years and damn skippy get the same cancer back again, or get another cancer somewhere else in your body from the treatment you've gotten to kill the breast cancer. It smashes your hope like smashing strawberries to make jam. <---And I don't have a clever follow up-sentence to that one.
I realize all cancer patients must feel this icy fear...and I know I'll get through it. I don't want anyone to pity me; that's just as horrid. I don't know how to feel about all this and it's confusing.
Today...I am just sad.
I guess I have to make my peace with feeling that feeling and go on to the next thing.
God knows, there will be a Next Thing.
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Thank you for caring enough to write-- I'll answer as soon as it's possible for me to.