Observing in mute: did you do this?

I can’t believe this is happening – cancer.  I have cancer in my body!  My mind is numb, I feel numb.  But I have to keep on functioning, I have to keep on living . . . wake up, sit in my favorite chair, drink my coffee, have my quiet time, eat breakfast.  What do I do next?  Oh, yes, before I leave for Salt Lake City we need to plan Carrie’s 21st birthday.  Poor Carrie, a milestone event in her life and there is an elephant in the room, my cancer.  We will do it, we will celebrate her, even if we are all on automatic pilot . . .

April 26, 2008, celebrating Carrie’s birthday at the Tamarack.  Good, we have the upstairs room all to ourselves.  That stupid elephant is here, too.

my birthday girl . . .

Noise.  Voices.  Laughter.  Conversations.  Distractions.  Distracting.  Distracted.

<MUTE>

I don’t hear anything any more.  I am  observing and the conversations all around me are muted.

I am dying inside . . . this isn’t normal!  This shouldn’t be!  I HAVE CANCER!  Look at my family, they are talking and laughing and noisy.  Mom and Dad.  Scott and Kim.  Will.  John and Laura.  Brian.  Dale, my husband, Dale.  And my baby girl, Carrie.  The child who is the most insecure, the one who always feels left out  . . . and dammit, my cancer shadows her 21st birthday!  HER 21st BIRTHDAY!!  How can this be?  How did this happen?

Observing in mute: did you do this?  Did you do this when you found out you had cancer?  Life goes on, for all the other people in the world, life goes on.  But for me?  But for you?

I did it, I watched the latest episode of Parenthood when Kristina tells her family she has cancer.  But even before that, Kristina and her husband, Adam,  have to tell their daughter who is away at college that her mom has breast cancer.

Oh, that scene was done well . . . Adam and Kristian use skype to tell their daughter, Hadie, the frightening news.  Hadie detects something in her parents’ faces, “What’s up?”  She listens carefully, she listens earnestly, she raises her eyebrow and then her expression falls and fear and worry are written all over her face.  Hadie turns away from the camera so Mom and Dad can’t see her.  Her parents assure Hadie that everything is going to be okay, they tell her to stay at school and to focus on her studies.

(We did that, we had to call our children who lived in other states, away at school.  We said the same thing to Christy, “It’s gonna be alright.  Stay at school and focus on your finals; do your best on your finals.”  click here to read the article, “How do I tell my family I have cancer . . . “)

And then, a scene when a worried and alone Hadie calls her dad to find out how mom is.  This time they can’t see each other’s faces and only rely on the inflection in their voices.  Hadie, “I really can’t stop thinking about mom.”  She is standing in front of her dorm room window overlooking the college campus, all alone.  “Stay positive and stay strong . . . everything’s gonna be alright, focus on your books.”  “Hello?  Can’t you treat me like an adult?”

But the scene that caught my breath and my chest heaved and Kristina and I became one was when the Braverman family went out for pizza after a baseball game.  That scene was my scene.  As I watched it all of my yesterday four and a half years ago memory came spiraling forward and I remembered – yesterday at Carrie’s 21st birthday party, yesterday when I was observing in mute.

Kristian, observing in mute

Breast Cancer Awareness Month – Parenthood has me crying . . .

In all honesty, Breast Cancer Awareness month can provoke some emotions out of me.  The whole breast cancer scene has a lot of money; more money than my cancer and your cancer and sadly, childhood cancer.  Why does everything turn pink in October (and throughout the year it seems)?  Don’t we count? Didn’t we have cancer, too?  It’s just our color doesn’t happen to be pink.

I watch a T.V. show called Parenthood.  It’s a pretty good drama portraying the relational ins and outs of a large family living in Berkeley, California and the San Francisco bay area.  This season started two weeks ago.   At the end of the first episode, tears were running down my cheeks.  You see, Kristina was diagnosed with breast cancer.  How she received the news was depicted authentically, perfectly, beautifully and emotionally.  The scene was silent.  This scene made breast cancer my cancer.  I felt Kristina’s fear and I felt their pain.  It doesn’t matter what kind of cancer you are diagnosed with, we all share the same fear and the same pain.

Hearing the statement, “You have cancer” is wrenching.  The knee jerk reaction is to scream, long and silently in your head.  Then a flood of thoughts follow like, “This happens to other people, not me!”  Or, “How can this be?  I take real good care of myself!”  Next comes the  fear and then all of the questions.  So much happens within that one statement, so much happens instantaneously.  Lastly, a kind of numbness envelopes you as you go through the next motions (and I think it is a slow motion kind of a happening).

The majority of women I know who have cancer are breast cancer survivors.  In both my cancer support groups, the breast cancer survivors out number us by two to one, sometimes more.  Their concerns are as real as mine, maybe more so because breast cancer is always in their face with all of the awareness promotion and services offered.  So many of these women have had some kind of surgery, from lymph nodes removed for biopsy and precaution to a double mastectomy and reconstruction.  As they share among themselves I hear a sadness in their voices as they accept their new body and their redefined “womanhood”.

There seems to be as many different kinds of breast cancer as there are of lymphoma.  When a woman says she has breast cancer that is just the umbrella title and somewhere underneath is her type of breast cancer.  I have heard terms like ductal carcinoma and lobular carcinoma, ER-positive and HER2-positive.  They know their cancer language, I am the one who is in the dark when they talk.  And then they have their specific type of chemotherapy and/or radiation.

Every cancer is so different and one can not be compared to the other.  Our cancer similarities are the overwhelm, the uncertainty, the hope, forever the hope.  We share the nausea and sickness, low blood counts, hair loss and fatigue.  The questions are the same, too.  Did I chose the right doctor?  Is this the correct protocol?  Will I go into remission?  What are the statistics for a long life?  And the forever cloud, will it come back?

So, yes, it is Breast Cancer Awareness month.  And, yes, everything is popping up pink.  But really in the end, our colors don’t matter, our experiences are our common bond.

When Kristina wordlessly looked at her husband, Adam, I knew what she was saying.  When he held her tight, I knew what that felt like.  When he told her to not look on the internet for information, I heard the same advice.  When he is perpetually positive and she says she is scared, I know that, too.

Yes, cancer is cancer.  Pink.  Lime green.  Teal.  Orange.  Purple.  White. . . .