Some days just have a bite to them. August 25^th mauls me…every year. The heaviness of the day, the memories, the pit in my stomach, the ‘off-ness’ invading every second of every minute of every hour. 

I remember the space I was in, how it smelled and how the walls closed in. I remember when the phone rang. I remember nothing really mattering in all of the time prior to that sound. I dropped everything I was doing and clung for dear life on the very last shred of the most pitifully beaten-up hope that I would get my miracle. 

“Your biopsy results confirmed that you have cancer.”

Damn.

I remember feeling oddly calm. I had the presence of mind to take notes knowing as soon as I hung up the phone I was going to lose it. I wrote notes in disbelief that they were *my* notes. I captured words that were surreal to be putting on paper. I was hearing phrases and terms that I never imagined in my vocabulary. I felt floaty. I felt disconnected. I felt sick. I felt crushed. 

Today, four years later, each the gift and the cost of surviving, immense. The scars are ugly. The pain is constant. The weight is present. The lessons are vast. And as hard as this day was 4 years ago, it only got harder.

The posts from the last three years are each so authentically telling to what this day is…oh what I have endured. Oh what I have learned:

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This Day in 2018:

What a Year

A year ago today I got a phone call that thrust me into the most massive upheaval of my life. 

“Our initial findings show that you have breast cancer. I’m so sorry to have to give you that news.” 

I remember being oddly calm throughout the conversation. I took good notes, wrote down what the radiologist’s nurse was telling me and for a brief moment, I fully accepted this news. Then I called Chris. And then my mom. And then my boss. Those were hard conversations….

I didn’t know anything yet, just that I had cancer. What would come next was a week full of appointments that would bring a little more information each time. It would also bring a whirlwind of uncertainty. And exhaustion. The waiting. The unknown. The fear. The disbelief. And so many tears.

A year later, I sit in my damn cancer chair, in significant pain from yet another surgery. Looking down to see disappointment and devastation. Hoping it won’t stay like this. And not one moment in all of this has been easy. Not one. I am grateful for a resilient body, heart and mind and I’m grateful to be alive, but what a year.

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This Day in 2019:

Anniversary + Albert, Tattoos and Magic, Round 5

“I’m sorry to confirm that you have cancer.” Sucker punch to the gut. The same gut that totally knew that the call was coming…and the same gut that still clung to the teeniest of hopes that it was wrong. 

Everything looked different for me after that call. My life literally flashed before my eyes. I saw some memories when I was a little girl. I saw some memories as a young adult. I saw some memories of my wedding and the births of my daughters. I saw memories of my friends and family and laughing and loving life. I saw them as a slide projector reel clicking from one to the next as I sat in a little office at work and cried. As each picture came up, ‘cancer’ was stamped across each image as if it was forever marred by it. I had no idea what was ahead of me. I had no idea what was to come. I didn’t even know if I was going to live.

I called Chris first. We didn’t talk much. Then I called my mom. We didn’t talk much, either. Then I told my boss. Then the flood gates opened. Tears streamed down my face. My heart felt slow and sticky and I felt my stomach in my throat. 

I relayed to Chris, my mom and my boss the second part of the nurse’s conversation: “We have you scheduled for a breast MRI on Monday and we also went ahead and scheduled you to visit with a mastectomy general surgeon that we work with often and you can see if you like her. She will have referrals for plastic surgeons and oncologists when you meet with her. And once the surgery is done, they will be able to give you exact pathology and determine if chemo needs to occur. We also scheduled you for an appointment with a genetic specialist due to how young you are and the fact that you have three daughters.”

What? These words were crushing, each one. Mastectomy. Plastic surgeons. Oncologists. Pathology. Chemo. Genetics. Daughters. Oh, Lord. My daughters……..

God. You waste nothing. So nor will I. Even though I have no idea how I’m going to live through this. 

Two years later and completely transformed. From the inside out. And grateful. Immensely grateful. I honored today by seeing Albert and having him make more progress on my tattoo. Due to just having had surgery, we went easy today and just did my other rose and my crane. And it’s looking like our final session will be on September 8 which is the anniversary date of my double mastectomy. Gratitude only skims the surface…….

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This Day in 2020:

The Magnitude

You have cancer. I have cancer. Inflect each word. *I* have cancer. I *have* cancer. I have *cancer*. The bliss of ignorance, gone. The unknown can’t become unknown ever again. The burden of knowledge—so.very.heavy.

On this three year anniversary of hearing those every bit literal LIFE-TRANSFORMING words, the burden remains…and it remains even heavier than on that dreadful day. Here’s what I’ve learned:

Grit. Courage. Vulnerability. To take the hard road and let the hurt prove purpose. I have an army…both heavenly and here in my people. Counter-cultural, relentless authenticity is bold and it takes bravery to value it, and even though not everyone can receive it, it’s still worth it. “Be,” presence, and living short when everything around me is oppositely focused. Listening. Choosing the surrender. Believing. Trusting that the undistracted quiet offers a deeper depth…and deciding not to run from it. Allowing change. Allowing humility. Allowing lessons. Allowing suffering. Because God wastes nothing and I am challenged not to, either. Resilience has room for needing help, for “weak knees,” for tears, for crying out for rescue. Resilience is not faked strength. Surviving can be hard and that it’s okay to be confused, that it’s okay to be frustrated that heaven didn’t come when it was so close…Yet it’s also a gift not everyone gets, so survive richly. Feelings matter so let them matter. It’s okay that my kids see me struggle – With denial. With reality. With pain. With faith. With acceptance. It’s okay to not know what doesn’t need to be known until it’s time to know it. And then when I know it, use it. Wisely. That I’ll never get to do today again. Priorities. It’s acceptable to say, ‘I’ve never done this before so I don’t know what to do or how to feel.’ Anniversaries can be hard. 3 years later. And they don’t have to be qualified with a positive opposite. Both/And is healthy—it’s okay to be both crushed by the devastation of grief and driven to use its depth for good. And to maintain the sentiment: I always have something to learn.

Cancer, you’ve torn me to shreds, you’ve brutally taken things from me. You’ve caused the deepest pain both imaginable and unimaginable. You’ve terrorized my family and my life. You’ve wounded me soul-deep and left nasty, ugly scars that tell a terrible story. But the story isn’t over and I’m willing to live out it’s magnitude…whatever it looks like.