Oh August 7. You are a hard day. 

I find myself a little lofty today…like, floaty sort of. Triggered for sure. Think of an old Tom & Jerry cartoon…Jerry, a slight cheese smell wafting towards him, floats up in the air, the smell carrying him to a chunk of cheese larger than he is…That, except I’m not floating into a bliss-filled olfactory heaven. Instead, a memory holds much of my focus today, and it is as if I’m there all over again.

(That’s how trauma triggers work). 

Sitting in the waiting room, my gut knowing, my head in denial. Discreetly feeling for the lump wishing with all my might that it would be gone so I could run outta there before even being called back. [Still there?  ….Still there.]
“Amber.” 
[Feels one last time. ‘Damn.’] “Yes.”
“Come on back.”
In the exam room. Waiting. [Yup. It’s still there. Eff.] My window of escape is closing too fast. 
*Knock-knock.
“Hi Amber. It’s been a long time. What brings you here today?” 
I can’t quite get the words out. I don’t want to speak them out loud. I don’t want to tell her. [Run! NO! Run! NO! SAY IT.]
[The quiet is suffocating. The exam is taking too long. She’s spending way too much time there. This is torture. Let. Me. OUT.] 

I am ashamed to say it now, but I don’t think anyone knew I was at that appointment…not because I didn’t trust the people in my life but because I was so desperate to keep it locked away. I didn’t want to let it out. I didn’t want to be responsible. I didn’t want to look it in the eye. (And PS. it’s impossible to stay in the safety of denial when you say something out loud.) 

“I don’t think it’s anything to be concerned about, but let’s set you up with a mammogram for peace of mind.”
[If only. . .]

I hold in my heart today a significant both+and. Yes, ‘if only’ because the last 4 years have been dreadful and I wouldn’t wish cancer on even my worst enemy. Also, the transformation that began this day 4 years ago is something to be deeply cherished and highly honored.

August 7, you are a hard day.

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This Day in 2018:

Too Much…….

My freshmen baby girl made the varsity volleyball team. 

I’m so proud. Yes, obviously she has the skill required to be a contributor on the court, but I’m most proud of her attitude. Her coachability. Her desire to learn and improve. Her maturity. Her willingness to invest time and effort. Her ability to hear feedback and value the opportunities to get better. 

All this while managing the anxieties of starting high school and while navigating the hard that is “my mom has cancer.”

Incredible.

I shared my battle with a woman at this volleyball parent/player event tonight while we were talking about volleyball and Cate and varsity…. I cried. And since then I’ve been chastising myself for sharing too much with a total stranger. 

I feel selfish. I feel raw. I feel distracting. I feel weird. 

I don’t really know where to put all that…

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This Day in 2019:

Really.

Today marks an anniversary…a very significant one. 2 years ago, today, I went to my doctor because I found a lump and had ignored it long enough. In my gut, I knew. In my heart, I prayed I was wrong  

“Eh, I’m not concerned, but let’s get you scheduled for a mammogram and ultrasound just to be thorough.” 

My life was forever changed that day. It’s interesting being where I am….I can recall the emotions and the details, even the smells, of those days 2 years ago as if they were yesterday. I can remember the depth of the feelings. The internal panic. The knowing but hoping I was wrong. The waiting….oh the waiting. 

I still have moments of really? The harsh reality — I am really doing this. This really is my story. This really has transformed me. This really is happening. 

Wow. Words fall short in capturing my reality…

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This Day in 2020:

August 7

It’s the day that started the unraveling of everything that ‘was.’

Sitting in my ob/gyn’s office…

…Crossing my fingers that my gut was wrong.

……But knowing that it wasn’t.

………So I was just hoping that it wasn’t advanced. 

…………But finding myself in disbelief that it would soon be confirmed.

……………Because I already knew what I was trying not to know. 

Denial is so interesting. I remember writing about it from the very beginning as I was learning that denial isn’t really ignorance, rather it is this strange phenomenon where reality is acknowledged, it’s just not accepted. 

August 7 led to August 18 which led to August 24 which led to August 25 which led to August 30 which led to … 225 more appointments (and over 6000 total hours) of surgeries that removed parts of my body and pieced back together what was left…of chemo hell…of sickly baldness…of searing radiation burns…and of the most intense vulnerabilities ever … 

And each of those words only skim the surface of a depth that other words can’t even describe

Now I sit in survivorship —this place that really really doesn’t have adequate words; —this place that I *should* be grateful for (I am); —this place that is *actually* harder (it is). 

During diagnosis and treatment, the sacrifices of survival were simple. Not easy, just simple. It didn’t take long to decide, ‘cut them off or let the cancer advance even more than it has;’ ‘lose hair or lose life;’ ‘survive now talk recon later.’ Here in survivorship though, I am learning that the cost of those sacrifices to stay alive are astoundingly high and they increase each day deeper that I go. 

During diagnosis and treatment, the time was short (albeit, brutally slow). Though here in survivorship, time is dreadfully long.

On August 7, 2017, I knew but I didn’t really know. Around every corner, even now, I was and continue to be appalled by what cancer really is……It is a daily grind. A daily grind, not without its light, but a grind all the same.

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