Dark Waters

The phone call was terrible; Thursday afternoon at my office, a new client in the waiting room, and the sentence "The biopsy came back Invasive Ductal Carcinoma; you have cancer."  There was an intensely tearful weekend, a strangely positive appointment with a surgeon, and then BOOM surgery.  Waking up from surgery brought with it the appearance of a doctor I didn't know and a whole bunch of wrong information that left me spinning.  A couple of morphine and Ativan laced weeks later, I met with my medical oncologist for the first time.

As I listened to the treatment plan, risks and benefits of chemo, eventuality of radiation, the need for Herceptin and hormone repression measures, scheduled implantation of a chemotherapy port, appointments for baseline CT's / Bone Scans / MRI's / Cardiac Tests, layers and layers of prescription drugs to counteract chemotherapy side effects, and the recommendation for a complete hysterectomy, I felt myself standing precariously on the edge.  But then the oncologist used the phrase "potentially curable cancer."  What?  I think she said it four or five times before it sunk in and I took the first deep breath in weeks.

I dove.  Head first.  Dark Waters, indeed.  I touched the bottom before I began to rise, but eventually I broke the surface and found my way to edge of a new country.  If you are a survivor, you know about this country.  Some people call it the "new normal," but I tend to experience it as a place akin to Alice's Wonderland.  But that's another painting.

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