The Lump…

I will begin this post by saying that I am fine. But the last week was a tad more exciting that I had hoped. Amongst all of the Thanksgiving angst…I guess the universe decided to add one more log to the already sizable fire I have going. No…scratch that. It is not just a fire. It is a damn pyre at this point.

Last Tuesday night I found a lump at the base of my neck…just below my skull. I was sitting there working on the computer, resting my hand on my head. And with my mounting exhaustion and tension…I absentmindedly rubbed the back of my neck. Well, lo and behold…my head was at such an angle that my hand ran over a lump. At first I thought maybe it was just tension, but as I continued to poke and prod the damn thing. No way in hell it was a muscle. It felt extremely foreign. It was round, hard and about the size of a marble. Well, you can guess the multitude of emotions that went through my head. And yes, I did panic. Because the leap to thoughts of Cancer is small. Really a hop at best. I freaked out. But of course it was Tuesday night, so there was not much else I could do.

The next day I phoned my primary and she saw me immediately. I love my primary doctor. She was David’s and continues to be mine. Although I admit, the office has many painful memories. And whenever I walk in, I am flooded by the countless appointments and subsequent hospitalizations that occurred during the C-dif period and the numerous other crazy things that occurred during the course of treatments. But it is worth it. Because I have a doctor who is not only proactive, kind and knowledgable. She knows my history. She knows what I went through and she knew David. And that, I would not be able to find any place else. She watched the slow progression of the tumor and the hell it put David’s body through. And she also watched me. Made sure I was taking care of myself, the forgotten caregiver. And after David passed, she continued to check up on me. We developed a mutual respect... I for her experience and compassion and she for the path I walked with what she called “strength.” So, when I showed up in her office, she knew how very terrifying this experience was. She knew that everything was so raw right now and that I was so fragile. And she looked at it and said, “If I had to bet money, I would say this is nothing. Probably an inflamed node.” But she also knew how very concerned I was and she said we could wait to see if it grew…and then testing would obviously be done. But due to my history with David, being so understandably scared, and now being Alec’s sole parent, she felt I should have a CT scan done. And then she looked me in the eyes and said, "This is probably nothing, but if it isn’t, we will figure out a treatment and you will get through this! I know you will. You have always been strong and we’ll get through this." Shit. I do not want to get through anything else. I am done getting through stuff. I still have a mound of stuff both physically and emotionally I must get through. I do not need any more life lessons at the moment. I am all full.

But unfortunately, as we have all painfully learned. We do not get to choose our life lessons. They just happen. Our only choice is how we face them. They got me in for the following Monday and I had the weekend to think long and hard about this new curve ball. And as I sat there at night, fingering that maddening lump. I came to many realizations. One being that although there are many days I do not always want to be sitting on this rock orbiting the sun, I am here. And although I may not always want to be...I am alive. And yet, faced with the possibility of Cancer and even my own mortality. I came to the realization that no matter how very much I miss David and how much I want to be with him basically every waking second. My time here is not done. For whatever reason, hell if I know right now, I am alive and I believe I have much left to do in this life. And I also realized that I not only wanted to live for Alec, which lately has been the solitary reason. But I wanted to live for myself as well. And as I sat there I began steeling myself for the next battle. I could feel the tension and adrenaline building ever so slowly. And although it would be so much easier and less painful to just curl up into a ball and fade away, there was no way in hell I was going to do that. It goes against everything I am and have become. And I pictured myself getting into a fighting stance, fists clenched. And as I stood there in my mind, I flicked my fingers as if egging the universe on and screamed, “Bring it on bitch.” Because this was one battle I was not giving up. I watched David battle to the very end. He was a warrior and I learned from the best. And if she wanted to tango, I would take her ass down! Mind you, these were my better moments. There were also moments in the following four days where I let my fear best me and I worried about my future, Cancer and the irreparable damage it would do to Alec to see yet another parent go through treatments.

But Monday came and I walked the halls of Froedtert once more. Only this time as a patient. That sucked. Everything is just too damn fresh and raw. I sat in the Radiology waiting room for my CT Scan. The same waiting room I had sat a billion times before with David. Only this time, they were coming for me. And even more painfully, David was not there to hold my hand. That was the crux of it. David was not there. I was alone and fearing the possibility of going through treatments without my husband, my pillar of strength.

And as I walked into that room, the fear took me. I looked at that machine, wondering if this was one of the rooms David had been in. One of the machines he had been scanned by. Odds are he had to have been in it at least once. We were there almost every month. And as they laid me down on the table I lost it...I began crying and just could not stop. The ladies thought I was fearful about the scan and somehow I sobbed out something about David, scans, brain tumors and that my husband just died of one. The look of discomfort on their faces was clear and the tension in the room went up about 1200 notches. As they left to begin the initial scan, I closed my eyes and began a mental dialog with David. And as I was conveyed into the machine, a calm came over me. The infernal machine began to spin and clank around my head, but I was able to lay completely still, as I needed to be to get the pictures taken properly. The fear was washed away in an instant, to be replaced by a stillness. Peace. Mere seconds before I was a mess and then this? But, I felt David there so strong...so close. His presence always had such a calming affect on me, and I guess although he may different now his presence still has the power to heal me and sooth my aching soul.

I walked out of there and met up with a dear friend who, due to snow complications, met me in the waiting room after the scan was over. We decided to get out of there, go and get a cup of coffee and begin the waiting game. Thankfully I only had to wait two days. This Wednesday I received the results. It is some sort of subcutaneous filled node thing. An inflamed node that may take forever to go away and I will need to keep an eye on it in case it does something funny or gets larger. But it is not a tumor. It does not even need to be biopsied. And most importantly of all…I do not have Cancer.

So. Here we are once again. Yet another unsolicited life lesson. But at least through all of this I discovered that no matter how much pain and loss I may feel everyday. It still has not broken me. I am not going to curl up into a ball…no matter how appealing it may be some days. I am here to do something and someday I will figure out what that is. And that I will continue to live for not only Alec and David. But for myself…