8 E-mail to one friend: "RE: pictures"

This e-mail was written the night before my first of the three scans, the CT scan. It was a rare moment of quiet in the house with the newborn and the husband both asleep. I started by complaining about the barium sulfate I had to drink for the CT scan and then the fear really came to the surface. I couldn't just be a new mother anymore. I had to be a new mother AND a cancer patient. Some of the information repeats what the opening blog entry recorded, but the message makes less sense if I delete that paragraph so I've left it intact.

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Tonight finds me afraid. It’s almost 11:00 p.m. Guy is sleeping. Kelric has finally quieted down and is sleeping. My step-mom Patti is here and has just gone to bed. Guy and I will cover the night feedings tonight and Patti will look after Kelric tomorrow while I go away for my CT scan.

I’ve mixed cocoa into my barium sulfate mixture to create a cocktail I can tolerate. The nasty stuff tastes like watered down milk otherwise and it makes me gag. With the chocolate to distract me I can pretend it’s an exotic liquor and I’m sipping it with frequent tiny little sips.

This week I got to be a new mommy, plain and simple. Except for every new nurse who came on shift asking politely, indirectly about my breast cancer, I got to mostly forget about what lies ahead this coming week. I focused on the joy of being with my little boy and I ignored my breast cancer pamphlets and book. Last night I read in the pamphlet for the first time and then dreamed about cancer all night long.

Starting tonight with the barium sulfate I am now a cancer patient getting tested and scanned to see if the cancer managed to spread to other places in my body and to establish a baseline image in case it spreads in the future. Tonight I have to start working on the attitude of “cancer survivor.” The hard part is that the battle is so early in beginning stages that I don’t feel like a survivor yet. I don’t even feel sick. It doesn’t help that I know the chemotherapy treatment that’s supposed to help me win the fight is something that will make me feel sicker than the cancer did so far.

Once the mass was removed from my breast, I’ll have to admit that I felt better. I think it had been taxing my immune system and subtly dragging me down. Removing the carcinoma led to more energy and less nausea almost immediately.

Little Kelric’s reactions to things are so physical and so pure. He feels gas that leads to a bowel movement and he emits this adorable but heartbreaking little high pitched shriek and turns his head to the side. That’s how I feel inside about tomorrow. I want to shriek and look away. I don’t want to go through it. I don’t want to face it. I will face it, of course. But it’s scary and my husband can’t be with me every moment to hold my hand.

I was afraid of the month of February this year. This may seem like a non sequitur statement but give me a moment. January drew to a close and the closer February got the more nervous I felt about the future. It didn’t make sense because my baby shower was set for the first Saturday in February and I was looking forward to it. The shower came and went and we had a great time. February 3, though, I showed my obstetrician the lump in my breast. That was the day before the shower. Something was different and I didn’t know what. We thought it was a clogged milk duct. Two weeks later the lump was larger, red, and feverish. At my next checkup the OB strongly urged me to see a breast surgeon within the week. She said, “Sometimes cancer presents this way.” Nobody seriously thought that’s what was wrong. It wasn’t until the exploratory surgery March 3, exactly a month after I brought this to my OB’s attention, that the diagnosis of cancer could be made because undisputable evidence was removed from my body. I have a lovely 3 inch scar to show for it.

I don’t have the same irrational fear of the near future the way I feared February. My problem now is that the more I learn the more afraid I become. Normally additional knowledge gives me confidence. Without knowing the result of the tests ahead, though, my logical brain can imagine all sorts of dire consequences. Each additional piece of knowledge I gain about how breast cancer works just gives me more directions to feel fear that it’s already gone too far and I’ll never see my son grow up. Guy is desperate not to lose me and I’m desperate not to go. I have to work at keeping myself calm enough to see that imagined complications do not make reality and the upbeat tone of the oncologist the week before last gives me every reason to hope for a long life and full remission.

I wonder if they can do the CT scan without me drinking the full bottle of this nasty stuff. It’s now chocolate and I’ve consumed over half of it, but it’s beginning to upset my stomach and I don’t know if I can keep it all down. I’m really nervous about having to drink the second bottle tomorrow morning at the lab before the scan can begin. Will they have it chilled? Will they let me mix in the chocolate stuff? Will I have to drink in big gulps? Can I resist throwing up if I do?

This is the down side of the roller coaster. This is what makes it so hard.

I’m not supposed to drive for two weeks after the birth. This whole next week with a busy schedule of morning and afternoon appointments with labs and doctors, lymph node surgery on Wednesday, and I’m not allowed to drive. I have three different friends lined up to take me to the appointments and Guy will take a day off to be with me for my surgery. It’s outpatient surgery and I’m mighty tired of going to the hospital.

I had a little cry while I was writing this. I feel a little better now. I feel a little more sick from the barium sulfate cocktail but my emotions have settled down.

I guess if I can be strong enough to push a baby out then I can be strong enough to get through a CT scan. I’ll get to come home from the scan and see my baby again, and I know my step-mom will take good care of him while I’m away. I know my friends will hold my hand and let me cry and it’s okay to be afraid.

I’m bitter that this joyous time of having a newborn will be forever mixed in my mind with the early days of my breast cancer treatments. I’m also grateful that my cancer situation is mixed with the arrival of my baby because it keeps me from brooding on it endlessly. There isn’t enough time when I’m mixing formula and washing bottles and trying to figure out why he’s so squirmy at night.

It’s thundering outside tonight. Storms are rolling over and across the city. My dog Max is curled up near me.

I received a couple of well-intentioned e-mails. Both encouraged me to not go through with the lymph node surgery and to fight the cancer with alternative medicine that they’ve heard from testimonies will work. They each wrote long and involved e-mail messages to me. I know they meant well. I know their intentions were loving. But it felt like a betrayal to have people I care about tell me not to trust the modern medicine I’ve put my faith in. One message was especially humorous because she wrote that cancer is caused by lactic acid. A special diet is all I need to cure it. I am tempted to write back and quip that I’m sure the medical community will be relieved to learn that she’s found the cause and cure for cancer and they can stop all their research and toxic treatments.

I’m going to use diet and exercise to supplement my efforts to fight the cancer. My oncologist thinks that’s a great idea. I’m willing to go to a Chinese acupuncture guy and take herbs to help mitigate the effects of chemotherapy. My oncologist loves that I know better than to take herbal remedies without discussing them with him first. My husband is committed to the goal of improving my health. He’s going to help me stay motivated to exercise properly and he’s going to help me research and cook food to keep up the better diet. It should benefit both of us, after all, and with his support I’ll actually stick to the plan. I’m going to trust the doctors I’ve seen so far and follow their advise, so I’m going to have lymph nodes removed Wednesday and that will have a lifelong consequence of never again being able to have blood pressure taken from my right arm (the side affected by the lymph node surgery – the side with the cancer). I cannot have IVs inserted into my right arm and I’ll have to take care to not get cuts on my right hand or arm. A possible infection with permanent side effects is what I risk by forgetting or ignoring any of these restrictions. But we’ll learn how to properly focus the chemotherapy and radiation treatments if I allow lymph nodes to be removed. Chemo will help destroy small abnormal cancer cells that may have traveled to and set up camp in other places in my body. Radiation will help keep the cancer from returning to the surgery site where the carcinoma was removed.

There is never a guarantee that it’s all gone. There is only a high probability that the cancer is absent when medical science can find no evidence of it. I don’t like that uncertainty, but I’ll take what I can get.

I’ve got a loving husband to spend my life with and a little boy to see grow into a strong and caring man who will one day love his wife with as much beauty and respect with which his father loves me.

In the meantime, screw this barium crap. Even with the chocolate it tastes nasty. I’ve consumed about seven eights of the bottle. That’s got to be good enough for now. I’m tired and I’ve got rain going pitter pat on the windows to lull me to sleep.

I guess this e-mail has become a “dear diary” entry. You always were a special friend I could talk to in detailed ways most other people didn’t find interesting. I hope I haven’t put you off with my ramblings tonight. I sure feel better now than when I started.

Angela

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