Bump in the Road

532 run

When I was about 12 years old, my dad told me he had seen a professional arm wrestling match.  He told me it was no ordinary competition, that these guys latched on to each other, gripped fists and refused defeat.  The battles he described sounded like death matches, with opponents staring at each other with such wide eyed ferocity, mere mortals would quake just watching the whole thing go down.  Goddamn, that man could tell a story.

We sat in the kitchen of our tiny beach cottage kitchen, covered in the dried salt of morning playtime in the Rhode Island Atlantic; the whir of a little oscillating fan whispered over me, then slow swooped to ruffle his hair a little before sliding back over my way.  Discards of lunch on flimsy white paper plates pushed aside, sweaty cold glasses of watery lemonade soaking onto the folded up damp napkins, I drank in every word. 

He told me about one match, where a guy fought so long, he held so tight, his arm broke and the bones popped out of his skin and still he kept on fighting while onlookers gawked at the wet, white glisteny bones poking through his skin (ultimately, I think that dude lost).

My jaw dropped.  Satisfied with his story and my reaction, dad let us sit in silence.  I imagined the scene: the blood, the bones, the determination to keep fighting in the face of such unimaginable pain.  I wanted to know one thing more than any other

“Dad, what would you say if that was you, what would you do?”

He looked at me, took in my tension, waited a dramatic beat, then spoke with deep dark gravity, recognition of the battle he’d be up against and he told me

“Jenny, I’d say ‘Awww, shit.’"

*****

My order for a baseline mammogram sat waiting on my desk for two years.  Should I stop there? 

Expanded vocabulary: words and acronyms are lodged in my mind now:  Ductal Carcinoma in Situ, MRI, HER2, mastectomy…

Vivid flashes of the past ten days: pale pink cotton gowns stacked in soft piles on a shelf in the cancer center; the firm pressure of a nurse’s hands on my back as I lie facedown on the biopsy table and titanium clips are shot into my breast; the sight of my blood pooled and dripped on the floor; my porch at dusk with a glass of wine when the phone rang, the blunt force trauma of dizzying news delivered by non-too-sensitive nurse.

Two word phone call to Brooke, “It’s malignant", his arrival an hour later, the drive condensed by his 90 mph; a comic moment in the surgeon’s office when the doctor breezily told me to undress from the waist up - something I could not do in the dress I was wearing.  Liz and I quickly contemplated swapping outfits, but I ix-nayed the idea because I knew I would laugh too hard when the doctor walked back in to the sight of our little switcheroo.  

Come Saturday, I tried to drink the week away (wasn’t pretty.), I didn’t read or run or write.  I tried not to think, because when I did I cried.  I thought of my kids.  I cried.

Tonight I talked to the kids about the distinct possibility that I will not be able to finish out running this 1000 miles.  Later, Emma came to me and told me that she had an idea.  She wondered if maybe she could run the rest of the miles for me. I was, am, always will be absolutely staggered by this love.

Talking to my sister the other day, I carefully explained the situation.  I referred to “my cancer” for the first time, the ownership felt both powerful and terrifying.  I am a lucky woman.  From what we know, my cancer is contained and non aggressive, non invasive.  It is not the cancer that my sweet Jill had, it is not what Dana had.  But it is mine, and I have to look very clearly at what is ahead of me.  The only way out is through. 

Dad nailed it.