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Friday, April 13, 2012

Oh Child of Mine...


Most people treat you differently when you get cancer, but not your own children. Your own kids might shriek with joy when you arrive and cry when you leave, but they will also throw fits and misbehave just like any other day. They will make you feel like nothing has ever changed. And believe me, if you happen to be wallowing in self-pity, nothing will bring you out faster than a precocious three-year-old.

I was at home the other day on a precious leave of absence from the hospital. The first few times I had been home, my son would sob for me to stay, which of course always made me cry. So on this particular visit, I was dreading the emotional departure. We were eating dinner, and my son looked up at me with his big gorgeous eyes.

“Mommy, are you leaving soon?”

Bracing for the outburst, I nodded. “Yes, baby, I have to go back to the hospital for more medicine.”

He shrugged.  “Ok.”

Surprised by his nonchalance, I asked: “Why, honey? Do you want me to go to the hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Why would you want Mommy to go back to the hospital?”

 “Because then I get to watch Cars.”

My husband, in an attempt to stave off another fit about my departure, had promised him that they would watch Cars together after I left. My son might love me and miss me terribly, but the promise of animated talking cars is still way cooler than Mommy.

A few days later, he didn’t want my mom to leave (he has been having a very hard time with anyone leaving lately). He asked her why she had to go to the hospital too. She said it was so that Mommy didn’t have to be all alone.

His response? “Mommy’s not alone. She has all the doctors and nurses to keep her company.”

Oh child of mine. I love you madly.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

I Am Not Cancer


Many strange things happen when you are diagnosed with the big C. First, you feel like you are ejected from life. Suddenly deadlines don’t matter, jobs are unimportant, and everything you’ve been trying to accomplish drops away. As we drove home for one last visit with my kids before I started chemo, I watched everyone go about their daily lives, getting coffee, going running, buying groceries, and I was no longer a part of that. My life was ripped out from under me. I couldn’t kiss my son goodnight. I could no longer breastfeed my infant daughter. Everything was left unfinished.

Overnight, no one treats you like you anymore. Everyone is extra nice. Family and friends say “I love you” more often, they bring lattes and ice cream, they feed your children, and they even clean your house. This, I realize, is one of the biggest perks of being hospitalized: no more housework.

But as nice as people are, they also look at you like you’re dying. People treat you gently, like you are about to break. No one knows exactly what to say. But it’s ok to make bad jokes and laugh uproariously, even when you have cancer. Especially when you have cancer. Serious illness is scary and terrible and puts death right in your face. We have to laugh or we’ll never make it. Like one of my childhood friends recently said to me: cancer steals from you, no matter what the outcome. And one thing that cancer will try to steal is joy.

Cancer, of course, also steals your hair. (Well, technically it’s chemo that does that, but the end result is the same.) I realize that this may be different for everyone, but I was particularly attached to my long, curly blonde hair. When I started pulling it out in clumps, I sobbed. So I chopped it all off, just like the cancer-stricken heroine in a really dramatic film. Except that once it was all off, instead of crying hysterically, I couldn’t stop giggling. I looked like an electrocuted baby chick.[1] Right in time for Easter.

Then I realized that this is one more thing that cancer tries to steal: your identity. When strangers see your bald head, they think “cancer” before anything else. Instead of seeing you, people see illness. Suddenly, you are "that girl who got cancer," instead of everything else you’ve worked so hard to be. In the hospital you are a patient, put into the same blue gown as everyone else, often reduced to cell counts and prognoses and “unfavourable cytogenetics” (my own personal favourite).

But I am not my prognosis. I am not cancer.

And I don’t wear hospital gowns anymore.


[1] I must thank Sallie Astor Burdine, author of Who Needs Hair, for this particular image.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Someone else's life

This is the beginning of what I had hoped would be a short journey. Now it looks like I might be in for a fairly long haul. But I have never been one to quit something just because it is hard, so here we go.

I was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia on March 8, 2012. I have an amazing husband of nearly nine years, and together we have two children: a son who is nearly four, and a daughter who is 10 months old.

Needless to say, leukemia was not in my plan for 2012. In fact, I had enormous plans for 2012. I am halfway through a PhD in Political Science, specializing in children in armed conflict, and I had just transferred from Carleton University to the University of Minnesota, one of the top political science programs in the United States. I was planning to go to Minnesota in April to complete an exam and get my research proposal approved. Then we were going to spend the summer packing up our home, practicing Spanish, and preparing to move to Quito, Ecuador, where I would conduct my fieldwork for eight to 12 months.

That was my plan. Clearly, this is someone else's.

In February, I was snowboarding with my brothers and running up the hills around Vancouver. In March, I was hospitalized in Ottawa with extremely low blood counts, a raging fever, deep cough, sinus infection, and multiple other problems. I was put on anti-virals, two different antibiotics, and anti-fungal medication (among other drugs). I had a broncoscopy, two chest x-rays, a CT scan, an ultrasound, and a central line called a Hickman catheter inserted into my chest. (This last procedure I opted to do without sedation so I could see my kids immediately afterwards, and I have to say, I would not recommend doing that.) And all of this happened only one week after my husband returned from several months overseas.

Now I am not one to whine, but this was by far the scariest thing I had ever experienced. I have always scoffed at the TV show House because I never believed that multiple doctors would ever be attending one single patient. Yet there I was, with four doctors in my room, all looking dramatically grim. No one knew what was wrong with me, or if they did, they weren't telling. Until they did. It was acute leukemia. In a few days I would have to start chemo. My mind went numb. The doctor was still talking but all I heard was "leukemia." I thought that it must be a mistake, that this must be someone else's life.

First of all, I am not the kind of person who is supposed to get cancer. I eat ridiculously healthy things like quinoa and kale. I use organic, chemical-free lotions and make-up. I run daily, and I run hard. I do yoga, I lift weights, I take vitamins, and I drink tons of water. Admittedly, my life was overloaded with stress, but still... in those lists of "how to prevent cancer," I could check off almost every item. And yet, there I was, on the leukemia ward fighting for my life.

Cancer, it turns out, does not necessarily care if you eat kale.

Meanwhile, I had been put on isolation due to my chest infection, and that meant that all of my visitors had to wear gloves and masks with visors. My children were not (and still are not) allowed to visit, and I was not allowed to leave my room. The physiotherapist saw my eyes go a little wild at the thought of being so confined, and she kindly brought a stationary bike into my room. So every morning, through the chemo and afterwards, I dragged my IV pole over to the window, put on my ipod with my favourite running mix, and got on the bike. Moving made me feel more human, like I was still part of the living, like I was still me.

Yet I also had to giggle at how ridiculous it all was. There I was, listening to music that I used to run with daily, and wearing shoes that I had worn when I broke 20 minutes in a 5k race. And now I was pedalling slowly on a stationary bike, in my hospital gown, attached to an IV dumping poison into my veins. So much for that organic diet.

But I am still here. And I am still moving. I will not be taken down so easily.