One year out

I was in my friend’s kitchen just the other day when she mentioned to all of us it’d been a year since she moved in.  No way, I thought.  And then I looked around, remembering standing in that spot with her exactly one year ago.

I’ll always remember it was a Tuesday because I’d been waiting since Thursday for the results of my biopsy.  I’m pretty calm, I don’t really get too riled up about things.  But I could focus on little else as I brought her closet’s contents to their new alcove.  As I put away bowls.  As we discovered the cool spice rack behind pillars by her oven.  As we made our way up and down all her stairs.  As she gave me the tour of her gorgeous new house.  I know we talked.  But my mind was a million miles away as I wondered what the year would look like for our family.

Of all the days of the past year, these were some of the most difficult.  Just waiting to find out.  Not knowing the outcome, how long you’ll have to deal with it, what it will entail.  And the scariest of all the questions I had to ask, am I up to the task?

I remember similar feelings many, many years ago as I was waiting to see if we might really be pregnant.  Once we decided to transition to parenthood, we found ourselves waiting for months with no luck; we had no idea if this was simply going to be one of our trials in life or if it was just going to take some time.  And so, as I’ve approached my one-year mile-marker, I was thinking how similar it was in many ways to what I experienced my first year with a new pregnancy and baby.

I remember the relief in both cases.  Odd to say.  But it’s only because knowing is easier than not knowing for me.  In the case of a pregnancy, we were elated.  But I was scared to death.  Would I have a miscarriage? Would I be able to manage a healthy, term pregnancy? I’ve never felt that great around kids.  How would I be as a mother?  Were we ready? I remember finding Todd the next day at school and crying to him.  We were so poor.  And young.  And naive.  And unprepared.  I felt nearly the same as I cried to him one night in the bathroom after we’d found out I had cancer.  He just loaned me his shoulder and I let myself be sad for a minute.  Would this ruin us financially?  We’re so young to be dealing with something so serious.  We have no idea what we’re doing.  We’re not ready for a trial like this.  I know what you’re thinking.  Babies are good, cancer is bad.  But in my mind, scared as I was, cancer seemed more straight-forward; nothing about parenting is clear-cut.  

We had decisions to make.  In both cases I read a bit.  Way more about pregnancy than cancer.  To this day I still don’t know what kind of cancer I had.  You’d have to ask Todd or my sister.  But I had faith in the experts.  I listened to their advice.  And then we trusted ourselves to decide, both with cancer and each birth.  No, I’d like to have an epidural.  This time we’ll go with a midwife.  And a bilateral mastectomy.  I’d like to leave my baby in the nursery for as long as possible.  We’ll bottle feed along with nursing.  And use cloth diapers.  Node removal first.  I know that will mean two surgeries.  And yes, I’d like immediate reconstruction please.  I felt good with all of it.  I feel like we listened to what experts had to share and then moved forward, making decisions that felt right to us in both cases.

Both scenarios—a little baby and a little 1 cm ball of cancer—required loads of medical visits.  I felt like I was always running to the doctor the first year or so.  Check ups, blood work, prodding, touching, disrobing, being vulnerable—showing so many people my body, exposing my ideas and myself as a mom.  I have to admit, I’ve kind of loved most of it.  I love engaging with a variety of people, great nurses, advocates, doctors, caregivers.  I love being touched, even if it’s just getting my blood pressure taken. I think we all love having our babies admired.  You know I love questions. Confirmation that my baby was healthy.  That my gross scars were healing appropriately.  It fascinated me to no end.

Nothing was as soothing as having Todd with me at all these key appointments, in the hospital, holding the baby and my hand, helping me eat, sleeping on the little sofa next to me, checking in on me every morning and night.

I don’t how I was so unprepared for the pain I’d encounter with childbirth and surgery, but how could I have known?  I just felt so disheartened and discouraged.  I felt battered by both, like I’d never feel normal again.  But I trusted other women who’d endured the same, and I trusted my body to be able to heal itself.

As expected, sleep eluded me for a long, long time in both cases. It hurt to lie on my back incisions.  I couldn’t sleep soundly with a baby in the room.  I wanted sleep to be my escape, and yet it was really just another hard part.  Both giving birth and undergoing surgery wore me out.  Grumpy.  Irritable?  Resentful, even though I knew better.  

Getting ready took forever.  I’d gear up with special baby soap and lotion, tiny washcloths and diapers.  I’d brace myself for my own shower every day.  My breasts were so sore in both cases.  The water, even the air, was painful. But after my surgery, my back was wounded too. I cried in the shower.  My secret place where tears would coalesce with warm water and no one would know how really weak I felt.  I felt discouraged as I’d see my misshapen and sore body in the mirror.  A year later it’s still hard.  Not to shower.  To look.

Even dressing after both hospital stays required a new skill set. Comfort was my top priority.  Along with what would work.  Most of us don’t come home from giving birth to putting on our jeans, and all I wanted to wear after my mastectomy was zip-up sweatshirts since my arms didn’t work and so I’d have pockets for my drains.  Just as I had to learn about unsticking my baby from his messy undershirts, I still spend a lot of time trying to unstick myself from the tops I’ve pulled over my head.

As we all know, the initial sharp pains eventually subside.  Every few days I realized I felt a little less damaged.  I’m used to the tight feeling around my rib cage.  I got used to nursing.  My body was mine but different.  Week after week though, I would feel more and more like myself.   I learned first-hand that healing simply takes time.  Millions of women have been through both birth and cancer.  I’m certainly not the first to have blazed these trails.

In both cases, I knew it would take a year.  I hated thinking about it in those terms.  So long to be dealing with the ramifications of a tiny lump, to think of sleepless nights with a crying baby.  But we all know the difference a year makes.  People still ask me all the time how I’m doing, and it’s easy to talk in terms of procedures.  But I want to ask new moms all the time how they’re doing, what they’ve learned, how it’s really been.  But no one wants to admit how hard it is.

I constantly see women who are in the middle of both—mothering infants and dealing with the effects of cancer.  I know it sounds trite, but I honestly want to hug them.  I know first-hand what it’s like to be tired, worried, discouraged, excited, hopeful, helpless, relieved.  I know the miracle our bodies are, that they can come back.  I know what it’s like to need help.  To hate the weak feeling of not being able to do it on my own.  To want to heal quickly so that I can help someone else.

Just the other day we were walking into Target behind a youngish woman and a small girl.  The woman was completely bald.  I felt it all over again.  The guilt.  I wouldn’t in a million years admit to her that I’d had cancer at one time.  I barely scratched the surface of what she’s been through.  I admired her from afar, her strength, her courage, her obvious hope in the face of trial.   My sister has a new friend, a sweet little boy; his mom has stage 4 breast cancer.  I can’t even pretend to know what that feels like, the pain and sadness and heartache she and her family are going through.  That’s tough cancer.  The real kind, in my mind.

I feel the same when I see moms who are dealing with children with autism, severe physical disabilities, learning challenges, children who test a mom’s every awake minute, moms who get hardly any respite.  Mothers who have adopted children, who have willingly taken on the conflicts that come with some of these children.  Mothers who are doing it all on their own.  I had it so easy with my babies.  Easy, non-eventful pregnancies for the most part.  Easy, non-colicky babies who eventually learned to sleep through the night.  I had a supportive and useful husband, all the resources I needed, friends, church members, a grandma next door with subsequent babies.  We had the easiest case scenario by any stretch.

Women like this one with no hair, as well as these heroine mothers, impress me to no end.  They are the ones who have been in the trenches.  They know what it’s like to really hurt, to be exhausted and tested to their limits, to long for reprieve, to wonder if it will be worth it, to ask over and over why.  And how.

It’s humbling, so humbling.

I have no way of knowing what her details are—or what any of the women I see are really dealing with—but she reminded me that in every single way I took the easy way out.  That this past year really wasn’t harder than any of the others.  I’m not down-playing that each of these first years had their challenges compared to what I’d been used to, but in both cases it was just different set of months, a chance to see life from a new angle.  By all accounts, an exquisite, unexpected blessing of a year.  Both of them.