So I joined a writers group here in Atlanta. It’s amazing to belong to something that feels so adult and cool. There’s about 10-12 people that come. We meet every other Monday at a coffee shop in Roswell. Which is about 20 minutes south of where I live. You bring stuff that you are working on, enough copies to go around, and then you read. And then people critique you.
My first time there I read a couple of my cancer posts. After I got done I looked around and everyone just had this look on their faces like “Holy Freak” They had some great comments and suggestions. With one being that I don’t post anymore cancer stories until I’m done with it as a work. Being that I probably hold back knowing that you as an audience know me so personally and sometimes that its scary to let it all out. So for the time being I’m going to write, write and write some more about my cancer but it just won’t be available until its completed. That being said I need to let you know something that I’ve been wanting to tell you.
I always feel that I’m going to die any day. Maybe because I tend to be a little over dramatic. Maybe because of my history. Whatever it is I always feel the need to tie up loose ends. And if anything happens to me before I get my cancer story out… I would want you to know at least this one part of it. Because I feel that its the miracle of my life.
Mid November 1994
A Friday Morning
I had been cancer free for 2 weeks. I was still skinny. Still bald. Still very sick. We had made the trip back to Primary Children’s for a check up to see how everything was going. I had to drink the CT dye again, get that spinal tap again, more blood work, and more x rays. After a half day of testing I was sent out to the waiting room while the doctors kept my mom back with them. Then after about 30 minutes they brought me back.
In 2 weeks of being off chemotherapy a growth had appeared in my lungs and was about the size of a golf ball. I saw the scan of my lungs against the lighted screen. My eyes had seen enough scans of my body to know what looked right and what didn’t. The fuzzy white blob at the bottom of my left lung didn’t look right. The cancer had come back.
They told us to go home and have the weekend to ourselves and that we could come back on Monday and we would talk about where to go from here. No one explained it to me but I could see it all over their faces. I was not going to make it. My body was as beaten down as it could get. I had no strength left to battle another round of chemo.
I waited in the car in the parking lot. I almost feel like I’m there right now. Laying in the back seat, door hanging open so the breeze could come through, my legs hanging over the edge. Right up against the Wasatch mountains, the fall sun being baked into the maroon velvety interior. I stared up into the car’s ceiling and for some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about a kitten my family owned when I was 7 years old. Kylie.
She was named after Kylie Minogue. You know “C’mon baby do the loco-motion” Well Kylie was the cutest kitten in the world. We brought her up with us when we visited some family friends up in Liberty Utah. When we went to go inside their house we left her in the car. A little while later when we went back to get her she was gone. Being kids we ran off to do something else. We found out later some lady who was also at this friends house had got into our car, had not seen Kylie in there, and as she shut the door Kylie was trying to jump out and it squashed her head. I don’t know what happened to her. But one of the adults probably scooped her up and threw her in the field or something. I couldn’t stop thinking that afternoon that she had never had a proper kitty funeral and that made me really sad.
Over the weekend I rested and hung out with my family. No one talked about the situation. I don’t even know if Stephanie and Austin were told there was a situation. But I thought about the situation the whole time. Which was that my life was coming to an end.
Every time I did something I thought “That is the last time I’ll do that”… “That’s the last time I’ll watch Mrs. Doubtfire” “This is the last time I’ll be able to pet Cindy” ”This is the last time I’ll read Little Women”
On Sunday I wanted to touch everything. Press my palms against every object that made up my life. I remember standing in our yard. The weather was warm and crisp. Like it was Thanksgiving and an impromptu game of flag football was going to start right where I stood. A big bunch of college boys would come running toward me and I would be crushed and become the dust under their feet.
I walked over to my aspen tree and pressed my forehead against its trunk. Then I wrapped my arms around it and hugged it as hard as I could. I didn’t have the energy to climb it, to sit in the lawn chair that I had hauled up so many years before which was balanced between two of the limbs so perfectly. This tree had been my escape. And I was going to miss it.
I touched the picnic table where Stephanie and I lip synced b-52 songs, opened and closed the mail box a couple of times and then took a long walk out in the fields behind my house. and thought “This is the last time I will walk out here”
I feel silly to admit that I did this even though I was only a kid. But honestly that Sunday felt like my last day on earth. And I didn’t know what else to do with it. It was one of the saddest days I’ve ever lived.
The next morning when we drove down to Salt Lake I prayed the whole way. “Please don’t let me die. I don’t want to go. I just want to live more.” Over and over. Over and over. “Please don’t let me die.”
I stared out the window and watched the hills and fields pass along with all the moments that had made up my life and all the moments I had imagined what I wanted my life to be, a singer, a dancer, a movie star. More importantly a wife, a mother.
When we got to the hospital I went into further testing. More x rays. More dye. They wanted a full CT scan of just my lungs this time. More blood work. After all the testing was done my mom and I went to go get some lunch while they looked over everything. We were quiet as we ate and then made our way back to the oncology office waiting room.
While we were waiting Dr. Bruggars suddenly came rushing out to us which was unusual since usually a nurse called us back. Her face was so overcome with happiness and excitement that it literally shocked my heart. I could feel all the energy of life coming back into me. Something was up. My mom and I both stood suddenly and Dr. Bruggars just rushed to me and held me. But not for long because then the hug turned into tugging and she pulled us back into an examination room.
A scan of my lungs was up against a lighted screen. The blue black x ray looked miraculous. Like it wasn’t an image of my lungs, but instead the virgin mary and a tear would coming running out of her eye any second.
“It’s gone.” Dr Bruggars said before we even sat down. And from a distance I could see that my lungs looked perfectly healthy. No white lumpy growth in the lower left lung.
They couldn’t explain it.
The cancer had been there on Friday. Not just been there - floating around harmlessly. It had BEEN THERE - a force to be reckoned with the growth it had already succeeded in the 2 weeks. The CT scans had shown it, the x rays, even my blood count showed increased white cells proving that the cancer had returned.
On Monday it was gone. Completely. My blood count was normal, my x rays normal, my CT normal.
Not many people know this story. I think my sister, my brother, and of course my mom since she was there. Because truly its a miracle what happened. and sometimes miracles to this extent seem hokey and made up.
I love my life. Not just as it is right now but everything that has happened. I love the people in my life. I’ve had a lot of hurt in my life from the people I love most. But that just comes with the territory of loving I guess. It’s okay to forgive. It’s okay to move on. (ps Celine Dion just called and wants the lyrics back to all the songs she’s ever sung!) anyway Thanks for being in my life. I really mean that. Everything I am is because of family and friends supporting me and accepting me.
