So the little seed to write was planted by my dear friend Amy, during a laughing session. The kind of session where tears were streaming down my face, I was doubled over and immensely grateful that my latest run of Pilates had strengthened my core a bit. Not an uncommon scene in my life but what was very uncommon for me, at this particular time, was that we were laughing through a conversation framed by my recent breast cancer diagnosis.
But is it ok to laugh at cancer? Cancer isn’t funny. I lost my dad to cancer and in the last several years, I have had numerous people close to me diagnosed; resulting in various treatments and outcomes stretching across the whole spectrum. But when I got my diagnosis, I felt an intense need to get control wherever I could, to right my world! And I had decided if laughter was the best medicine then I would dose myself every possible moment! Like EVERY possible moment! Seriously. EVERY. POSSIBLE. MOMENT!
Amy mentioned that if I could see a way to laugh through something like this, then I really needed to try to put it all in a book. So… I did what I usually do. And that is, wait for it….. PROCRASTINATE!!!
I journaled for about 4 or 5 pages, in roughly 15 different super cute journals, with the most inspiring and motivational covers ever! I brain stormed ideas off and on. And then I polled friends on whether it was a good idea to even write for probably well over a year. Heck, I even Feng Shui-ed the hell out of the creativity bagua of my house before I sat down to really embrace my writing. (FYI… You’ll soon learn that I do love me some feng shui!) (Additional FYI… through the passing of time, my creativity area is super cluttered again. So if you don’t like this blog, can we just blame it on all the crap in that corner and not my writing???) But to share my story I need to back it up a bit.
It was over the summer of 2016, and I had just completed my first official year back to the world of employment, after a sixteen year hiatus. The previous years I had been a stay at home mom to our two boys. During the previous year of 2015, my marriage had hit a really rough patch and we ended up separating. Our marriage was set up that I did all things home and child related and he did all things work and financial related. And most of the time, I felt that it really worked for us. And then suddenly… it didn’t!!! And even though my boys were teenagers at the time, it was still CRAZY busy to raise them on my own, go back to work, take care of the house, try to help my oldest navigate his senior year and explore colleges and handle everything else life wants to toss at you.
I was 41 at the time and had procrastinated a year or two on doing my first mammogram. I had done the baseline test in my late 30’s but not my official 40-year-old “glamour shots” so to speak. Seriously though, I was still in the young category of risk, we didn’t have any family history, and I was in pretty good shape, so there was time to still get it done at some point. After all, I had just had a near rock star kind of checkup from my PCP just a few months prior. Like all of my numbers were in perfection zone and I should teach a class, kind of check up! And although I wasn’t stellar about self checks, I’d poke around in the shower while soaping up once or twice a year; and I’d think about how AWESOME I was to remember this task! Then I’d pause to give myself a moment of internal applause and then perhaps my thoughts would drift to something like changing the air filters in the house too, so I’d REALLY be crushing it in life!
Luckily for me, this time my mammogram appointment was just set up for me by my PCP’s office because, realistically if it were left up to me, it might still be on my to-do list. Look, I’m fully aware that I’m not what you’d call “organized.” And I realize that my life’s path often takes a few detours. I’ve also become accustomed to my friends shouting “Squirrel!” just because my focus drifts ever so slightly or perhaps sometimes it’s more of a Fast and Furious kind of drifting. AND I was always aware that mammograms are super important. But do you know what else is super important to busy moms? The laundry, the house, the orthodontist appointments, the lacrosse games, the FAFSA forms, the days that you have to take off work for being sick or having sick kids, and trying not to take time off work for a doctors checkup when you aren’t even sick, and… you get it right?
Well rock star Kristen decided to make time for said mammogram and not cancel it. And rock star Kristen ended up getting a call to come back and do a repeat mammogram because they saw something. They’d like to look again to see if they can get a better idea of what they were seeing in a certain spot. Was it a cyst, calcification or something else? But it wasn’t something to worry about. And I genuinely wasn’t worried. Then I got the call to come back and do a biopsy just to check and rule out some things, but not to worry. I still wasn’t worried. Well… then I got the call to come in so they could discuss the results. “Okay???” And then she asked if I could make sure someone drove me to the appointment. “Well ssshhhit…!” And yet, there was still a part of me that was quite hopeful that the test was inconclusive and they just wanted to err on the side of caution and take it out anyway. So I arrived that same day with my mother filling the spot of requested driver and I heard the official “I’m very sorry to have to tell you this but it is cancer.”
So here is why I will forever be a cheerleader for mammograms!
- It was my 1st official mammogram.
- I was only 41.
- At the time had ZERO family history of breast cancer.
- Later on I took genetic testing and nothing genetically tied to breast cancer or any other cancer showed up.
- Despite the tumor being slightly over 2 cm (about an inch) I NEVER felt it! AND knowing the location of the tumor and the size the oncologist, 2 different cancer surgeons and my plastic surgeon could not feel it!
- The particular cancer that I had could be one of the more aggressive breast cancers.
What I was facing was a Stage 2 or 3, HER2 positive and hormone negative tumor. They couldn’t give me a stage because besides the tumor there were several areas of speckling around the tumor that were not biopsied so they didn’t know whether to include that as an area affected. Plus, there was a suspicious looking lymph node near my underarm that might have cancer in it too. (Spoiler alert… it did.)
If you’ve been unfortunate enough to hear those words or have someone close to you that has or has had a cancer diagnosis, then you know the MASSIVE amount of doctor appointments that become your immediate life. Suddenly carving out time for one measly little mammogram seemed pretty trivial! And all of these appointments had and continue to have very serious undertones to them, and of course they should be taken seriously. But here’s the problem… I’m not that much of a serious person. And the one thing I personally DID NOT want more than anything else, was for someone’s energy to change around me and get all down, somber or serious! Remember my medicine of choice??? I had resolved to up the laughter in my life 110%, to fill my post chemo recliner TV time with comedies, hilarious movies, stand up comedy acts, and to flood my life with people and stories that would support my optimism. I figured one of two things would happen. I’d either create an atmosphere strongly conducive to healing or, if beating cancer wasn’t in my cards; then my life was still full of laughter and maybe I’d leave some great stories with my loved ones!
I started to chip away at all of my doctors appointments with my mom in tow. She insisted on coming to every single one of them. Seriously, God love her, every single one! And there were oh soooo many of them! Perhaps it was the motherly love that runs deep in her soul, or perhaps it’s my squirrel like focus to important details that she didn’t trust. Either way I’d joke with myself, my mom, nurses, doctors and staff. I’d laugh at my own jokes and then laugh at my mother’s and or doctor’s reaction. For example, once my mom got ever so teary at a surgical consult and said that she wished she could trade places with me or “donate” to my cause because she didn’t need them (“them” meaning boobs.) I replied something to the effect of… “Don’t you dare give me her old lady boobs!!!! We don’t even know what kind of shelf life those things have in them AND they are way lower than what I would want anyway!” Initially the sheer “deer in the headlights” look from the first surgical doctor was enough for me to double over in my hospital gown. (Which, squirrel moment… Can I say that hospital gowns for a breast cancer patient are a complete and total waste of laundry! “Please take everything off from the waist up and leave the gown open in the front.” “Oh thank God!!! I’m so glad that I get to cover my back and upper arms! Because that could have been TOTALLY embarrassing!” But anyway, I digress…)
My mom has a great sense of humor too; I wouldn’t have outed her publicly like this if I hadn’t gotten a smidge of her humorous DNA amongst my own. I also quickly began to realize that the doctors and nurses grew to welcome our bit of randomness in their day. Let’s be honest, they have a TOUGH job most days. So there were jokes about the robes, a seemingly endless supply of boob jokes, jokes about my hair, jokes about going “full Barbie” (because yes, often the nipples go away too.) I had jokes on jokes on jokes.
Now if you have made it thus far in reading this blog, then you’ll realize that I probably already qualify for the “wordy blog” category. And because it is my hope and feeling to spread a little bit of laughter amongst a such a somber backdrop, I plan to do a series of blogs though the next year or so to highlight some of our laughs. I’ve been editing this one blog for oh so very long! So by breaking it up into smaller stories I’m hoping that it will work better.
I’ll also state that I’ve sat on this one for a secondary reason. And that is because I know several people personally that fought like hell to beat cancer and weren’t as successful. In fact, I just learned of another truly dear soul that lost her battle not too long ago. But she was an amazingly optimistic person and I know she’d say, “Don’t you dare not publish this on my account! After all the laughs that we had!?!?”
I truly mean no disrespect to any of you wonderful souls out there. Yes, cancer SUCKS!!!! It will take your hair, your appetite, your energy, perhaps parts of your body, perhaps even all of your body. But it does not get to take the essence of your soul and who you are! And you choose what resides in your soul. For me it was and remains to be laughter over cancer!
I deeply wish laughter and peace in all forms, for those diagnosed with cancer, all of their friends and family and the medical teams that work and walk amongst us! Much love to you all! And happiness and laughter wherever and whenever you can find it!
XOXO,
Kristen
Forty Free Life? 