I Remember 2012

I tend to get pretty wistful about life before cancer.  It didn't seem especially carefree at the time, but in comparison I guess it was.  Back then, like most youngish adults in the first world, I expected to live pretty much forever and I took it for granted that I'd someday be an old lady bouncing grandchildren on my knee.  I may still get there, but if so, it's going to be through the wonders of science and a whole ton of things all lining up in just the right way.

Sometimes thinking about how things were back then (you know, waaaaaaaay back in 2012--but it sure does feel like a long time ago) makes me smile.  And sometimes it makes me cry. And a lot of the time I just kind of puzzle over everything that's happened between now and then and try and put it all together.

Yesterday, I pulled up the medical files I had requested last February when I was newly officially diagnosed as stage iv (at the time I had requested them for my second opinion appointment).  I wasn't planning on researching my whole breast cancer history at the time, I was really just looking for one specific fact.   But, it sure was a trip down the rabbit hole reading through all the scan reports, visit summaries, surgical reports, pathology reports, test reports, and so on dating from my clean mammogram in October 2011 to the April 2012 first cancer diagnosis to that diagnosis in February 2014.  Well, not really reading it all, more like skimming, reading, skimming again, actually--there are over 300 pages there, and they only pulled the things relating to breast cancer. It's a crazy big chunk of my life in there.

I saw things in the reports I don't think I knew before, although that may just be my pretty shoddy memory and a function of how much was going on all at once at those times.  It turns out I had a tumor marker test run in the summer of 2012 and it was only 9 points lower than my latest scores--of course, those 9 points make the difference between "elevated" and "normal range" but still, less than 10 points seems like it must be good, right?  I knew I had had a blood transfusion during my epic many hour surgery to remove and reconstruct, but if I knew my bloodtype at the time, I had since forgotten it (for the record, it's O+).  I'd also forgotten how many days I was in SICU (2 days) before they wheeled me in my bed around to the elevators and up to a regular floor, but I do remember how kind the nurses were and how the nurse who oversaw my transfer up to the regular floor told me the sunsets were just gorgeous from my new 6th floor room--she was absolutely right, too!

But a lot of the fascination for me was in seeing again how it all unfolded, remembering and being reminded of those early visits from the appointment summaries.  Starting with that first appointment where my gynecologic nurse practitioner felt the lumps I had discovered and ordered some tests, to the imaging, to the biopsy, to the various scans and planning appointment and procedures, assessments, treatments, and on and on and on.  

I know some people dislike the word "journey" applied to cancer, but reading through all that stuff, remembering how I started out not at all worried and things just kept moving farther and farther away from what I wanted, I'm thinking journey is about right.  Not a journey in the sense of "hero's journey" with a nice story arc of personal growth and increased ability and confidence.  More like the "what a long, strange trip it's been," kind of journey.

In many ways, I'm 100% still the same.  I'm in the same job, in the same house, loving the same family, cooking the same foods, holding the same faith, living the same life.  Even physically, I'm not that different.  There's cancer in my bones, sure, and scars on the outside, a million tiny surgical clips and other evidence on imaging scans, but it's not something most people can tell by looking at me or anything.  It's not a huge piece of my daily life that's different now, but it's a piece whose impact just keeps echoing back, forth, and all around into just about every corner of my formerly well-ordered life.  

I'm learning to live with the changes and I'm getting on with living a life and not being just cancer, but looking back at the woman who walked into the doctor's office in April 2012 and looking at the one who walked out of the doctor's office in January 2015 and will return again in February and March and April and May and on and on, thinking about everything that has happened between then, sometimes it just kind of floors me to look at how much everything has changed.