The Elusive BFD

It's 6am and Devon's alarm buzzes. Ugh, seriously? After the festival of lights storm to the eyeballs all night...? Fine. I'm up. 

It's 6:30am and Devon nudges me awake. "Honey, today's the day." I sit straight, climb out of bed, and head for the shower. 

I methodically peel off each wrinkled article of clothing and kick it gently to the corner avoiding the medicine cabinet mirror at all costs. At this hour it's for my sanity. I have to protect her, too. Without a drop of makeup or hair accoutrements to help fein a picture of health, it's all just too... real.

The shower feels like baptism. The hot water rains against my peach-fuzz-at-best and I want to call it therapy. But the word is now tainted. Overused. Ready to be shelved. I begin mourning the loss of endlessly long hot showers. The list of things to do has simply evaporated -- Conditioner? Irrelevant. Shaving? Irrelevant. Shampoo? Optional. So I invent replacements... triple washing my face, triple washing my body (once for bar soap, once for body wash, once for sugar scrub) just to buy time and linger in my steamy escape.

As each scent wafts through my nostrils, I wonder if the book I read on chemotherapy advice was right... Will every one of these nauseate me later as they bring to mind memories of this experience? Was I wrong to keep buying each deliciously perfumed beauty product I could get my hands on?... I give up. I did the best I could do. Including investing in self care. I'll just start from scratch when this is all over. Which it probably is. BRB, razor blade, can't believe I actually miss you...

Standing in the mirror I run my skin care routine quickly to not only wake up my face but, more importantly, switch off the image burning into my eyes of a sick, aging woman. I work fast in the hopes that the magic ingredients can offset the menopausal and medical damage chemo has caused and restore the youth I shouldn't have been denied... just yet at least. That's better. A little makeup now and you can face the world. 

I dress in my most confidence-inspiring uniform: something I like to refer to as "off-duty model". It's nothing more than a basic tank and basic denim. Just always seemed to be what I'd see young Cindy Crawford or Linda Evangelista sporting whenever the paparazzi would catch them just leaving some magnificent photo shoot heading back to their everyday lives. It tells the world I believe I don't have to try too hard. So, I don't.  

I take a final look at my sad veiny scalp, then cover it with my most expensive wig. Time to slay the day. A smile doesn't come hard. Mirror selfie - check. 

We arrive at the breast cancer center and I become immediately aware I'm strutting inside with just a bit too much joy like a high school senior that's only running down their last days in school for posterity sake. Have I counted too many chickens? Soon I'm being pointed toward radiology, leaving Devon to his waiting room "mobile office", and heading for the second strip-down of the day. 

I stand in the dressing room and snap another "you've got this" pose selfie, if only to document the attempt for some memory lane ride I know I'll take years later. I'm a little less reluctant to disrobe this time after having just reached the pinnacle of my morning confidence. Ugh... off you go, I guess. Then I begin smirking and shaking my head reviewing the layers of communal hospital garb I've been instructed to put on. Fashion, this is not. 

Okay... plastic wrap disposable underwear? This oughtta be good. I grab the bag and imagine the jokes my husband would start in with... edible? I think not. I unwrap the two-pack - what, is the second some kind of souvenir? - and step into a surprisingly sexy pair of boyshorts. Get OUT! You just earned a point for the day, Stephanie Spielman! 

I turn to my open-front ribbon-tie top, bottom, and robe. Oh, Gap girls, this takes the cake. I'm about to cinch it!! And I begin stepping into my blue and white patterned hand-me-downs. Suddenly my smile flattens and inside jokes dry up. I can feel them. Them. The other women. The ones who'd shared these gowns, this moment. The ones who'd lost the fight. I take a deep breath and slow down. I think of the ones I know are still fighting... battered, bruised, and more than just kicked in the gut like me. Just as I begin choking up, my game face returns. I'm so close now. 

Prince’s “I Would Die For You” plays above. Mmm… maybe need to rethink that playlist, guys. 

I'm escorted to a cold, curtain-wrapped room surrounded by the incessant drone of knocking as if construction workers are busy just outside a nearby cracked window. A young nurse inspects my ravaged veins then finds a hidden, untapped corner in my left elbow willing to make her day a bit easier. This should be the last poke for a LONG time. 

We commiserate about the lack of sleep the night before from the storms. For a moment I feel normal suspending belief that I'm the cancer patient and she's my attending nurse. "Is that a hairpiece?" she asks. And the feeling dissipates like a mirage on a hot summer road. Hairpiece? Ouch. "Yes," I reply now feeling both dejected and patronized given my status as a post-chemo MRI appointment. She asks me to remove it and I oblige. Seeing it lay on the table next to needles and tubes suddenly transforms it from magical to medical. Just another device. It'll be done too, soon. Farewell, baby pink bob. You've served me well. Time to serve someone else.

I sit to wait my turn. I feel naked - no off-duty model, no pink bob, no jewelry. Just me. And the desire to lie to myself that I'm not sick clings stronger than the lump against my chest. Likely because it's so inescapably true.

It's my turn to enter the room covered in magnet warning signs. I'm offered a hat to help keep warm. Shivering, I accept. I'm handed a hairnet and look down at it within my palm for a moment if only to make sure I didn't miss the joke. 

A long tanning-bed-looking device greets me and I'm invited to lay face down with breasts exposed, head down, and arms outstretched above me like a rotisserie chicken ready to spin through the grocery store heat lamps. I inadvertently flash both nurses helping me situate myself, then internally roll my eyes for still feeling sheepish. Who HASN'T seen my breasts by now?! Maybe I should just give up, go all-in, and photograph them for the cover of their going away party invitations, $hit... 

An about-to-pop expectant mother nurse asks me what music I'd like to enjoy during my magnetizing experience. I request John Mayer, a voice that reminds me of college. Days spent roaming campus in blissful solitude oscillating between reading Italian classics in sun-drenched grassy parks, walking aimlessly through historic buildings, and returning Dewey Decimal spines to infinite shelves as a main library employee. Quite possibly the best job I've ever carried. My personal heaven: wall-to-wall mahogany, two-story tall ceilings. quiet whispers, and more books than you could consume in a lifetime. A place I'd much rather be now.

Sandwiched between nurses and slung like a pig to the spit, they gently press plugs into each of my ears, then cover them with headphones. How odd, doesn't that defeat the purpose? I'm handed a ball to squeeze as an emergency ejector seat, they swiftly leave, call out a few warnings, and I remind myself it's only twenty minutes of minor discomfort. Arms, please don't fall asleep. Please.

The music kicks in and like an amusement park ride I slide backwards inside the tube almost immediately. Thank GOD this is me and not my mother. The claustrophobia would end this immediately. And my head starts to spin. A little more. I begin to see stars. I take a deep breath - 1, 2, 3... The spinning slows. Slower still. And I'm through it. Okay, whoa. I am her daughter. And yet, here I am. A few minutes closer to freedom. 

The knocking from the machine around me is deafening and I'm reminded the justification for earbuds. John Mayer sounds two exit ramps away. The pounding drowns him out, yet he fights to remind me my body is a wonderland. Every eight notes his guitar pierces through and I'm grateful. I'll take those fleeting carefree memories any day but most especially this one. 

Just as my arms and hands go numb, the slide pulls me back to starting position. Let this be the last ride. I was never a thrill-seeker. I'd like to be done now. It's been real, it's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun.

The next hour blurs by as we swig back coffees and breakfast to pass time, then slingshot to the long-awaited appointment with my surgical oncologist to answer the big FAT questions: Am I done with chemo? Has it all done its job? Am I going to be okay?     

A nurse enters my room less perky than usual. "Did someone contact you about your doctor's emergency? She won't be able to see you today." I nod as I'd only half digested the message hitting my inbox just minutes earlier explaining my surgeon had been called into clinic. I'd assumed it was another patient needing something serious and life-saving, so I'd already let it go. 

"Her basement flooded." As the words floated from her mouth to my brain for computation, I was certain I had misunderstood. I blinked a few times as an inaudible form of comprehension as my mind raced with internal dialogue of the misfortune. "She will not be in communication today. We're so sorry." How and why is a flooding basement more important than me knowing the fate of my health?! Of my life?! Or at least my summer with my babies?!? I calmly suppress the conflict bubbling up inside me. The nurse is just the messenger and I'm not about to unload my rage-filled disappointment on her, especially given my gratitude for her elected profession and its profound necessity in my life and so many others. 

We drive in silence back home. My big dream of a large wood-fired Margherita pizza washed down with too much prosecco is replaced with a home-heated frozen meal rich with regrets. I sit down to my laptop and work through it pretending my life is no different than a simple five months prior.

It's 5pm and my phone rings. "Hi, Leah. We've had a chance to review your MRI results. Before starting chemo, your tumor was 2.8cm. Now after four rounds, it is 1.1cm. That's good progress, but it's still significantly invading your pectoral wall. The surgical oncologist and medical oncologist will need to discuss whether or not an additional two rounds of chemo can help us make more progress. You will get a call tomorrow or the day after." And I breathe. In and out. And hold back tears. 

My logical and emotional brain begin duking it out. Like a slow-motion Rocky movie. Spit and blood fly as each side exchanges blows. My remission party! My trip to Italy! My July! Oh, shut your mouth! It's only two more rounds, you ungrateful waste! Do you KNOW how many women fight for a YEAR or more?!? But I was about to start getting my hair back! You vain piece of excrement! Your HAIR?!? How about the fact that you didn't have to have any LYMPH nodes removed that you could NEVER get back!?!? Or how about a hysterectomy like so many other women in your shoes?!? But I was about to be donneee.... WAIT!! Maybe this doesn't mean I absolutely WILL have to do more!?!! Maybe it just means MAYBE!!??! Oh, right, good call, let's take shortcuts after all this time being smart... 

And I'm spent. Just done. I turn on my opera classics playlist and melt my mind away to another place. Somewhere filled with stories and possibilities and poetry. And no thrill rides.