Tag: M.A.S.C.

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As for heaven…

Today I received yet another card in the mail from my mother-in-law’s hairdresser, which makes this post as good a place as any to acknowledge that I haven’t gotten through this alone. Not at all. My mother-in-law’s hairdresser’s name is Angie; I’ve never met her and she lives two hours away, in the town where my husband grew up (she actually gave him his first haircut!). But, since my mother-in-law shared my diagnosis with her several months ago, I’ve received so many sweet and encouraging cards from this woman. And it hasn’t just been her. I literally cannot count the number of folks who have surfaced from so many different corners of my life to offer their support and well wishes in some way–my students, their parents, my daughter’s daycare center, my dental hygienist, my colleagues, my friends, my family, even strangers. It’s floored me, in fact. So, whenever someone comments that I seem to be handling things rather well, or that I’m brave, I’m reluctant to take much credit. It’s not hard to be brave when you’re bolstered by the love and concern of so many people, as I have been.

Reflecting on this now reminds me of when I was driving home from having my blood drawn for my first PET and CT scans, just after my initial diagnosis. I felt very terrified and alone; thoughts of death crowded my consciousness (as is common after learning that you have cancer). What about heaven, I remember thinking to myself. It just sounds too good to be true… But you could also say the same of this life.

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Radiation: One week down, five to go

Today, I’m feeling better than I was. There’s a sense of accomplishment in getting over the hurdle that has been my first week of treatment. I know I still have a long way to go, but the past three months have already felt like a marathon of sorts. It’s helped tremendously to start seeing my therapist again. I first sought him out ten years ago, when I was deep in the trenches of graduate school. His office has changed location three times in the decade since then, and he’s helped me weather a number of storms over the years (postpartum depression and insomnia being a big one).

During our session yesterday, I was describing all of the strictures that have suddenly been placed on my life–the death mask, for one; the daily radiation appointment at 3pm; the host of other medical appointments that keep me bouncing from one doctor to another; the weird oral hygiene and physical therapy regimens; the temporary bans on alcohol and getting pregnant (ha! not something I necessarily want to do, but something I resent not having the choice to do), etc. But then, in the meandering course of our conversation, I realized all of the ways in which I’ve loosened up a bit, too. I’m reading four different books at once–something I never used to do. It always felt inefficient and oddly adulterous, like I was breaking a rule or something. I’m writing here in real time, when I formerly considered writing something that you labored over, privately, until you had the best possible rendition of what you wanted to say (and you had to know this, beforehand), sharing it only with a hypercritical cadre of editors and advisors. I’ve started drawing again for the first time in many years, I’ve had people over to our house even though it’s messy, and I’ve let go of certain vanities (speaking without a lisp and having a scarless neck, for example). Whatever. These things are a record of what I’ve been through–maybe even signs of an incipient transformation. It would be nice, I told my therapist yesterday (not to mention, ironic), if this experience was somehow freeing. If I could learn to sing in my chains like the sea.

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What is a tagline?

Apparently, I need one. Despite being an English teacher who studied various forms of media in graduate school, this is my first attempt at blogging. I’m experimenting with it as a way of processing my recent cancer diagnosis and connecting with others who have experienced something similar. Those of us with mammary analogue secretory carcinoma (a rare form of salivary gland cancer), are, I have gathered, few and far between. Those of us who have M.A.S.C. as women in our thirties are possibly even fewer. So here’s my first shot in the dark, or howl into the wilderness, regarding many things I’d rather not.