Lessons

I think I'm starting to understand why the oncologist told us that some people experience PTSD when the dust settles after cancer. It is stressful. This is not my cancer, but it is certainly taking it's toll. I'm glad that she doesn't have even more on her plate.

I was in the military. I went to Iraq. I did not experience any kind of post traumatic anything. I also deployed into the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. If anything were going to scar me, I think that would have been it. I'm glad it ended when it did, I'm not sure what it would have done to me had I stayed even longer. Throughout both of those experiences, in fact, throughout my entire enlistment, there were a couple of lessons that helped.

Learn to (quickly) identify that you are not in control. It sounds simple, because it makes total sense. But it is not simple. Instincts often want to take over in a high stress environment. Sometimes, though, there's absolutely nothing you can do. Sometimes you just have to hang on for the ride and trust that it's all going to work out, that the people who are in control of the situation have some idea of what they are doing. This rule applies to riding in helicopters, amusement park rides, and cancer. The tricky part about this rule is that sometimes, even though you have accepted that you are not in control, you still have a job to do. Sometimes you have to make sure that the logistics are laid out. Sometimes you have to make decisions, or aid in those decisions. Sometimes you want to second guess everything.

When I was in training for SERE we spent a lot of time focusing on the POW experience. I'm having a hard time right now remembering where these principles first came up, but I think it was in watching a video interview with a former Vietnamese prisoner, likely Floyd Thompson. (If it was Thompson, it is important to note that the man was held as a POW in Vietnam for NINE years. Think about that.)

(Have you thought about it? Really? Okay)

The person being interviewed was asked how he managed to keep his sanity and not be "broken" for while being held in captivity for such a long period and what advice he would give to anybody else in a similar situation. His advice has helped me cope with every low period I've had since.

Always hold out hope. Know that it's going to end. In the POW situation, know that you are either going to get rescued, escape, or the war is eventually going to end. You will someday return to the life you've left behind. It's important not to give up. The same thing holds true with cancer. It's a long way off, but someday this mess is going to be behind us. Someday we're going to be the one's giving this advice to others who are going through what we are going through now, and we're going to be so grateful that it's not us going through it again, and we're going to remember what it was like.

Don't set deadlines. While it's important to know that the situation is going to end, it is just as important not to set timetables. The person in the interview recounted how he knew so many people who said things like "six months" or "this will all be over by Christmas." When those events passed and the situation hadn't changed, it was too much to bare. It broke their will.

I know that this will end. I know that this Summer is going to be hard. I know that the months immediately following will be hard. But I also know that, eventually, it will all get better. I know that while these things seem almost insurmountable now, these hard things will become second hat (that's a saying, right?), and then eventually they will fade.

I am grateful for these lessons.

Credibility

DISCLAIMER: It's not my intention to politicize this blog. But an unforeseen consequence of our situation is that it is suddenly so very apparent what effect group decisions (ie. laws) are having on our lives, and potentially could on anybody's. 


Yesterday was our first meeting with the oncologist. Although it was informative, a lot is still in the air and pending the results of her second biopsy (results which should be gotten today), so I don't have much to say about "the plan" just yet. But I noticed something peculiar. And it helped me put my finger on something that has bothered me for a long time.

DOCTOR: Hello, I'm the Doctor. And you must be the Patient? And this must be your... (and this is where it happened) husband? 


PATIENT: Yes, this is my husband, Jason. (Note: my wife hasn't been using her name over at her blog. I'm not sure if that's intentional or it just hasn't come up. But until I clear it with her, I'm not going to, either. I do, however, have no problem using mine)


DOCTOR: Oh. And how long have you been married?


You probably didn't catch what happened there. It's a hard thing to document in written dialogue, and I'm not even sure my wife caught it while she was actually there. So I'll tell you. The oncologist wanted to know who I was. She wanted to know how important it was to address me and make sure that I was as equally informed as The Patient. Even after establishing that we were married, she wanted to know for how long to better help her establish an answer to this question. There was only a split second where it was obvious to me that this question was more than just innocent small talk, but it was enough.

In relaying this story to a friend last night, she got upset that a doctor might even attempt to make that consideration, that it is none of their business. While I certainly understand this point of view. I don't necessarily agree. Our oncologist has probably helped billions and billions of cancer patients. And each time she meets them for the first time, they are likely to invariably have brought along some sort of emotional support. It's only natural for our oncologist to have seen the entire range of the gamut, from spouses and siblings, to neighbors. And it's not all the same.

Here's the part that matters: she was establishing my credibility. She was trying to do it in a way that didn't make it apparent to me (even though she failed) that she was calling into question my credibility, and thus it had to happen quickly. Two tiny bits of information. Married. One year. That's all she needed. I did not say "We've been married for about a year but were together long before that. In fact, we first started dating ten years ago, even though we were not together when I enlisted." That would be a more accurate representation of my credibility.

What I'm getting at is that I've always wanted to buy into the ideal that "marriage is institutionalized." That marriage is unnecessary. That if you really love somebody then "you don't need a piece of paper to tell you to love them." That is most certainly true. But marriage lends credibility to others. It allows complete strangers to make a quick and accurate picture of just who this person is in your life. By only telling the doctor that we've been married for just one year I bought more credibility than if we were boyfriend and girlfriend and told her that we'd been together for ten.

That's why it's important. That's why marriage is a right. That's why every person alive should get to have the ability to say, "This is my partner. This is who I love and am going to spend the rest of life with, and this is who I want you to respect as my partner, and give all necessary information to. And share pertinent decision-making details, because this is who is going to be helping me make those decisions. I trust this person more than anybody else. And so you should trust them, too." 


Everybody should have this right. Everybody. And it shouldn't be trivialized.

silly fears..

Tomorrow is our first meeting with The Cancer Team. With any luck, this is when we get some answers. This is when we find out how bad it isn't and what the game plan is. This is when we get some sort of idea of what the next x months of our lives are going to look like and what to expect. Which means that tonight is the last chance that I have to post about all of my worries before they are alleviated (because, deep down, against my better judgement, I'm an optimist). 

I worry about losing her. Which is silly, because we've already been basically told that this isn't going to happen (it hasn't been ruled out outright, but it seems pretty far-fetched at this point). That's good, but then I worry things like "what if this is the first in a series of cancers and illness that spirals down until the worst." I think about how I would be lost without her. About how, even though we've been together for years, and only married for one, every day she becomes more and more a part of me. Especially over this past year. I think about the fact that I don't think there will ever be anyone that gets it. I think about how I wouldn't have the effort. 

I wonder what I would do. I think that what I would like to do is leave the country. Leave it all behind me and utterly change my lifestyle to the point that it's not even recognizable and bury myself somewhere...else. But I know that this is not what I would actually do. What I would actually do is bury myself in books. I would knock the crap out of law school, not bothering to take note of anything else along the way. I would knock the crap out of the beginning of my career. I would conquer. And realizing that this is what I would do helps me to realize that this is what I should do, anyway. Without completely burying myself. But maybe I need to focus more on things that matter, and less on video games. So that when she is better, we can eventually fulfill the sorts of potentials that we possess, because otherwise what's the point? 

I realize that the thought of losing her is far fetched. I am so glad it is. But I find it impossible not to consider in this situation. 

The next worry is that we may not be able to have children. I have to admit that this thought bothers me more than I thought it would. It is still not so much that I would mind terribly, I've always thought that adoption was a perfectly acceptable and much needed option. But I know how important it is to her. And I've gotten used to the idea that that's what was going to happen, I built up this little image in my head, this fantasy plan about how it would all go, and so it's hard to let go of that. 

Add to that the understanding of how important it is to her. I know that this would be a devastating blow, and I'm scared of what kind of impact this would have on her. I also feel somehow responsible. In the sense that, although neither one of us has been really ready (who is, right?), it's been me that's more or less been saying "not until the first year of law school is done," since I had the inclination to go to law school. Every year she gets a bit more baby crazy, and every year I delay. 

Another fear is a mastectomy. This for numerous reasons. The first being her well being. I don't really know what kind of an impact something like that would have on her. How could anybody. What will it do to her self image? To her sex drive? How do I reassure her that I'm going to think she's sexy no matter what (I do know this. Which is comforting. It's the kind of thing that you think about in some weird thought experiment and you hope the answer is noble, but you never really know until you're faced with a certain predicament.)

If that happens, what will I think about it. Right now I am very confident that I don't really care. If my wife's breast is a threat to her continued existence, then breast be damned. Seriously. But also, let's face it, I'm a man. What would it be like after the fact? Hopefully we don't have to find out. But I'm trying to be prepared just in case we do. 

The last big concern is of a financial nature. It's not as bad as it could be. Thanks to insurance, we won't have to worry about bankruptcy. But things are going to be rough, for a while anyway. Just when we should be starting to recover from it all, the fiscal year is going to roll over, and it all starts again. Hurrah. 

That's it. Those are the main fears that I have. Tomorrow, with luck, they will mostly be put to rest. 

the worst part

My wife has cancer.

It's so surreal. Even saying those words doesn't seem to fit. As though I'm using them in entirely the wrong fashion. It is precisely the opposite feeling of adjusting to calling her my wife for the first time, instead of "girlfriend." At first it is totally alien and then each time I try it on it gets more and more familiar until, at some point, it flows off of my tongue naturally. I don't want it to ever flow off of my tongue naturally. My wife has cancer.

We only found out last Monday. That was eight days ago. Which means that nine days ago our lives were normal. Crazy. I mean, sure, we knew there was a lump. But that didn't really sink in with any serious gravity. At least, not for me. There was a lump. People get lumps, don't they? All the time and they turn out to be nothing. My wife is only 28. Her family has no history of breast cancer. She was a little worried, in the same way that I often worry that every chest pain is an undiagnosed heart problem and that every tinge of pain in my nether is a hernia. I sometimes worry that I'm a hypochondriac, which is exactly the sort of thing a hypochondriac might worry about, really. But every time I get any of these little worries checked out, they inevitably turn out to be nothing. This is the luxury of youth. Not anymore.

So yeah. I didn't think she had anything to worry about. And I wasn't worried. I wasn't even really worried when they told her to come in for a biopsy. People get those all the time, too. There was still a huge chance that it was nothing. It was when we got there that I started to worry. Sitting in the little waiting room (they don't let you go back with the patient) listening to horrible elevator music reading awful People Magazine, that's when the first pangs of worry began to settle in. This is where lives change. This is where your life is going to change. I wanted to ignore that voice, but I heard it then. Before any results. Waiting to find out, that was the worst part.

But it didn't stay the worst part. I had left her sleeping when I headed out to work Monday morning. I was probably only in the office for around a half hour when she called. I saw it was her on the caller ID and I swiped to accept the call and nervously put the phone to my ear. I knew that I would know from her tone before she even said anything as to what the answer was. I hoped for the best.

I couldn't understand her words through her tears, but I knew what she said. It was positive. I told her to sit tight, that I would be home as fast as I could be. I was. She was sitting on our back porch when I came home. I opened the gate and came around the fence and she greeted me with a sobbing hug. We were both crying. That was the worst part.

I was surprised by Monday afternoon at how quickly we had seemed to come to terms with our new life-altering predicament. The tears were gone. The first cancer jokes were not long to follow, and we faced the fact that we really didn't know a whole lot and would just have to wait until our first doctor's appointment the following morning. Waiting was going to feel like an eternity and that sucked. And then I had to call my mom and tell her and that really sucked. I thought I was handling it just fine, that we were all done with the emotionality of it. And then I had to say those words for the first time. I had to hear myself saying them. I had to deal with the reaction of my mother hearing them for the first time. That was the absolute worst. And then, as the days went by, as we became more and more used to the idea that we were living with cancer, we still had to tell our friends and other family. And no matter how used to the idea I may tell myself that I am, hearing the shock and sadness in someone else's voice, or seeing it in their eyes, keeps taking me back to the first time I heard it. And it doesn't get any easier to tell someone.

And now here we are. Called back for another biopsy because the results of the MRI were "troubling," and we start this whole process again. Because you know what's worse than cancer? More cancer.

So it turns out that the truly worst part is that it's all so terrible, that every new experience is worse than the last one, and that we haven't even left the gate yet.

Somehow as I write this I realize how awfully pessimistic it all sounds, and I didn't mean for that to happen. I'd say that overall we are quite optimistic, even grateful. I'm grateful that I have a job with insurance, and that we are married and she is covered (more on how unfair that really is later). I'm grateful that I get to be there for her through this, as odd as that is to say and it's hard for me to figure out a way to explain what I mean. I'm grateful for her, for how strong she is and incredible really. I'm grateful for all of our friends and the support that they have offered up and will undoubtedly have to muster in the future. I'm grateful for our marriage. It gets stronger every day.