The Wait

 I'm a planner. Ask anyone who knows me. Ask my mother who raised me. Ask my brother, it always drove him nuts and still does. My husband actually appreciates it,,, one of the reasons he married me. And come on, I'm a teacher. That takes serious and constant planning. So living 9 days (Monday-Tuesday) in a sort of limbo was not my cup of tea. It was brutal. You know what happens when you have 9 days to wait for an answer? 

You Google. 

You shouldn't Google. 

But you Google. 

It gives you hope, it terrifies you, it confuses you, it worries you, and eventually I stopped doing it on day 5. Basically when I read something about survival rates for people my age and it scared the living daylights out me. After that I put "my lymph nodes are clear" on repeat in my head. It helped. 

During this time, I had to start telling people. My husband, parents, boss, a few co-workers. What do you tell people? "Oh hey, I have breast cancer, but I have no other info." That's hard. I'm an intensely private person, that picked one of the most public professions in a small town. I knew there would be no hiding this. My introvert self had to start preparing for this scenario. I could only handle telling a half dozen people. The whole process terrified me. Sometimes I could handle the conversation, sometimes I couldn't. But they all had my back.

Mornings were the hardest. I'm trying to stay normal with my kids at school, but my mind kept drifting. I was constantly sidetracked. Sometimes the battle was not getting teary eyed in front of the kids while my brain wondered to the what-ifs. After lunch, the day seemed better. I felt guilty that my morning kids got the distracted Mrs. Miller, while my afternoon kids got the normal Mrs. Miller. I really don't think they noticed.

My priorities started to shift at school and home. I was working under the assumption that, "Hey, I'm going to have surgery and be out for a couple days. I need to start training my kids to use the interactive tv and be able to help out a sub. I need to get this and this done at home so I don't have to worry about it after my surgery." For some reason the thought that I would be out longer than that didn't register. Actually I think it was there, but I was blocking it out and not acknowledging it. 

I was also just plain tired. Living is a state of constant worry and unknown is just exhausting. It also made me paranoid. What about that new mole I got on my arm earlier this year? (My oncologist is not worried about it). Why am I out of breath after walking up the stairs with a mask on? (FYI - so were my kids and the other staff, it made me feel better). I felt a twinge where the tumor is (couldn't be the fact that they hard literally drilled into it and taken 7 samples out of it with a big ole needle a couple weeks ago). Every little thing made me question whether the cancer had spread. Cue the "my lymph nodes are clear" phrase. 

Gone was my optimism. I was now quietly prepping myself for the worst case scenario. It's going to be stage 4 and they'll give me a year or two. There will be nothing else that can be done. But I also kept quietly telling myself, "My lymph nodes are clear."