Have you ever asked yourself, “What if”? What if I had to face breast cancer?

What if I had to face my own mortality?

“What if?” is always on our minds. It’s what makes us human.

So the next question would be, “How do I deal? Can I cope? What about my family?”

I am here to tell you that if or when that day ever comes the best bets are laughter, humor and honesty. Humor gives you the grace to face the worst of days, the meanest of people, and the ugliest of diagnoses.

How can you find humor in such a terrible thing?

Well, I say that without it you can’t make it through breast cancer one single day! Laughter is an art. Laughter is found in those little moments of irreverent humor. Laughter and the humor that ignited the laughter became my saving grace in the midst of my own personal turmoil and hell. Grief is naturally a part of the journey as is loss. But so is humor and finding a way to laugh at the absurd circumstances that breast cancer dictates. Finding the humor paves the way, pulling you out of the depths of despair. Believe me, despair will come your way and it will try to stamp a big claim mark on your forehead for all to see along your journey. But finding a way to laugh (no, not only to laugh, but to laugh and cry at the same time) will help lighten the burden. You’ll find that not only will your spirits be lifted, but that humor will also nourish and strengthen your very soul!

My story begins in late 2005…

It was the first week of December when I noticed the smallest of lumps on my left breast. I didn’t think much of it really. I was too young to be worried about anything serious. Still, I did take note and had my husband feel it just to be sure I wasn’t going crazy. He didn’t think much of it either, but said we should keep an eye on it. So being the calm sort of person I am, I felt the lump two, three, four, or five times a day. I wasn’t being overly concerned, not at all. I was in complete control, I assured myself as I kept telling this to myself over and over again.

As the month went on, the lump grew…

In fact it seemed as if someone had poured miracle grow on the blasted thing. I wasn’t amused to say the least. In fact, I was seriously beginning to become concerned at this point. I kept thinking to myself,” I would have had to have an IV with caffeine running through my veins 24/7 to cause this kind of growth, right?” So I finally conceded and made arrangements to see my GP. He had been my doctor since I was seven years old. (He had seen me through everything from chicken pox, diagnosing my diabetes when I was eight, to the birth of my two precocious boys). So when he said, “I Need to See You in My Office,” it always seemed more like a dad talking to me rather than just my doctor. I had and still do have complete trust in him to this very day, and so I knew then I would be in good hands.

When I finally made the appointment one of my close and dear friends at the time offered to drive me into town…

Looking back now it seems to me that no matter how much water has passed under the bridge between the two of us, I value the role she played in my life especially at that time. I honestly believe without her that day, I would have put things off. I give her full credit for saving me from myself. Ultimately I give her the credit for saving my life in the scheme of things. She was there for me that day when I needed her most. She was calm, confident and I really needed the support. Knowing that she had been through the process of dealing with a lump was comforting in a way. Hers had been removed surgically, but had not proved to be anything to worry about. I remember the day so very well. It was December 30, 2005. I left that morning with confidence, positive that things would turn out just fine. And besides, if it was anything at all, it was certainly nothing more than a cyst. So I celebrated New Year’s Eve with my family and friends while waiting for my next appointment the following week.

As it usually goes in the whole ‘let’s explore your breast lump scheme,’ I went in for a scheduled ultra-sound and a digital mammogram…

It was officially time to begin the insane process of crushing one’s breasts. It was a sight to behold. Believe me! There I was with my size 36D breasts laid out on the smallest of tables, all the while standing up and watching as paddles began being applied to my breasts. My breasts were squeezed and scrunched every which way possible and I just kept thinking to myself, “This is so not right.” The tech started with the largest size first. From there we kept moving to smaller ones–the smaller the paddle, the tighter the squeeze. OUCH!

“Who in their right mind would think to invent such a dastardly thing?” I thought to myself.

“A man! A twisted, crazy, woman-hating man!” That had to be it. Or maybe it was some weird bondage thing! Still it was too much to think that anyone in his right mind would rationally come up with the idea of a mammogram. I stood there as the tech continued to pancake each of my breasts and decided what I really needed was a good stiff drink, 100% proof. Finally, an hour and two bruised breasts later I was free to go home and tend to my wounds.

Now the true waiting began and it never seemed to end…

I was now officially caught in a time warp. So I waited and then I called. And then I waited again, and then I called again. The tech told me as I was on my way out of the imaging room that she would hurry my films so I could have a good weekend. But by Friday afternoon there was still no news. “So what had gone wrong?” I thought to myself. I desperately needed to know what was going on with my body. With each day that passed I felt the worry building–just like a castle made of cards, one on top of the other. All it took was a slight breeze for the whole thing to go tumbling down.

I called my doctor’s office and talked to one of the nurses that Friday afternoon…

I needed some hope, but I didn’t find it. Still, the nurse tried, “Don’t worry Miss Christina. If there anything was wrong, we’d already know by now. So try not to think about it. Just relax and have a good weekend!” TRY NOT TO THINK ABOUT IT? ALL I WAS DOING WAS THINKING ABOUT IT! Good weekend? Who was she kidding? I was supposed to have a good weekend with this hard, rock lump sticking out of my breast? Well that wasn’t going to happen unless, of course, I could get utterly and positively drunk off my keister, and that wasn’t very likely. Obviously, her words weren’t sinking in too well. But I tried to remind myself that hope floats. Right? WRONG! I was sinking like a stone and very quickly, I might add.

I went through this routine every day for about seven more days…

Finally someone at the imaging office admitted that my films were lost and they were working on hunting them down. I thought to myself, “Is it that bad? What are they afraid of telling me? And just what are they doing anyway?–Creeping through the file room with a shot gun, peaking around corners trying to take the beast down?” So once again, I waited. Only now I was just a little more nervous than before. What I really needed was a good dose of nerve pills and ASAP! I was officially losing what was left of my mind and more than ready for commitment to the local funny farm. It was either that or someone was doing a really good job of teaching me patience. News Flash! It wasn’t working!

My girlfriends tried to console me. My parents tried not to sound as concerned as they really were…

Johnny just seemed to be burying his head underground in an attempt to try and ignore it all! Then, when it all seemed about to fall in on us, it happened. They finally caught up with my films after taking what seemed an eternity to hunt them down and actually find them. If I had known, maybe I wouldn’t have been in such a rush for the results. Little did I know how much my life was about to change.

The call finally came on day eight. Doctor N wanted to see me in his office right away…

I knew this wasn’t a good sign. He had been my doctor since I was seven. He wanted to see me back in his office and that meant the news wasn’t good. Johnny’s head was buried underground a bit deeper by now, but he did manage to take off from work and he came with me to see “Doctor I Need to See You in My Office” that January afternoon. We came through the doors. I signed in, sat down in the waiting area and began filling out paperwork for the new year. I was a mess. My hand was shaking and my handwriting was becoming less and less legible with each line. Then my name was called, “Christina Olachia”. This was it. It was time to face the unknown. Time to step out and enter into the black hole.

Johnny and I walked back. Each step felt like I had weights pulling at my feet, dragging me down. Once we were in the room, the nurse smiled, handed me a gown, and told us that the doctor would see me in a few minutes…

I pulled myself up and onto the table, put the gown on and waited. Johnny was glued to the inside of a magazine. So he was no help. I just sat there literally twiddling my thumbs. It wasn’t too long, but it seemed like hours before Dr. N came through the door. He had one of those worried (while trying not to appear worried) looks on his face. I just wanted to sink all the way down to the bottom of the ocean. I held my breath until I turned blue. Note to self: “Breathe.” “Now exhale Christina, exhale!” I kept telling myself, though I’m not so sure it really worked that well.

I watched my doctor walk over to the small desk in the room and open his notes…

He was pacing himself and I knew it. Finally he came over and examined me. Then I heard the words coming out of his mouth. “Christina, I don’t think this is anything we need to be too concerned about. “BUT.” There was that word: BUT! “Here it comes!” I thought… “But, I want you to have a biopsy,” he said.

Okay. He just wants to get a better look at it. I can deal with that…

I was telling myself this as he went on. “I’m sending you to a surgeon.” My mind snapped. A surgeon! What? Whoa. Why? Wait… Oh no, there was more. He continued to tell me that I needed to have the lump removed, not just aspirated with a needle. So I left Doctor N’s office that day with an appointment to see a surgeon. Did I complain about things moving too slowly before? Yes, I had indeed. Well now things were moving along much too quickly!

January 16, 2006 arrived. My scheduled appointment was at 2:50 PM. Doctor K was the surgeon and he was a personal friend of Doctor N’s. I was in good hands

So there I was sitting in a waiting room once again. Johnny was glued to the inside of another magazine and I was filling out paperwork. I was getting to be a pro at this. When I was called back Johnny just sat there like a boulder. He wasn’t moving. We hadn’t discussed it but apparently I was going in alone. Alone it was then. I walked back with a smile on my face. I was still feeling nervous, but my earlier mentioned friend had given me some hope.

As mentioned before she had gone through her own “lump in the breast” experience. In fact, she even had it removed. Hers was small and it was not cancerous. She knew all about biopsies and had felt confident that my lump was just that, a lump and nothing more. I drew some comfort in that. So I walked in, donned a gown, sat down on the table, took a deep breath and waited. Then Doctor ‘Keep you grinning’ came through the door with a big smile and a comforting handshake.

I understood why Doctor N was confident in this man. Doctor K took a look at my breast, felt the lump, then turned around and looked at his notes…

Then he excused himself and said he’d be right back. I just sat there. The whole roadrunner scene was going through my mind now. This lump was becoming a chase scene right out of the Saturday morning cartoons. I was the coyote and the lump was the roadrunner. I kept trying to nail it down but it kept escaping with a “beep beep” and a headache pounding at my skull.

Within a few minutes, Doctor K was back in the room. He walked over to me and said we needed to get this thing out…

He explained that it was for the best and that he wanted me on the schedule as soon as possible. So there it was. I was having the lump removed. As I was leaving, Doctor K came up behind me, grabbed my elbow and told me everything was going to be all right. I think I honestly knew then and there. But I was still holding out for hope.

The day finally came. It was January 27, 2005 and I was just 32 years young when I first heard the words breast cancer coming out of my surgeon’s mouth…

There had to be a mistake I thought to myself, but the look of terror on my husband’s face as I woke up in a medicated fog from my biopsy told me everything I didn’t really want to know. The sight of my otherwise “nothing bothers me husband”, Johnny, holding my hand, and doing so while I was sleeping told me the news was bad. I knew breast cancer and all its glory was indeed a part of my new reality. I took one long, hard look at Johnny and turned toward my nurse right away. “I’m not ready to hear this,” I told him as I lay there in recovery. At that moment, my nurse, upon seeing the fear rapidly digging its way deep down inside of me, asked very calmly if I was in pain. Without skipping a beat, I said yes! I was out for another hour.

Humor you say? How can you laugh at something so life changing? How can you laugh at something so terrible?

Well, it isn’t easy.

At first you think to yourself, “Life is over.

I’m going to sink to the bottom of an emotional ocean and just die there.

I cannot and will not get up!

My life is over!”

Well you are half right! Life is over as you once knew it. But it’s far from over. You have a lot of living yet to do sister and yes that includes pain, fear and even tears…

It also includes love, happiness and LOTS and LOTS of laughter. Again humor peeks its head up and begs you to laugh. Once you have decided that life will go on, no matter how different from before, you realize that you’re too young to give in to this beast. And indeed breast cancer is a beast.

As time goes on you begin to view it as your own personal monster. You affectionately and regrettably begin to call it your “Beastie” as you envision Captain Jack running from the Kraken at this point. It’s a part of you, as you are a part of it. You haven’t been given a choice in this fight. You realize that you either have to charge full steam ahead, or you’re going to fall flat on your face. You slowly come to realize that you have so much more fight in you that you stand up, take the situation by the horns and begin to tap into a strength you never knew you had!

You’re going to beat this thing and you don’t plan to go down with this wretched beast! And that is final! So you take a long, deep breath, turn around, face the thing head on and walk straight into the mouth of the beast!

So once again I say that humor comes back around.

Where is the humor?

It’s in you, in your family, and in the dang irony of the cancer that is attacking you, biding for your life.

Somehow even the thought of walking side by side with the Grim Reaper suddenly made me laugh. I saw him in his black robe, a sickle in his hand and a silly smirk on his face looking back at me with his other hand on his hip. I mean really, what is the sickle thing all about anyway? He could just keep waiting for all I cared. To me he was wasting his time trailing me. I wasn’t going anywhere! I didn’t know who gave him his information, but they were literally dead wrong!

Breast cancer, ah those two little words are just that, words. But they sure pack a big punch, don’t they? Quite literally they knock you off your feet…

I remember coming home from the surgeon’s office after learning I was going to have to endure an MRM. I was in shock, completely devastated. I felt violated. I was going to lose my breast. I was 32 years old and I was losing my breast! What kind of cruel joke was this? What had I ever done to earn this badge of honor? I certainly wasn’t feeling up to the task of shining this new badge! The world must have turned on its axis. Life was turning upside down for me and I had no control over any of this. I was not a happy camper to say the least.

I didn’t remember signing up for this adventure. I was very content in my simple life as a mother and a wife.

Yes, maybe I joked about wanting to get rid of my saggy, baggy breasts, but I wasn’t really serious about it. I liked my breast. After all, I was very attached to it in every sense of the word. And I never intended to have anyone cut one off and leave me looking like Cyclopes! They couldn’t be serious, could they?

Oh yes they could, and they were!

So there I sat, in a self-induced coma, staring into empty space at my kitchen table. Suddenly I was laughing–Laughing with ease and it felt really good. I was letting a wonderful sound escape from my lips. It was coming straight up and out from the depths of my soul…

The sound filled the kitchen as well as my heart as I tried to hold back my tears. Ringing in my ears was the hysterically funny thoughts of two of my dear friends sitting at the table with me.

“Well, we’ll just have to name ourselves the Uniboob Club now!” I was rolling over in laughter. After that came the idea of hats all with one breast sticking out from each rim and a logo on them saying, “Uniboob Club.” I was speechless and in complete hysterics.

Yes, it was crude humor, but there are just those times when you need a bit of it. In those moments you need just enough humor to push you over the edge of depression, crude as it may be! From there on out I knew my only hope of survival was laughter. Living with humor was my ticket and so the journey truly had begun for me.

The journey itself can be grueling and there are moments when I just wanted to feel sorry for myself. It’s all a part of the process…

But for me, myself and I, humor was quickly becoming my key to living with the beast. Laughter opened doors for me that to others seemed locked and impassable. As I started getting ready for surgery, I began to envision my new life and in fact my new body. How would I feel and what was I going to look like? Would others look at me and see that I had become a freak of nature with one breast?

Would my husband look at me and decide he wanted a two-wheeler and not a unicycle? I was scared, but I had my faith, my family and my friends…

Little did I know just how much I was going to need all three as the year went on! As time passed and the brutality of breast cancer set in, I would come to rely on this group of three more than I had ever imagined. In time and with humor guiding all of us through the beast’s lair, saving second base would become not just a reality, but a priority bringing all of us full circle.

We were now just days away from whacking off my breast and I was still in shock. There was no time to think. It was all happening too fast. There was this underlining urgency steering the entire process and I was helplessly sitting in the passenger’s seat.

Upon reaching the plastic surgeon’s office, I was thrust into a whole new world of mind- numbing options. I signed in, took a seat and waited to be called back. Once the two of us made it back to a room I was poked, prodded, and introduced to the world of fake boobs!

I took my top and bra off and handed them to my girlfriend. She just looked at me and held my bra up. The words came out of her mouth like a train out of a mountain tunnel at full speed. “My God Christina” she yelped at me as she was comparing my bra size to her own.

Once the doctor entered the room I noticed a camera. A camera, he was kidding right? No, he wasn’t! Just what I needed!

He had me stand up and display each of my breasts for the camera. Well this was a new experience in every sense of the word. I stood there with my girlfriend still in shock and in awe on one side of the room, the doctor with his camera on the other side, and my breasts hanging out for all to see while I stood there freezing. Well at least I still had both breasts right? In a few days I would be down to one. Even if the remaining breast was the size of two, it was still going to be just one breast in a two-cup bra.

I wasn’t feeling very encouraged at the prospect, so I just gave in and went with the program. Doctor S took pictures, showed me pictures of his work, and explained what needed to be done and then I was out the door and on my way to a radical mastectomy and breast reconstruction!

Life is full of irony and humor. You really don’t have to look far to experience it. You just have to be willing to let the outright lunacy of the situation loose.

The day of my MRM my husband and I prepared to set off to the hospital. I went into the bathroom, put on some comfy clothes, brushed my teeth and my hair, left the makeup off and looked one last time at my breast. I just stood there looking in the bathroom mirror and stared at my left breast. After all in a few hours it would be gone. Once I came out from the OR my breast would be missing in action, finite, gone, adios. Poof, never mine again. What a thought! So I stood there, and stood there and finally conceded that I needed to leave the house and head to Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory.

God, I love my husband. He was my rock. Poor fella. Like it or not he was along for the ride too. He was a part of this chaos right along side of me. He was an innocent passenger. Back seat passenger for that matter!

In the scheme of things there didn’t even seem to be a driver in the driver’s seat! It was all I could do to hold on to the dashboard while Johnny was tossed around in the back seat. Here we were speeding along at a very fast rate, no, out of control rate of speed and there was no driver! Again I say, poor fella. Yet there he was holding on for dear life right along with me. There didn’t even seem to be seat belts in the back of this mental black, no make that blue, four-door, Ford LTD! Not once did he ask to get out of the phantom speed demon we had accidentally hitched a ride with.

Yes, Johnny was there with me, in sickness and health, till death do us part. I thought back to when we were first married and I was grateful that we had come so far together. My love for him couldn’t have been any greater than it was right there. He was my husband, my lover despite the soon-to-be missing breast. He was my friend and he was my anchor. I couldn’t have asked for more.

The morning had arrived just 13 days after my biopsy. The day of reckoning was here for me. This was it.

• Ready?
• Set?
• Go?

The hangman was waiting for me to step up and place the noose around my neck…

I’d had my last meal at IHOP the night before. Comfort food, you gotta love it? Pancakes, eggs and bacon, I didn’t care about the fat. After all, in the morning I was having the fattiest part of my body removed! What did I care? I was going to enjoy my meal without guilt. My parents, Johnny, our boys, Joshua and Micah, and my dearest friend, my sister in spirit and heart Morgen, along with her boys were all there with me for my last meal. Now all I had to do was wait for the trap door to fall.

I was ready now, I told myself. I can do this. I’ll just walk in there and be strong. But it wasn’t working! Panic, fear, loss and sadness were setting in…

Then Johnny came up behind me in the bathroom, grabbed my breast, and leaned down kissing it as if he was saying good-bye to it–all this without saying a word and then he walked out! I was dumbfounded and just stood there not knowing whether to laugh or cry. So I did both!

Johnny gathered my bags, I kissed my boys goodbye while they were sleeping and told my parents I’d see them up at the hospital later. We were off! All over Katy that morning it was a mad dash to the hospital as my friends started making their way to be by my side. The calls started to come in on the cell phone one at a time and with each one I felt my fear grow. I knew I was going in with my breast and coming out without it.

Thoughts of a round pine box went through my head several times. I envisioned the head stone saying, “Here lies Christina’s breast. Lefty was a good one, and her husband will miss the old girl.”

I grinned slightly giggling under my breath as my husband gave me that,” Are you crazy?” sort of look on his face. I knew he was singing in his head, “They’re coming to take me away, he hoe, he ha. To the funny farm where life is gay all day long. He ho, he ha.” And I thought to myself, “he’s right! I am crazy and I knew I was crazy enough to admit it. Yes, crazy to think I could laugh at the prospect of losing my breast.”

Irony and humor–they do go together.

Point and case–there I was sitting in the waiting room to be called back when I decided I needed to talk to my boys before they left for school. So I picked up my cell phone and called home. And all I heard was, “This number is no longer a working number,” coming back at me through the phone receiver…

For the love of all that is holy, what could be going on?

I paid the phone bill. I know I did.

Yet my phone wasn’t working.

I tried again and again.

I was beginning to panic.

Well at least my mind was off the fact that they were going to whack off my breast in an hour…

Okay, I just need to think. “Think. Think. Think.”Suddenly my brain was working again.

I called my parents cell phone. My dad answered and I was off!

“Daddy, the phone isn’t working. Pick it up and see if there is any life in it?”

There was silence.

Then… “Well honey, it seems to be dead. I can’t get a dial tone.”

The start to a great day!

Well there it was: the phone had been turned off and all my Mom could envision was her daughter lying on a cold, metal table calling her to go pay the phone bill! If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all! And so my morning had given me the choice again, laugh or cry. So I did it my way. I did both. I was sitting there laughing with tears rolling down my face when I was called back to the executioner’s chamber. All I could hear ringing in my ears was, “dun, dun, da dun, dun da dun da dun dad a dadun.” Johnny and I marched back silently, side by side all the time hearing the dun dun da’s in our ears.

Once I was back in the staging area, calmness seemed to set in for a while. Noticed I said, “Seemed”?

The nurses came in, took info, blood work, blood pressure, etc.–all the typical things medical staff do in preparing you for surgery. I was handed a gown and hair net to put on. Once that was done, I layed there on the bed while Johnny and I watched infomercials till we were bored. That didn’t last long though. By this time the phone situation had been worked out, the phone was back on and my parents were finally on their way to the hospital. Morgen was there, my close friend who had taken me for my first appointment was there, and so was her husband. Johnny wouldn’t be alone.

There were tears as I tried to steady myself for what was now just around the corner. Just knowing we had support from these people, our friends and having them there with us and beside us, made the outright lunacy around us manageable.

I was beginning to breathe easier now. But the calmness was gone as quickly as it had entered the building. I had two surgeons for this operation-one one to remove the breast and one to start the rebuilding process…

Doctor K was my general surgeon and Doctor S was my plastic surgeon. Both these men brought hope to the table. I saw Doctor K first. He walked in smiling, and said to me, “Hey beautiful, how you are feeling this morning?”

How could I not smile and laugh? I didn’t want to. I wanted to scream, “I’m losing a breast this morning so what is there to be jolly about?” But Doctor K’s jolliness and his humor were catching. Truthfully I needed it more than I needed anything else in that moment.

He just came in laughing and joking around with me as if there were no cares in the world assuring both Johnny and I that things were going to be okay. And somehow I knew it would be okay. I just needed to follow the leader.

So I started humming to myself, “Following the leader, the leader, the leader. I’m following the leader wherever he may go! He’s going to whack my breast off, my breast off, my breast off. He’s going to whack my breast off no matter what I say te dum, ti de ta da this morning, this morning. He’s going to whack my breast off, my breast off, my breast off. Te dum, di de; I’m following the leader right into the Operating room!” I know my husband must have thought I had gone completely mad by this time and maybe I really had, but logic told me that it was sound advice.

Following the leader had never been a better idea than in those few minutes!

A while later Doctor S walked in.

He spoke with us about what he would be doing in the OR and then took a sharpie to my breast.

Good golly Miss Molly! A sharpie!

My son uses sharpies to draw with for goodness sake! I was beside myself.

I felt as if I had just jumped out of my skin and I was watching the Texas Chain Saw Massacre begin.

No not just begin, but it was happening to me!

Once again the day was giving me the option, laugh or cry? This time I laughed as hard as I could. I had to. If I didn’t laugh I was going to break down and cry instead. And if I started crying, I wouldn’t stop…

All I could see was the room overflowing in tears, pouring out the windows and out the door into the waiting room and right out of the hospital. I could just see the 5 o’clock news in my mind: “And in today’s news, a young mother of two flooded the local hospital and the freeway surrounding the area after crying a river. Quite literally folks.” Not the best way to get your 15 minutes of fame!”

As I was seeing a literal river of tears flowing out of the room, Doctor S continued to use the marker drawing lines and dissecting what he was about to do. All I could see was my breast being cut away and quartered like a cake. It was not the picture I wanted forged in my head, but nonetheless, I was seeing it all in glorious technicolor–my breast as a cake, cut and quartered.

It all came rushing forward at that point. I was only moments away from losing my breast. The time had come. It was here and there was no running away. The axe was quite literally getting ready to fall!

I was close to tears and honestly I was scared by the time they were ready in the OR for me. Johnny was scared too. For the first time in our marriage he admitted he was scared of something. And that was amazing because Johnny never admitted he was scared of anything! He even had tears in his eyes, and he looked like a lost puppy dog. I was scared to death now too–after all, if he was scared, then I realized that this was BIG! Bigger than either he or I had imagined. The ship was going down, it was sinking and we were stuck in the control room without a captain and without working controls! We were doomed.

The anesthesiologist met us in the hallway just as they were wheeling me out of the room and toward the OR.

She injected something wonderful into my IV–Just enough to relax me. Then she assured me as she looked down at my face and saw the tears starting to rain down my cheeks. “What the heck! I think you need it all.” And thus she became my angel. I was feeling no pain, no fear. I was just floating along, weightless, out of my mind, holding Johnny’s hand, all the way down the hallway toward my breast execution chamber! I was feeling no pain. I was as high as a kite. Whatever she had given me was working. It was definitely a whole lot better than any rum and diet coke could have ever made me feel!

So there I was, being navigated down the hallways and corridors when the nurse and anesthesiologist hit the brakes bringing my bed on wheels to a sudden and complete stop. I didn’t care. I wasn’t feeling anything but happy thoughts.

I had an imaginary drink in my hand and I was just floating. Floating away to la-la land, happy as a blue bird! Poor Johnny had been so wrapped up in holding my hand and being by my side that he had made it past the big doors and was heading into the OR with me and everyone else! Well, the big guy had to be redirected out through the big doors and into the waiting room. So this was it. The moment had finally arrived. There I was, in the holding pin, ready? No. Set? Absolutely not! I was far from being ready, and I definitely wasn’t set to go. But the doctors and staff seemed ready enough and set on the idea of going through with this cruel joke anyway. Okay then, here we go into the unknown, into the wild blue yonder.

The last thing I saw was Johnny walking backwards through the big doors with his hand reaching toward me. Then I was out.

During my operation the waiting room was occupied with my friends and family. My parents, Bob and Pat were there. My best friend Morgen was there and another set of good friends were there with Johnny. Johnny played cards and Morgen talked to my parents as they worried themselves. I was told later that I did indeed wake up in the recovery room, though I have no recollection of being conscious at all. I apparently saw all my friends and family, but I was still sloshed from drinking all those rum and diet cokes earlier to even care. When I did wake up and indeed realize that I was awake, I knew it and I knew it well! The pain was most incredible. It felt as if I had a 12-inch hot burning blade stuck inside my chest and poking out through my side. It was the worst pain I have ever felt. But feeling pain meant that I was breathing.

I had come through it and made it out of the mad scientist’s laboratory. As I opened my eyes and tried to focus through my somewhat drunken state, I saw my husband Johnny.

He was right there by my side. Seeing his eyes meet mine was the best gift I could have ever received that day. I then looked to my right and there were my parents and my boys. My boys… how precious they were. I was doing this for them. I hoped one day they would understand that as I watched them run around the room, jumping up and down making me dizzy. Yes, life had still gone on, and anyone within a few feet of my room could hear that life was in full swing!

Then I saw Doctor K and I knew I was in trouble just by the look in his eyes. Like a parent, he had that “this is for your own good” look on his face. I knew no good could come of this. I dreaded what was coming. I was cringing inside. As soon as he made it to my bedside, he asked me how I felt (which was like a train had rolled over me a few hundred times), and then he smiled. At that moment I wanted to pass out. In fact I think I did! He had hold of my arm and was raising it up above my head over and over again as if he was trying to get water out of a water pump. I was dying. I just knew I was.

The pain that seared through my body was intense; beyond anything I could try to explain in a conscious state of mind!

“Pain killers please?” was about all I was able to get out of my mouth before I was out for another 4 hours. I can’t recall most of the next few hours. There was some food on a tray, I think. It didn’t smell so good. I don’t remember it looking like it was actually meant for human consumption either. I vaguely remember a roommate and wanting to throttle her if only I could get my legs to move and make use of my arms. Then there were the issues surrounding the restroom. I needed to go to the bathroom and I wasn’t about to use that monster of a thing they kept calling a bedpan. So I made my legs work, drug my IV poll and screamed as loud as I could inside, but I made it. I made it to the bathroom. I had conquered the bedpan! I had won! I was quite pleased with myself.

As the first night dragged on, I really wasn’t thinking about having only one breast. I just wanted out of there. I

wanted to go home to my bed, to my children and I desperately wanted to forget that any of this was happening. But it was happening and I was literally stuck in this hospital room with no escape! Terrible as it was, I found comfort in knowing that as trapped as I was, so was Johnny. He was right there in the thick of it with me. It felt as if we were stuck in the middle of a jungle. All there was for miles around us was bamboo and thick brush. Johnny was Tarzan and I was Jane. We were swinging through the air with the greatest of ease on vines trying to escape the crocodiles nipping at our ankles below. I knew now that I could honestly say I had experienced a true drug induced hallucination.

Bless his heart, at some point Johnny tried to get me up to use the online service available in the room. Now I was really feeling special.

Apparently I was more talented than I thought I was. It seemed I was exceptionally good at multi-tasking even while I was under the influence! I kept thinking to myself, this has to be illegal. I was drugged up and out of my mind but I was sure going to make use of the internet! I hit the screen a few times, tried to recall my password for what seemed a million times and then gave up–great, fun but was it for you honey? Now that we are done letting the idiot on painkillers and rum bang at the computer, can I go back to sleep?

Johnny was certainly along for the ride too. Poor fella he slept upright in a chair, with the tiniest of what some may call a blanket and shivering for most of the night.

The crazy lady next to me was hot. Every half hour she would cry out,” I’m hot nurse! I’m hot. Make it cooler in here. I can’t stand it. I’m hot!” Finally Johnny got up, put his hand on the thermostat and made it warm enough for the living left in the room. She tried one more time to have the nurse adjust the room to artic temperatures. Johnny just got up, stared her down and walked away. That was the end of that! I had to love him!

I was going home the following day. I was in a state of shock after hearing that, I can tell you. Hadn’t they just chopped my breast off the day before? Wasn’t I being held together by string? And didn’t I have two drains hanging down from where my breast used to be?

Maybe my hearing wasn’t working. That was it! My ears were stopped up from all the painkillers. Right? But no, sure enough my ears were working just fine. I was going home! I found out later it’s called a drive thru mastectomy. I didn’t think anything that started with the words “drive thru” were supposed to be good for you. But there I was going home. It was just our typical strokes of bad luck; Johnny couldn’t get out of work. His boss’s wife had surgery on the same day I was coming home. So he had to be in the office. After the one night from hell, Johnny left me and went to work straight from the hospital.

The nurse brought my breakfast in and once again I looked at it and pushed it away. I didn’t feel like eating….

I was again questioning whether it was seriously intended for human consumption. It looked painfully toxic to me. After pushing my powdered eggs around on my tray, I fell back to sleep. A few hours later it was my Dad’s face that greeted me. He was there, holding my hand. My Daddy was there for me. He is one of the last and the few true gentlemen left on this planet. His kind is few and far in-between, a quickly dying breed, soon to be extinct.

I just wanted to cry…

He had come up alone to take care of me and to bring me home. In the next few hours he spoon-fed me broth and Jell-O, and it was the best I had ever tasted. He lifted my arm up and down carefully to work out the stiffness and he just sat there letting me sleep. The time my Dad spent with me that day was worth a thousand days. I felt like a little girl again. I was Daddy’s little girl and I was safe.

I did indeed go home that day. Doctor S came through and moved my arms around, looked at what seemed like an 8-inch scar across my chest, re-wrapped my bandages and emptied my drains. Then I went home. That was it. I came in with my left breast and went home without it. It was just normal business. Part of a day’s work. Now it was up to me to put the pieces of my life back together again. My journey had begun and I would seriously need my family and friends more than I could ever imagine over the next year.

The drive home was impossible. I sat there in my parents van, in the passenger’s seat…

I had a pillow stuck between my breast and the seat belt. I tried to smile and be pleasant, but I’m not so sure I accomplished that very well. What was said in the van that day will stay in the van! But I was on my way home and that was a good thing. I was heading to my own bed, my children and my old life. But life had changed. Whether I was ready to admit it or not, I was changed.

Honestly I don’t remember most of my first night home. I do remember sitting up, pointing to and grunting for water and pain pills… I know I tried to sleep. But finding a comfortable position was not a task I was able to accomplish easily. Johnny laid next to me for most of the night. I knew the sandman had skipped our house that night because Johnny looked like he had turned into a zombie by the next morning. At some time I must have woken up from my fog because I just know that I saw Johnny walking around the house in a zombie, sleep deprived state. His arms extended, eyes glazed over, he was walking into walls. He never fully explained where all the bruises had come from. But somehow we got through the weekend with the help of my parents and our dear friends Sam and Morgen. They came over, helped with the house, food and lots of comfort. They also came toting a rocking chair through the door with them. If it weren’t for that rocking chair, I would have sunken into the couch and never reemerged ever again! I had no strength in my right side and arm so the thought of sinking down in to the couch and then trying to get back up was impossible. The rocking chair gave me the ability to maneuver and allowed me some mobility of my own with a sliver of dignity.

As the early afternoon passed by Joshua and Micah were kept busy by Sammy and Nicholas…

They were off and running, chasing dragons, building forts, playing games, turning the house upside down, and in general just having fun being kids. They ran around the house and made themselves dizzy and for once Mommy didn’t care about what the upstairs looked like. It could have been a war zone up there, for all I cared. I asked only once about the state of the upstairs. And my answer came from a very hesitant Sam who just told me to relax and not to worry about anything. So, I gave up. I had just had my breast removed two days before, so why was I worried about a clean house? I gave it up and resigned myself to the inevitable. And believe me they rode that wave for all it was worth!

Morgen took care of me all day Saturday while Sam took care of Johnny. We were both in need of care… I looked just like I felt, a monster! My head seemed out of proportion to the rest of my body and I felt horns sticking out from both sides my head. My eyes were so sore they felt as if they were about to pop out and I walked like a staggering drunk. I looked something more like the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk. I couldn’t really speak in complete sentences so when I did speak, all I heard coming out of my mouth was,” I will love him and hug him and squeeze him.” I was the perfect picture of a woman gone stark raving mad!

This was the day Johnny would get an up close and personal view of my wounds. My bandages would have to be changed…

Johnny had already emptied my drains, but it was time for him to see the doctor’s masterful handiwork. Morgen was there as well. Now I really didn’t want Johnny to see what I looked like under the bandages. I was afraid of what he might think. And besides, I hadn’t even looked at it myself yet, and I knew I wouldn’t for some time yet. But knowing Johnny would be seeing the empty space, the area where a breast used to be, now sewn up like a seam was proving to be more than I could bear. I was greatly stressed at this point and certainly not feeling very settled as Morgen began unwrapping and unfolding each layer.

I just sat there with tears streaming down my face feeling totally exposed and completely vulnerable…

Morgen took her time and was patient with me and my tears. I wanted to look at Johnny and meet his eyes, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Tears were falling steadily down my face now.

Morgen asked me what was wrong and I replied, “I don’t want Johnny to see how ugly I am!” Johnny’s reply was delivered right on time, “It’s okay Baby. It just looks a little deflated.” I met his eyes then and knew I was going to be just fine. The laughter was contagious. We were all three laughing. Humor was indeed proving to be my best friend!

By midday we had to make a mad dash to the plastic surgeon’s office. My stitches had been tied off too tight and the fluid was building up and not draining. I was in terrible pain, only adding to my monster-like appearance. I had a nice new fluid-filled growth coming out of my side, just under my armpit. Wonderful! I felt like Igor now! Again I say, life was pleading with me to laugh. Morgen kept begging me to call Dr. S and I kept saying no. It was becoming a battle of the wills.

It must have looked like something out of “Singing in the Rain” with Gene Kelly…

At the end of the film the villain is on screen as the sound begins to slow down and become out of sync with the film. Here is my vision of Morgen and I: in slow motion with one head moving up and down saying, noooooooo while the other person]s head is moving from side to side saying yessssssssss. Morgen won. In no time at all we were in Sam and Morgen’s van with Johnny once again in the back seat, while I was once again in the passengers seat. I was beginning to see a pattern here, but this time we at least had a driver! It was Morgen.

We drove like maniacs down Highway 59…

All the way I was grumbling under my breath. I began with small outbursts like “dang it”,”oh my goodness” and,” ahhh that hurts!” I graduated to “crap” and “oh my God, that is killing me” and progressed to ever so quiet, but very definite curses under my breath. I will not share those words with you though; I would hate to make any grown man reading this blush! It was definitely not one of my better moments. But then again, I was out in my PJ’s, driving down Highway 59 on a Saturday afternoon.

The truth is that I was in pain and with each minute that passed both Morgen and Johnny knew I was getting close to going out of my mind. Morgen started counting each word, “One, two, three, oh my four. Ummm… she’s on a roll, ummm ten, eleven, and twelve. Umm, Johnny I think she’s delirious. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Wow she’s going, going–she’s gone! Clear out of the ball park.”

Poor Dr. S was coming into his office on a Saturday. His office wasn’t open, so we had to wait outside the building for his arrival so he could let us in...

I must have really fit the part of a lunatic. There I was standing outside the professional building in my slippers, my robe and my hair was sticking out in every direction. Morgen was the only sane one out of the three of us. She was poised, and keeping us on track. Poor Johnny was standing there shivering from the wind, face and hands pressed up against the glass doors; the only thing missing were the words, “Open, open, open”, coming out of his mouth.

It honestly wasn’t too long after we arrived before Dr. S opened the glass doors for us, walked us to the elevators and went up and into his office. He took us straight back to a room and started to evaluate me. He looked and prodded, talked to himself a few times and then said, “Well maybe I just need to loosen this stitch a bit.” The pain was making me crazy. I was becoming the perfect picture of a Dr. Jeckyl and Mrs. Hyde in every sense of the word.

I was trying to play nice one minute, smiling and nodding with grace then seething with crazed, malformed faces and grunting in an odd, strange language the next…

He kept asking me to lie down and I kept saying no. Dr. S would say,” yes?” and then shake his head up and down. Then I would look back at him and say no, shaking my head side to side. This went on for some time, making Morgen and Johnny dizzy as they watched this banter back and forth. Finally I conceded, then literally yelped and came straight back up on the table. I kept this position for the rest of the visit!

Dr. S was gracious and finally loosened that one forsaken stitch. Ahhhh, the relief!

My drain immediately started to drain and the pressure started to release me from its painful jaws. I could see the mental jagged teeth of the man-eating shark that had attacked my left side start releasing its grip on me. I was feeling human again. The beast had been subdued and receded back within me. As we drove away we laughed. They were strained laughs but we laughed all the same. Laughter. How can you not laugh? In spite of it all what do you have to lose but your pride? And so life began to go on as the days passed by. As each day went by, I was feeling more like a human being again. I wasn’t up to par, but I was on the mend and that had to count for something in my book! And I was feeling more positive and up beat–still hurting though, but getting into the swing of things and getting used to the feel of being a Cyclopes.

Joshua and Micah’s teachers, school counselor and staff were there not only for the boys but for us as well with meals, gift cards and prayers that were heart-felt and welcome. Life seemed as if it could only get better. We were sure we were beginning to return to a somewhat normal state of being. And the doctors were confident following my surgery that things looked good. My breast had been removed; the cancer was gone.

A group of lymph nods had been taken out just as a precaution, but we were expecting the test to come back negative…

Ever heard the expression “never count your chickens before they hatch?” Mama was wise to repeat it over and over through the years. Just wish I had really listened a bit more! Not even a week had passed since my MRM when I went into see Dr. S. I soon found out just how they were going to stretch my skin to accommodate the implant we were planning on. My first visit was enough for me to know that I had jumped off the diving board into the deep end. I was in way over my head. Little did I realize that swimming in the deep end was going to prove harder and harder for me to come up for air as time went on.

I remember seeing that needle for the first time and then that tube!

The one that held the fluid! If I had not had my pride to stable me I would have fallen out cold on the floor. I kept reminding myself, when it is all said and done I would have a brand new breast. I would look 21 again, pre-baby breasts! Yeah baby! I could endure whatever he threw my way just for that alone! I would be able lose the uniboob status and gain “babe” status soon enough! Life was good once again. So I laid there on that table and looked away as he inserted a needle into what was left of my previous breast.

I was fine until I sat up. That’s when I felt it. Oh my goodness. What had he just done to me?

Suddenly I understood why it was called stretching! All the fluid injected into the expander was immediately doing its job. It hurt like an unexpected sucker punch. I felt as if I was out cold, but I was still walking. The car ride home was interesting to say the least. After nearly 10 years of marriage. I think I may have come close to actually slapping my husband for the first time.

Johnny was just beside himself that day. He was driving and thinking, not paying all that much attention to the road ahead. He was trying, just not trying to my liking, poor guy. So, as a result, he hit the first bump at full speed. But it was his last! I came forward and out of my seat towards the driver’s seat. I wanted my hands on both the wheel and around his neck at the same time. For the love of God I was ready to kill! I doubled over in pain.

My breath was gone, yet I was yelling at the same time. Lesson learned. Johnny never took a bump, or turned at full speed again with me in the car…

Exactly a week later, it was time to call Dr. K’s office to schedule my follow-up. I knew right then that something was amiss, but I was still trying to hold on to my “life is good” delirious state of being. When I called the office. I was told I needed to come in the following day. Okay, so far, so good. Besides, if things were too bad I’d be in right then and there, correct? My results were back, but the doctor wanted me in his office before speaking with me about them. I immediately called Johnny and gave him a heads up. I figured I would be okay without him the next day so I asked my parents if they minded going with me. We were set.

• Ever feel as if you were headed for a train wreck at full speed?
• Ever wanted to get off immediately?

Oh yes! We all know that feeling!

Well, that was me. I wanted to jump off and run the other way. Instead there I was sitting on the table. Doctor K was standing just away from the table and my mother was sitting just next to him and across from me. The words were coming out of his mouth but I wasn’t hearing any sound. I was falling and fast, from off the platform of hope I thought was underneath me. I was crying. Dr. K was crying. Even my Mom was crying.

We were all crying together. But why were we crying? I couldn’t feel my body moving, yet it was. I was speaking but I didn’t recognize the voice…

I felt as if I were standing once again outside my body. My mind was shutting down. This was not happening. Only broken words were filtering through to me. “Cancer. Lymph nodes. Chemotherapy?” I just sat there listening as I took the whole scene in. I was in shock, yes. I was smiling. I was laughing, but how? Better yet, why? I must have gone mad, really stark raving mad this time. That or I was in a state of hysteria. Maybe that would explain it? Had they already called the padded wagon to fetch me? Did I have time to escape? Well maybe I should just go quietly. Maybe that would be best?

It was almost too morbid to be laughing. But there I was, laughing. The moment was altogether priceless…

All three of us in this tiny room, arranged in a triangle and we were all crying together. It was humorous really. Again, life was teaching me a much-needed lesson. It was hitting me over the head trying to get me to understand: “Laughter is the key. Take it already lady! And unlock this dang door!” Laughter and tears, they really go together so very well. They soothe and they heal. Laughter opens the soul to life, to love and to survival.

“Just a week?” I kept telling myself. It had only been a week since I lost my breast. That was all I was supposed to lose. Not my hair, not everything that made me a woman…

I had told the boys that Mommy wasn’t going to have to have chemo. I was just going to have a breast removed and then they would fix me like new again. It was going to be short and sweet–simple, not complex. But there I was, facing what only other women face. It was slowly beginning to sink in. I was one of those other women now. And now I not only had to tell my husband somehow, but I had to find a way to break the news to my boys as well. Joshua was just barely 9 years old and in the third grade. Micah, my youngest was only 6, not even 7 yet and in the first grade. I kept asking myself as I left the doctor’s office that afternoon how in the world I was going to get the both of them through this? I knew it wasn’t only my life that was about to change but theirs as well.

I called Johnny at his office and was brutally honest. It just fell out of my mouth. “The cancer has spread, baby. It’s in my lymph nodes. I’m going to need chemo and soon!”

What else was there to say?

“Hey honey, we get to go through hell and be happy about it?

Let’s all do a jig, sip down some whiskey and celebrate?”

I was sick and it was more than a mere fact. Life had taken another detour and we were just passengers along for the ride.

For whatever reason, this was our life now. We either had to sink or swim and quite honestly, I felt the need to start moving. The breast-stroke seemed appropriate right about then. Johnny met my honesty with silence. I was waiting for a response, but none was coming from the other end of the receiver. I envisioned poor Johnny falling out of his office chair and onto the floor, just lying there all by himself calling out to anyone who would listen. “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” Once again I was feeling bad for the news he was receiving. No not just receiving, but processing–news that was changing his life. News that would either make or break our marriage. I knew his head was spinning out of control. He probably felt like Emily Rose out of the Exorcist.

Life was indeed excelling at a faster rate of speed than either one of us ever wanted to go. But still, it was what was happening. It was our present, our reality and we had a choice to make: Start moving forward or put our heads under ground. I personally just wanted to totally disappear!

Finally after what seemed like forever, Johnny spoke. At first I wasn’t sure if I was really hearing words coming out of his mouth. But then I heard him, “Are they sure? Can they redo the test? What do we do now?” There they were, those five magic words. “What do we do now?” He was asking me what WE needed to do, not you, or they, but WE! I knew he was with me. He wasn’t going anywhere. We were in this together!

The days that followed the news are still nothing but a blur to me. I don’t really remember anything of real value during those few days. Life had changed.

Life had never really been under my control, but somehow it had always seemed like I had some say in how things played out. Now I knew that had never been the case and never would be again. Ultimately I knew that my Creator was in control of each breath I took, but now it seemed my doctors had a part in the control issues of my life as well. They had my life in their hands and I felt as if I had no real say in how the next year was going to play out.

Before I had undergone my MRM, I had met with an oncologist. He was there to explain what was happening to my body and to oversee my progress.

I met with my first doctor just a week before my surgery. After our first visit neither he nor I ever expected to see each other again. But none the less, here I was sitting in his office, waiting. He was a soft spoken man, confident and seemed as if he knew what course of treatment I would need. So once again, I was sitting in his office. My life, my care and my future were now in his hands.

I sat there, waiting.

Waiting to hear what was next and how my life was going to change.

The doctor came in and sat down.

He was calm and quiet.

I asked a few questions and again waited for answers.

Eventually I began to refer to him as Dr. Farce. This went on for weeks. I came in, asked questions and never really received the answers that I needed.

I kept leaving with my head in my hands, asking myself what he had said never feeling as if I understood anything. On one occasion my mom and I left the office and upon entering the elevator looked at each other and said in unison, “Did you understand any of that?” First I needed chemo, and then I didn’t. It was invasive cancer and then it wasn’t. I went from one stage of cancer to not being able to be staged. I felt completely confused. I had brought my mammogram films in to him and he in turn was taking them from tumor board to tumor board without ever coming back with answers.

I finally came in for what was to be my last visit. I sat there waiting for the proposed treatment plan he had promised me. Again, I was leaving with nothing. He wanted to finish all my cosmetic surgery first and then he thought we might explore a small dose of chemo. He really wasn’t sure yet. He seemed to be on again one minute and off the next. In my mind I was going over what he was saying to me. I either needed chemo or I didn’t. It was just that simple. I had stepped up to the plate and made a big play by having the MRM to begin with. Why on earth would I take a gamble now with my life? If I waited until I was done with everything, it would be months before I would be ready for chemo. I was piecing it all together in my mind. I had been so wrapped up in just the thought of chemo and breast cancer that I was losing sight of what mattered most. And that was surviving! It was time to step up and play ball. I left his office that day knowing that I had a decision to make. I had to take control of my life back again. I could not continue in the passenger’s seat anymore. I had to slide on over into the driver’s seat and get Johnny out of that dang back seat. It was time to circle the wagons, call the cavalry in and charge full steam ahead! I was ready. I had mounted my steed, drew my saber and I was shouting the word, “Charge!” as I ran out of his office.

Up until then I still had not been ready to really examine my wound. It had been wrapped up in bandages up until recently and with the band I was required to wear. I could go without really fixing my eyes on the area. Well the time had come. Like it or not, if I was going to take the wheel and move into the driver’s seat, I needed to take a look at the map and survey the layout of the land. Get a clear picture of the situation at hand… I surely couldn’t drive blind! So I left the oncologist’s office that day and made the decision to go home and actually look at the beast and put some reigns on it for the first time since it had emerged from the black hole. I did just that too. With Johnny in the next room, I walked myself into our master bathroom and took a deep breath. It was time. I stepped up to the mirror and let my robe fall. There it was staring right back at me without any shame whatsoever. The beast was there in all its glory. I needed to breathe. Just take a breath Christina. It’s Okay. I was still standing and the beast was still growling right back at me. But I was boss. This was my body and though it had changed, it was still mine!

I just stood there as I did that morning while I was getting ready to leave for the hospital–just staring at it, and staring at it and staring at it some more. It wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t pretty, but I could handle this. Sure I was missing a breast. Sure it was just whacked off. And yes it did look like a beast. But truth be told, it was my beast–all mine and I was ready to take it by the horns or go down trying! The following day I called my GP and asked for a second opinion. I was seen within days of my first phone call. I was off and running full speed ahead. Nothing was going to get in my way now. Not until I stepped out of the elevator. I stopped in my tracks. I was here on the eighth floor. All I needed to do was move my feet, so I kept hearing, “Let’s just put one foot in front of the other and soon we’ll be half way there.” Okay, just one foot in front of the other. I was moving now. I was turning around the corner and opening the door. Finally I was in.

As soon as I walked into Dr. P’s office I checked in and sat down. I felt a bit odd. The room was full of mostly older people and I felt as if I stood out. But that was okay. I was young and I had breast cancer. I needed to be here just as much as anyone else. When my name was called, I walked back in to the unknown. Great! I was waiting once again!

My Mom and I sat there like sitting ducks. We looked around the small room. We looked at each other. Then we sighed and looked around again. It seemed like an eternity as we sat there waiting for the doctor to come in. Then the door opened and in walked this very tall, broad and smiling man. He introduced himself and sat down. I liked him already. He shook each of our hands, turned to my mom, and asked, “So what’s the story Christina?” Mom and I just sat there dumbfounded. I opened my mouth and when nothing came out I closed it again. My Mom was confused. Then she glanced over at me, then to Dr. P and back toward me. The words fell out of her mouth and into the room, “I am Pat, Christina is my daughter.” The doctor looked puzzled and quite honestly beside himself. He appeared to be in shock and then he turned around and took a longer look at his notes. I could read it in his face. I was too young to be in his office with breast cancer. I decided to let him do the talking first. That seemed like the best idea. Doctor P took out my file, read some of it, asked a few questions and then excused himself. We were waiting again. Okah, I get the point…waiting is an art! All right already! I can wait.

When the doctor came back in he said, “Well Christina, you are famous!”

I was speechless. He then explained that my films had made the rounds and that I was an interesting case. He told me I was unique and that in his 30 years of practice, I was a first for him. I asked him if he could stage me. He gave me an odd look and said, “Yes, of course I can stage you.” I was blown away. I was actually getting answers. I was finally getting somewhere. I had Triple Negative, stage 2, node positive breast cancer. Wow! “So what do I need to do now?” I asked. Dr. P then seemed to be pleading with me to move forward with chemo. I looked at him and told him with all certainty that no convincing was needed. I was game if he was. I really didn’t know what I was game for, but if it would give me a fighting chance I was definitely up for it. Within a week I would be back at his office, with a port in my chest enduring my first round of chemo. I liked this guy. He was straight to the point and down to business. We were off and running!

I left Dr. P’s office that afternoon with a plan. A real honest to goodness plan! No it wasn’t the plan I really wanted to hear. What I wanted to hear was that I was fine and could just walk out of that office and resume a normal life. But the truth was–that wasn’t going to happen. I had cancer, and breast cancer at that. My life was changed already and it was changing more everyday. In just a short amount of time I had gone from a normal, healthy 32 year-old woman, to a breast cancer patient minus her breast and in dire need of chemo. I could have never imagined my life this way. I would have never wanted to live my life this way. But here I was all the same. My life was full of doctor’s appointments and examinations now. Soon it would include chemo as well. In between all the chaos that had taken over my life I was still trying to be a mom. I did my best to eat lunch at school with the boys. I attended the school auction and I read to the class. I did all this while still bandaged up. I didn’t want the boys to suffer more of a loss than I knew they were already feeling from hearing the words “breast cancer.” I mean how do you tell your children that you are sick? How do you prepare them for cancer and all it’s going to take away from them? I didn’t have a clue how I was going to tell them I needed chemo. They weren’t ready for Mommy to lose her hair, eyebrows and eyelashes. Who was I kidding? I wasn’t ready! But that didn’t matter right there and then, it was all happening and it was happening fast.

As the week went on I readied myself for this thing they were calling a port. It was simple in and out, day surgery. I would have it put in on Thursday and undergo my first round of chemo on Friday. Monday I did my pre-op blood work. Our good friend Paul took me down to the hospital for that. I was extremely grateful for his kindness. I feel bad that every time I reference Johnny I start with Poor, but it was true. He was poor of mind and wallet too. So I say, Poor Johnny was tying to hold onto his job and sanity both at the same time. I was not so sure how that was really working out for him, but I thought I would do all I could to help him out. Tuesday I spent my day getting the house clean and in order. Why I bothered, I really don’t know. It only takes 5 minutes once my hoodlums have run through the doors to turn the house upside down. Wednesday I read to Micah’s class, ate lunch with both the boys, and then headed over to the hospital again for a bone scan and chest x-ray. By Wednesday night it was time to sit down with the boys and explain what the chemo was going to do–Deep breath and go. I was reaching deep and I was getting nowhere. Then I remembered listening to a story about a child going through chemo. I knew where to begin… Okay boys, chemo is just like playing Pac Man.

I wasn’t ready but the morning sun was. Thursday morning was here way too soon for my liking. But I was up and I was ready. We got the boys off to school and we were out the door. I was hoping for a calm, normal day. I should have known better. Normal is not in our vocabulary; normal is not part of our lives. As can be imagined the stress levels in our lives and in our home were building. The stress was more like a snowball rolling down a hill, getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Life was snowballing out of control, no matter how much we tried to act as if it wasn’t. Johnny and I were just innocent bystanders sitting at the bottom of the hill when that snowball decided to crash smack into us! We were laid out flat!

On the way to the hospital there was tension in the air. Neither one of us really knew exactly why we were tense, but we were. The time had come for it all to explode. Before either one of us knew what was happening Johnny and I were arguing. Over what you may ask me? I still can’t tell you. I have no idea honestly. We were just an old married couple going mad and going deaf. Going… going… gone! Right over the edge.

Johnny just dropped me off at the hospital entrance. There I was, just standing there, in my P.J.’S, hair in a ponytail, no makeup, slippers on my feet, bag in my hand and a lopsided chest for all to see. I looked like I felt, out of my mind! He had just left me there alone and drove off. I knew he wasn’t staying, but I thought he was going to at least walk me in and get me set up and ready to go. No, that was obviously not part of his plan for the morning. He just slowed the vehicle down to a safe roll, opened the door and had me jump out! I felt as if I was getting my own personal anti terrorism lesson. Drop, tuck and roll right out of the speeding car! Maybe I should have enlisted and been a paratrooper? That was it! I was boiling over inside. If I thought I could have chased him down I would have. In my mind I was ready to get in the ring with him. It wouldn’t take long. One punch and he would be down, I was sure of it! The headlines would read, “Early Morning Smack Down at local hospital.”

I was hurt and I was mad. But I was stronger than all that put together. Most of our married life, Johnny had learned through trial and error, so why was this any different? So I sucked it up, put my bag over my shoulder and walked in. I took the elevator up and made my way to the waiting area. I checked in and sat down. Waiting was becoming second nature to me. I decided to write my family a few notes just to cover all bases. It was morbid to be thinking like that I know, but my mind wasn’t exactly the picture of clear, smooth waters. I mean really, can you see me on a sailboat, sipping a tropical drink under clear skies? I thought not. The real picture was not so picturesque. Reality would have had me in a paddle boat, out in open water, storms all around with no paddle, trying to hold on for dear life without any rum! Why is there never any rum around when you really need it?

By the time I returned from my pity party, Morgen was there. She was there to help me through this day.

Yes, this operation was minor compared to my mastectomy. But it was just as life altering. Today I was having my port put in. It would allow the doctors and nurses to run the chemo into my veins and take that highway into the rest of my body. I was glad she was here with me. I needed her. I needed her strength. This was going to be the first day of the rest of my life. Her presence there reminded me of that. I still had fight in me and I really did need my friends beside me helping to remind me of that fact. Friends and family, you need both to cope. They are your lifeline, your source of hope and your gateway to tomorrow. Morgen was that for me today. She was there to hold my hand and to carry me if necessary.

I went in and I went under with the last three months on my mind. Yes, it had only been three months since this roller coaster had begun. I also had Johnny on my mind as I went in. I was still inside, too still and I was numb, scared and unsure of myself–unsure of what, no who, I was becoming. I felt as if I was disappearing. Christina was gone somewhere. Great! I was now referring to myself as a third person. I didn’t feel like myself anymore. I hadn’t jumped ship, but I was still lost at sea. I was transforming into another person. I was changed. I felt as if I was now a resident of “Whose Ville.” Christina Who? She had been lost in the words, breast cancer. Soon Christina would be lost not only to me, but to everyone else as well. The woman I was before was gone and I was on my way into the OR for the third time. Doctor K was again going to transform me, alter my body from what I was before. I was glad he was there. I was glad it was going to be Doctor K putting the port in today.

I came through the surgery and woke up in the recovery room. I was surrounded by foreign sounds, sights and pain–personal, deep down, gut-wrenching pain. It wasn’t so much a physical pain, although I did feel that type of pain. No the pain I was feeling was deeper than any I had ever felt before and it was about to break the dam. As I came through I began to cry and cry and cry. With each sob came another and another; only they came harder and with more emotion than the one before. Suddenly I was sobbing out of control and there was no end in sight. I must have cried for the better part of an hour. The nurses did all they could to console me. But I just kept crying. Crying that river I was so afraid of. If you will, picture it? I am lying there with monitors everywhere, wires here and tubes in every direction, and there I am flat on my back sobbing for the entire world to hear. I was shameless at that moment…

Doctor K came over to me with a worried look on his face, just beside himself. He looked at me and asked, are you all right Christina? Are you in pain?” I just shook my head yes and no. I glanced up at his kind face and said. “Yes.” So in turn Doctor K asked me, how bad Christina?” I just kept crying and said, “It’s not so bad.” He seemed completely puzzled and confused. I felt completely puzzled and confused. I looked up at him again, and let out a long, sad, cry. “I can’t stop! I, I, want to, but I, I can’t!” So I just kept crying and crying. It was enough to make somebody want to slap me. I seriously just could not stop. I was mourning, I was grieving, and I was feeling all the emotional trauma and pain of the last 3 months. It was gushing forward out of me and I was helpless to stop it. I felt so silly crying there like that. I felt like a child, but I needed to let it all out. I had to find some peace within in order to start dealing with the chaos surrounding me. Crying like a baby was apparently my way of purging the soul. There was a long road yet ahead of me. I went home that day with Morgen by my side sitting on the brink of the unknown. I was on the edge of the pool, waiting to jump in… ready, set….jump! And so I did. So I did.

Morning came. The day was here. Chemotherapy.

That one word can cause your insides to turn to Jell-O and I was getting ready for my first dose this very day. I was up. I was dressed. I was just sitting on the edge of my bed staring at nothing. I was scared. No I was terrified when my parents arrived at the door to take me to my new master. I just wanted to crawl up and into my mother’s lap as if I was a child again. I wanted to look up and into her eyes and feel my Mommy’s arms wrapped around me. I needed to know it was going to be okay. I needed to hear her tell me I was going to be fine. I wanted to feel her hands running through my hair just like she used to do when I was a little girl in the hospital from diabetic complications. I wanted to go back in time. I wanted to be a child again and to be able to retreat into my Mommy’s arms. I didn’t like where I was. Who would have ever thought I would be in this predicament at this time in my life? I was only 32. I was the Mommy now but I felt like I was 7 again and I had to overcome my fear of the dark all over again! It was not fair! But when is cancer ever fair?

The drive there was absurd in every sense of the word. My dad was beside himself and my mom was scared for me. What they were facing as parents, I can only imagine. Here they were driving their only child to her first round of chemo. All the way down I-10 the nerves were building and getting weaker. Several times I just wanted to jump out of the van. I didn’t care. I just wanted out, and away from the insanity of the moment. Driving down I-10 into the heart of the medical center. I felt as if everything was closing in on me. The big rigs were everywhere and it seemed as if they intended to box me in. I kept seeing the paddy wagon coming for me and taking me away in a white straight jacket. But I kept my cool; I walked into the chemo room with my head held up and my parents by my side. I was here to live even if it was by means of poisoning my body. I wanted to live! Now the word chemo sounds like an ordinary word. Nothing too bad in itself right? Oh so wrong on so many levels.

Once we escaped the madness of the highway and I regained a mild sense of sanity, I found my way back to the chemo room and found a place to sit. The chemo room as it is called, is a large room, large windows on one side filled with about eight, brown reclining chairs. As you round the corner you come face to face with the “room.” The poles, the chairs and the nurse’s desk. It is another realm, an alternate reality from any you have ever known before. Suddenly you are there, you have cancer and you are now a chemo patient. You realize that in a matter of minutes you will be sitting in one of those chairs, with a line in place and the chemo will be running through you. It is a terrible reality and you are now the proud owner.

Once I had both feet in the room I was greeted by the nurses, and led to a chair. Once I was sitting, Peggy and Dianne (my nurses) asked me a few questions and explained how they were going to access my port. Then I was offered a lemon drop. I wasn’t sure what the lemon drop was for at first, but it didn’t take long to figure it out. I held the candy in my hands and sat there waiting for my chemo. Soon enough they were bringing my poison and started injecting it into my body. Then I placed the small but powerful candy in my mouth. I could taste the medication in the back of my throat now. It tasted like a skunk smelled. I took the lemon drops freely for the first three treatments. Even now I cannot stand the sight more or less the taste of a lemon drop. I know it is part of the leftover madness in my mind, but the sight of one causes my stomach to turn. I eventually turned to gum balls and the just opted for nothing in the end.

During that first treatment I lay there just watching it go in taking control of my body. So this was it? I was reduced to this? Six months of this horrible stuff. My eyes began to hurt and my stomach was already turning. My eyes were on fire and throbbing as if they were just going to pop out. I felt the sudden and terrifyingly funny urge to hold my hands over my eyes in an attempt to hold my eyes in place. I just knew if I didn’t my eyeballs would pop right out and roll right out of the room. In my mind I kept hearing “on top of spaghetti, all covered in cheese.” Just the thought made me laugh. I was trying my best to stay positive. I wasn’t going to let myself fall into the pit of self-pity. I just had to bite my lip and suck it up! Not really so smart, but it was worth the try right?

As I went home that afternoon, I was feeling both hopeful and helpless at the same time. I felt sick inside and I wanted desperately to run home as fast as I could. But there was no escape. Even if I could run, where would I go? The poison was already in my system. I was a victim no matter where I went. I was trapped within this prison, sentenced to six months of this hell. I was locked away with cancer and chemo; they were my bedfellows and my cellmates. I felt like a dead woman walking, walking to the death chamber, hoping, no, praying for a last minute stay of execution. I needed to hold on to that hope. I would cling to it every step of the way.

As I made it into the house late that day, I wanted nothing more than to just crawl into my bed. I was tired. I had endured and survived my first round of chemo. I needed to feel I had risen above the chaos to a higher level. I wanted desperately to get past the pain, the sickness and the emotional mayhem of the chemo. As the night fell I conceded and let the boys go over to my parent’s house. I knew they would be better off over there with Nana and PawPaw. I did not want them to see me as I was: tired, sick and emotional spent. When Johnny came home from work he found me lying down. I never did that. I didn’t want to be on my back. I wanted to be up taking care of my family; after all I was Wonder Woman right? Well, not today. The cape, suit and tiara were hanging up in my closet at the moment. I hated Johnny seeing me like this. I was stronger than sickness, but the truth was this time it was stronger than me. I knew it was going to kick my butt, and no matter how hard I tried to sidestep it, this cancer, this chemo was going to take me down from each side.

By the next morning I felt a little better. I had slept and with the sleep came strength. I clung to that strength as if it were life itself. I let it pour into my body, my mind and my heart. I let the feeling seep deep down and then sat up and faced the day. It was baseball season and the boys had games that morning and afternoon. I had to be there. I couldn’t skip out on them. I had this mad idea that if I ignored the chemo I could ignore the pain. I never said I was a rocket scientist lady! I have a stubborn streak as long as day is night. I fully intended to keep moving through the pain, no matter where it took me! It was Sports Fest at the ballpark. That meant food, carnival games, slides and baseball games. Both boys had games and it was a hot day. I tried my best to stay out of the sun, but in Texas and in the spring that’s impossible. We were out there for hours and by the end of the day I was spent. I was hot, my skin was on fire and I was starting to feel really sick to my stomach. But I didn’t want to leave the boys. I wanted to see them play ball. I didn’t want to let them down. I wanted my boys to know that life could still be normal, even though Mommy had cancer, and was on chemo. Why not? After all, I was Wonder Woman, right? Not in a million years! The chemo was about to give me my first big slap in the face by the end of the weekend.

As the day started to come to an end out at the baseball fields, I was glad to see the front gates coming up as we headed to the truck. I needed to get home and into my bed. I sat there as Johnny drove us through Katy and down the back roads to home. The radio was up and booming out bebop. The boys were singing every word to every song and loving life. They were happy. Mommy was there in the truck coming home from their games. I had been there, and made it to both their games. I was paying for it, but they didn’t need to know that. All they needed to know was that life was carrying on. There was still normalcy to our lives and baseball was a way to enforce that. We were living life and I was a part of it. Everyone was feeling great, but me. I looked just like I felt I’m sure, a wilted flower. I saw myself as a daisy with big droopy pedals falling forward into my face. I kept trying to push them back up to no avail. It was like trying to water a dying flower. No matter how much water you poured on it the flower was just going to keep falling over.

I came through the door and headed straight to the bed.

I just collapsed and laid there for what seemed like an eternity. I didn’t hear anything for hours. The boys ran around in and out of the front door, up and down the stairs and blasted the TV till their little hearts were content. I slept through all of it! I had no care for or idea of just what was going on until the phone rang, and rang and rang. I did hear that sound blast through my unconscious state and so I blindly grabbed for it. Fumbled for it is more like it. I didn’t quite make it before Johnny finally picked it up. When I say I didn’t quite make it I mean it literally. I didn’t even make it to my feet? No not in the least bit! I landed on the floor! I completely rolled over off the bed and onto the hard floor. I took a deep breath, winced and picked myself up. I was on my feet half-hazardly maybe, but still I was on my feet. I shook my head side to side just to make sure it was still attached, felt my arms, moved my legs around and did my best to move my body forward. I must have looked like I was three sheets to the wind, but I made it into the living room. I made it. I was standing on my own two feet. I felt vindicated. That was until I took a good look around me. I shook my head and wiped my eyes just to make sure I was seeing clearly. Apparently I was! It was like being hit straight between the eyes with an arrow. I immediately knew I should have just stayed lying on the floor right where I fell in the first place.

The chaos was all around me, above me, below me and I was standing right in the middle of it. I felt like King Kong on top of the Empire State Building hanging on for dear life while dodging planes and rapid fire. I wanted to beat my chest and roar as loud as I could! I had to get control of this situation and fast. The TV was blaring, the cushions on the couch were spread all over the room, blankets were strung all over and heading into the kitchen. Toy cars, wooden swords and shields, stuffed animals and dinosaurs were up and down the stairs. I swore I saw tiny airplanes zooming around my head and large dragons stomping around the house while shooting fire from out of their mouths. I heard the blasting of storm troopers coming from the front room and was positive I could hear the game system blasting aliens all on its own. I didn’t dare take a gander upstairs. I knew that would just completely sink the ship! I was sure the boys had let the monsters out of the closets too and they were on the loose up stairs. I was afraid, very afraid of all the thumping that was vibrating the house from up there! I was standing there with my hands in front of my mouth, eyes popping out of their sockets yelling, “Come on, no, no, nooooo!”

So I thought about Morgen. What would she tell me to do? “All right Christina, now just take a deep breath. Baby steps, baby steps, Christina. “Sure thing Morgen! A deep breath?” Ahhhhh,” I choked on that deep breath and tripped right over my own feet right down to the floor beneath me. Well that didn’t work out very well. Poor Johnny was watching all this from the bar area with “a deer caught in head lights look” on his face. Suddenly he hung up the phone. I am not sure if he even said goodbye or not. Next thing I knew he was looking down at me as I was looking up at him. We both had amused looks on our faces, but for totally different reasons. Johnny reached down, helped me up to my feet and over to the rocking chair where I collapsed. I was furious. I was ready to scream “Johnny” as loud as I could muster. But as soon as his eyes met mine and he let that “who me?” smile slip past his lips, I couldn’t keep from laughing. Honestly here it was right in front of me. This was one of those rare moments that come your way in life where you either laugh or cry. The situation was so comical, so bizarre and so over the top I had to laugh. And laugh I did until I had tears streaming down my face. So I was laughing, crying and snorting all at the same time! I was truly becoming a babbling idiot and loving it apparently.

By the time evening came around I was ready for bed. I didn’t care about anything else. The house could fall down for all I cared; it just needed to do so around my bed. I came through the door, headed directly in to our bedroom, pulling my clothes off as fast as I could. I slipped t-shirt and shorts on and climbed under the sheets. I barely remember kissing the boys and spitting out a barely audible goodnight before I was unconscious. I lay in that unconscious state for just a few hours. I had barely felt the pillow beneath my head, before I felt a strange, and horrible feeling growing in my stomach. I was sick and I knew it. I climbed out of my bed, very slowly at first and then I made a made dash to the bathroom. So I was reduced to this? I was hugging the toilet, my head hung over and I felt miserable. I had nothing to really speak of in my stomach and so all that was coming up was bile. The worst kind of hot liquid to come up and out of a person’s body! I felt like a demon purging itself. I saw my big inflated, over sized head, in my hands. My arms felt like they were large overbearing claws covering my mouth and the bile coming out felt like the vilest of vile that you would see in some B movie spewing all over and out on the demon’s poor innocent victims!

I sat there on the floor of my bathroom, sick and thinking to myself what a sight this must be. I was officially lost in the chemo. I wanted to post a “Wanted” sign. I saw it reading, “Wanted: My Life Back!” But at that moment I felt as if I were dying.

I felt as if my insides were melting. Finally the bile took a break. I made my way out of the bathroom, carefully walked around my boys who were sleeping on the floor and fell into my bed. I was completely worn out and wanted to sleep so badly. But Johnny was snoring like a freight train right through the sound barrier, and the boys who had taken to sleeping in our room by now, were talking in their sleep to each other no less! So I lay there, and I lay there. Finally I slept until it all started all over again. The bathroom, the toilet, the bile, Johnny’s snoring and the boys talking! It was useless to even try and fight it.

By morning I was dragging. I stayed in bed as long as I could before venturing out into the living room and into my handy dandy rocking chair. Morgen, called and was coming over to help me with my hair that afternoon. We knew that my hair would start falling out soon. I had been told by Doctor P the first day I met with him that it would only take about two weeks for my hair to fall out. So I knew I needed to start shortening it now. My hair was long and it was going to be a shock to lose it all. I thought I would try to take some of the shock away by cutting it in steps every few days. So when Morgen called that morning, I took the phone call and told her I was good to go. I knew I wasn’t feeling well, but I really wanted to try and attempt the hair cut anyway. I could have cared less about how I looked that morning honestly; I wasn’t caring much about anything really as I sat there in my rocker. I just stayed in my PJ’s that morning and puttered around the house. That was about all I had the energy to do anyway. I was still throwing up, but it seemed under control for the time being. I really understood nothing about chemo and my body. I would soon become a quick learn with no holds bared!

By the time Morgen knocked on the door, I was pale. I looked like I felt… horrible! If I had been a headline that day, I would have read: “Christina’s Night of the Living Dead!” Or better yet if I had been an ad, I would have read this way: “Don’t miss out! Chemo Christina, One day only! Live in person, a one-time opportunity that no one should miss! And don’t forget while you are there to check out the added bonus of vile bile spewing out of her mouth too!” I was hopeless and sad. But I was still trying to smile and that had to count for something, right? By the time Morgen knocked on the door, I was so glad to see her smile, even if it didn’t last long. Johnny answered the door and the look on his face must have said more than he even realized. Morgan came in, set her stuff on the kitchen table, took one look at me and headed straight to the couch. I could tell she was about to let out the mother hen, and she was right to do so by this point. I was crashing and crashing fast! I was trying to sip on water and ginger ale, but it wasn’t working. Food was not an option of any kind by this point and any mention of it was enough to have me running to the bathroom!

By the sixth time I had made a dash to the bathroom and landed one fumble, Morgen was growing worried. She had already asked me twice about calling the doctor, but I wasn’t hearing any of it. All I wanted to do was wallow in my misery in my own home, in my own bed. No exceptions! Yeah right. I don’t know what I was thinking! It was Morgen I was trying to out wit. Try as I may, want as I might, I was not going to win this battle. Doctor P’s office was called and I was heading to the ER. I was dragging by then. The boys were out of their mind in worry and being loaded into Morgen’s van. Johnny was locking up the house and trying to call my parents to let them know that the boys were on their way over to their house via Morgen. I just wanted to bang my head into the window and slip into the unknown. I hated emergency rooms, so I was really dreading this!

Johnny dropped me off in the front and went to park. I pulled my feet behind me as if they were shackled and stepped up to the ER desk. I felt as if I were dragging my chain clad hands across the desk as placed my name on the sign-in sheet. My nightmare was swinging into full motion now. I looked all around me and the waiting room was packed. No one seemed terribly sick, but it was a Sunday so anyone who had a cough was sitting in the ER waiting room. It was going to be a long afternoon!

I informed the lady at the desk about my diabetes, chemo and vomiting. She handed me a few papers to fill out and then told me it would be about two hours before I saw the doctor. I was mentally banging my fists into my head at this point. Why had I come in? Maybe we should have gone to the other hospital? But here I was and leaving would only delay the inevitable. So I asked if there was a place I could sit away from the crowd. I was handed a mask. Well okie dokie then. I can just sit here, vomit into an itsy bitsy basin, and then remove and replace my useless mask over the next hour. That sounded like loads of fun. Why hadn’t I thought of it first?

Over the next hour Johnny sat there just watching me getting sicker and sicker. I didn’t think the man’s face could get any redder than it is naturally, but sure enough it did. At one point I looked over at him from under my mask and basin and thought for sure the top of his head was going to pop up, a whistle was going to shout and steam was going to shoot out! He kept asking when I would go back, as one cougher after the next went back. I just sat there with my mask, my tiny basin and vomit. I was just miserable and Johnny was mad. We made a great pair! Finally, the triage nurse called my name. It was my turn. I was going back to the ER, and finally they would make all this bile stop.

Make it stop? Right? What was I thinking? I was sitting in Barney Fiife’s ER. So I was going nowhere, and I was getting nowhere fast.

As far as I could tell the speedometer read 0 miles per hour. After my vitals were taken, I was placed in a room and left. I lay there for an hour before I saw anyone. Johnny and I were left there on our own to just twiddle our thumbs. After all isn’t that what we simple folk are supposed to do in the Barney Fife ER? I just kept telling myself it would get better. It certainly couldn’t get any worse, right? Oh how wrong can one woman be? I kept throwing up. I was feeling dehydrated and I knew that I my heart rate was up. Finally a doctor came in. Thank God, a doctor! Now we were getting somewhere. Hum…I wasn’t so thrilled once she opened her mouth. She was just as happy as she could be. Just a ball of over self- confidence this woman was. Happy, happy, happy. Well, at least someone was because I sure wasn’t. I was miserably sick and I just wanted it to stop.

Finally Doctor Happy skipped across the room and sprung into an empty chair. She was just floating on air. I wanted to wrap my hands around her throat at that moment. Inside my hands were just waiting to jump at her. Outside I was calm and collected. Johnny stepped up at this point and asked her to please be sure to contact Doctor P’s office so they could work together. “Oh No!” she immediately told Johnny. “I will call the oncologist if I need to admit her. I can handle this!” Inside I was screaming at her. “Lady if you really think we are in awe of your self proclaimed majesty, then I have a bridge to sell you!” I knew I should have already had my hands around her neck! It may not have been quick or painless for her, but it sure would have saved me the trouble that she was getting ready to set loose on me. Who did she think she was? For the love of @#&! I really wanted to send Doctor Happy/Know-it all to the moon right about then. So I just gave up, sighed, rolled my eyes and blew out all the air I could. I was absolutely, most positively in the Barney Fife ER and Mrs. Fife was in charge!

So I decided to just lie back on my very comfortable bed. I am kidding here gals. Ha Ha! It was as comfortable as a rock. I simply needed to close my eyes. I was trying to meditate. I didn’t care on what or where, just as long as it was somewhere far, far, and away. I needed Calgon to take me away. But I wasn’t going anywhere but maybe insane truth be told. I wanted to escape to a beach somewhere with a tropical drink in my hand and the sun on my face. Ah that sounded great. Maybe Johnny Depp or Sean Bean would come strolling by and bring me that drink. All they needed to say was hello. A smile might really put it over the top. What the heck, we are talking fantasies here, right? And a wink would absolutely put the icing on the cake! My fantasies aren’t too complicated. I wasn’t asking for too much, was I? A girl can dream, can’t she? I just needed a tub, some Calgon, a candle and some music–

Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing too strange, just someplace far, far away. Hum….

But then reality slapped me in the face. The bile was gurgling again and I could see Johnny looking at me even though my eyes where closed. He was furious and yet he just sat there. It was as if he had been patted on the head like a dog and told to sit. I was speechless. He was speechless. He was doing as he was told. I kept waiting for the door to open and Doctor. Happy to bring Johnny his treat for good behavior. I could just see her throwing it in on the floor and Johnny falling on all fours running over with his tongue hanging out to scoop it up. She just had to give him that down boy look of hers and he would just roll over. For all I knew Johnny would just comply by rolling around on his back waiting for her to rub his belly. All I wanted to say to him was,” Good boy! Good boy!” Instead I ignored him for the next five minutes.

Five minutes was all I had in between gurgles. Doctor Happy had said she would order IV fluids, some pain meds and something to stop the nausea. Operative word being WOULD order. Some year was more like it. We waited another hour before that happened. It was just a waiting game we were playing with the ER staff that afternoon. I had come in at noon and it was now 3 P.M. and I had yet to have any course of action taken. I felt as if I had died and gone to hell. There were people all around us with a nurse taking care of them, and I had not one nurse assigned to me the entire length of my 12-hour stay at the Barney Fife ER. It was madding. When I finally received my IV fluids, they came through my new port. I thought to myself, “How hard could that have been?” I mean it wasn’t like they had to go vein hunting or anything. The whole situation was completely nuts. I waited and waited and waited. All the while I was still vomiting, except by now blood was coming up with the bile. The bile had become so acidic it was melting my insides on the way up. Johnny asked several times for someone to do something. But ZIP, nothing was done. I was just left there with my blood and bile. I was seeing green, red, purple and blue by this point.

By about 6 P.M. Johnny had to leave me for a while. He was hesitant but he was freezing and needed to go home and change clothes as well as bring clothes to the boys at my parents’ house and get back to me as soon as he could. Johnny kissed my forehead, took one long look back at me and walked out of the funny farm. Unfortunately I was still chained to the bed with no hope of help or escape. I had no nurse, no nurse call button, no blanket and no clean basin. I had officially arrived in hell! I lay there for what seemed an eternity. I was cold, in pain and still throwing up. I called out for help. No one came. Then I let it go all over the floor. What did it matter anyway? No one was around anyway. And if by chance they did stop in, well they would meet with a lovely surprise, now wouldn’t they? Evil I know, but I couldn’t help myself. Even now a smile comes across my face when I think about the clean up. I had been left without a call button or a basin. Bottom line, I had slipped between the cracks and I was done trying to play nice or act like I cared.

The whole time I was wrenching up my insides, I could hear a young man in his early 20’s in the room next to me. He had come in five hours after I had with a dislocated shoulder. He was laughing, joking and feeling no pain. He had obviously been given medication, and I was still without any after six whole hours. The nurses and the doctors were in and out of his room constantly. It had become one big party! I imagined disco lights bouncing off the ceiling and walls with music and cheers from the peanut gallery as they danced the Congo line in the room beside mine. It was as if the great Oz had appeared and we were all singing, ” Follow the Yellow Brick Road.” They were all having a good time with the cutie next door. Who cared about the breast cancer, chemo patient vomiting and dehydrating in the room next door? No one, apparently. Meanwhile, I was getting desperate. I finally screamed out for help. I just wanted someone to make it all stop. After about five minutes of screaming, the door opened. A male nurse came strolling through the door. He looked at me as if he was shocked that I was in the room. I begged him to help me. He told me he would send my nurse in. Great! I had no nurse. I was getting nowhere fast. No, I take that back. I was speeding through the gates of hell at record speed.

I lay there for another half hour, and then cried out again. Another male nurse came through the door. He greeted me with a smile, walked around the mess on the floor and came to my side. Maybe, just maybe I thought, I was being rescued. He wiped my mouth, gave me a fresh basin, cleaned up the floor, told me he’d bring me some pain meds and promised that he’d be back to check on me. I was saved from the pit of hell I had fallen into. So I thought. Johnny returned close to two and a half hours later. By that time I was in and out of consciousness. The nurse had never returned and so I was still just fending for myself eight hours after I had come through the Barney Fife Emergency Room doors. Johnny came through my door and hit the ceiling. My IV bag had run dry and was still hanging from a pole. No one had even bothered to place me on a pump. The IV was running into my port and the bag was dry! I was still throwing up and had yet to receive anything for the pain coming from all the bile eating away at my insides.

Now to really imagine the scene you would have to have an idea of what my husband looks like. Johnny is Native American and most of the time keeps a very stoic look on his face. He will crack a smile, but you have to lure it out of him and in many ways earn it. Johnny is only about 5′10, but he is a burly guy at about 240 pounds, so he can seem very intimidating when he wants to without much effort. His hands completely enfold my own hands. If this gives you an idea, in high school he was a line backer, and he has only grown in size since then! My husband’s personality can swing from teddy bearish to a Yeti without a moment’s notice, and this was not one of those teddy bear times! It was not going to be a teddy bear picnic of any kind with honey and a song. No, he was about to chase anyone he could out of their hiding place. I was just basking in the thought of Johnny running full force, with his hands hunched up and over his shoulders, a Chewbacca groan coming out of his mouth and a “I’m going to tackle you” attitude on his face. It was glorious to see in Technicolor, I thought to myself. All I needed was the popcorn; except I wouldn’t make it past the smell and we would have a scene from the Exorcist playing out as well. Oh well, I would just have to enjoy the show without any extras.

I honestly felt sorry for whomever he was about to meet up with in the hall. Still I had a look of satisfaction on my face. It was about time someone or anyone in the loony-tune run ER noticed I was there! Even Bugs Bunny would have at least asked,” What’s up doc?” and Johnny was well past all of that. He was like Elmer Fudd with his trusty shotgun hunting rabbit. He was ready to pounce on anyone that crossed his path. I came through for a bit to see a seemingly nice nurse beside me. She had long, brown gray streaked hair up in some sort of ponytail that was pinned up on top of her head. I think she even had a nurse’s cap on too. She was a bit on the round side and appeared stressed. I apparently wasn’t her charge, but hey, what was new? It was about 9 P.M. and I had been passed over with no one in charge of me. I had no doctor in charge of my care by this time either. Johnny was out on the warpath quite literally. Nurse Betty came in and asked me what was wrong. As if being delirious and covered in blood stained vomit wasn’t enough to know that something was wrong! I just glared at her. My mouth wouldn’t move. If I would have had proper use of my arms or legs for that matter, I would have jumped up on that metal bed, grabbed her by the hair and spun her round and round until she felt delirious and was vomiting up blood stained vomit too. Then I would have asked her how she felt. But I couldn’t even bring my hands to my mouth to wipe it myself. So taking on Nurse Betty from the Barney Fife ER in what was turning out to be cowpoke Texas was going to be quite a stretch, if not next to impossible. So I just sighed and threw up at her feet. That would have to do.

Immediately she said she would see what was ordered on my chart and ran for the door. “Good luck,” I thought to myself, “but good for you.” Her acting skills were at least believable. “Sure I will take anything you want to bring me. Just go out there and find a doctor to sign the chart sweetie. Good luck doll!” After all, I was game if she was. I honestly lost track of time at this point. I had been in the ER for about 9 hours, and I felt like I had been left for dead on a dark backwoods road someplace. Sometime between the hours of 9:00 and 10:30 PM she brought me some meds. Meds for pain, meds for nausea and a new IV bag, but still no pump. I was still attached to a pole. Oh well, I almost forgot. We are talking the Barney Fife Emergency Room here, now aren’t we?

Only ten minutes later, I knew I was in trouble. I had been given Phenergan without Benadryl. Didn’t she read my chart? Maybe she couldn’t read or maybe this was all just a really bad dream? I was already feeling the symptoms. My legs and my arms were twitching all over the place. I had no control of my limbs. There I was on this contraption they called a bed, with an IV bag hanging on a pole, under a thin sheet and I was twitching. It was impossible. I would just start to calm down, close my eyes and BAM! My legs would go one way and then my arms would follow in another direction. I was definitely having a reaction. Johnny was once again on the hunt out in the hallways looking for the nurse. Over the next hour and a half he repeatedly asked her about getting me some Benadryl and ASAP for the reaction. “Oh sure thing. I will ask the doctor in just a minute sir.” Well one minute led to 10 and 10 to 20 and 20 to an hour. She never did come back with the Benadryl, so I suffered all night long.

Finally Johnny had to leave me at 11PM. I was still in the ER with a so-called nurse, no doctor and the promise that I was being admitted soon. They were just waiting for a bed to open up. I was beyond over-baked. I was burned and turning to ashes. Johnny was out of his mind with helplessness. He was torn between leaving me and getting back to the boys. I just watched him walk out the door as I continued to twitch. I felt abandoned and isolated. But what choice was there by this hour? We had been there since noon and it was now almost midnight. The party next to me had dispersed finally and the guy had been sent home. And then, there I was–still in ER, still twitching and still on that dang pole! I vaguely remember finally being moved from the ER up to a hospital room. I was still twitching and delirious, but I was thankfully leaving the Barney Fife ER! I must have looked like a textbook case for commitment to the funny farm! By morning I was aware of where I was and why. The twitching had stopped, but I felt like I had been run over by a train. I was not vomiting, however, and that was a big plus!

Finally thirty-two hours after walking through the ER doors, I was being wheeled out of the hospital front entrance. I was going home. Ah… I took a deep breath and exhaled. I was getting out of this hellhole. I was going home to my own bed and my family. Okay, just a few more steps and I would be free! Johnny pulled up the truck, helped me in and off we went. No I take that back. We high tailed it out of there as fast as we could. We were in burnout mode, leaving skid marks behind us. Long gone and never coming back! We looked like two prison escapees on the run. There was no turning back, no coming back ever to that hillbilly, backwoods, cowpoke, Barney Fife- run place. Ever!

So this was chemo? I was positive that I didn’t want any part of it. But what choice did I have now? I had made the deal with the devil and now I was locked in. I was in this for the duration, till the bitter end. One down and just 7 more treatments to go! It was going to be a long 6 months.

It took me almost two weeks to recover from my first chemo. My body had gone through hell and back, and was on its way right back again. The second week following my first chemo brought major changes in my appearance, most notably my hair. Morgen managed to talk me into cutting it once again. My hair was going in steps. It was a three- step program. The first step was a cut that took my hair from right below my shoulder blades, to chin length. The second step took it from chin length to ear length. Now it was time to shave it off!

Shave it off? Shave my hair off! I was ready, wasn’t I? No, not in a million years. Looking back now, I don’t know why I thought holding on to my hair for an extra day or two was so important. But it was.

I wasn’t ready to shave my head just yet, and so I told myself and Morgen that morning. It was a Friday and I just wanted to relax, take it easy and visit on the phone with my best friend. I was not up to shaving my head and joining the Sinead O’Connor league of extraordinary women that afternoon! So I had made it through another day without giving in to step three. I should have known better. Nothing ever goes as planned when it comes to our family. It’s always been that way and quite frankly, it will always be that way. We do nothing the normal way. So was my fate. By Friday night I was feeling a bit weak. I was tired, but I was trying to keep up and in pace with everyone else around me. Johnny and I took the boys to open gym at the local gymnastic school and then made a B line for the movies. I had no idea which movie, any movie would have done at that moment, honestly. I was out and about and that was all that mattered. I was living life, not hiding from it.

I was not about to give into this evil agent named chemotherapy. I was not going to hide from the world around me, nor was I planning on having my hand held through this experience. I am not a quitter. I simply refuse to hide from the pain and from the joy of life. I needed to feel the life I still had flowing through my veins, burning in my soul. I certainly didn’t want to lie on my back and give up. I was a born fighter and fight I intended to do. This was my destiny, the cards I had been dealt. Besides it didn’t matter. If I thought for even one minute that I couldn’t do it, I was going to do it anyway! So we went out. I still had hair, but it was thinning. I put a scarf on with a bit of my hair hanging out and off we went. By the time we picked the kids back up that night, it was around 11:00 PM and the boys were hungry. I was tired but going through the Jack in the Box drive thru seemed like an okay plan at the time. It would just take a little while and then we’d be off and back to the house. Then it blindsided me. I was not expecting what happened next. It was just that quick. I felt a sudden and horrible pain shoot through my scalp. It felt as if someone had poured acid all over my head. My hands instinctively went to my scalp and tears came rushing out of my eyes and down my face.

Johnny looked over at me with a look of confusion. I was crying and still holding my scalp. The boys were speechless. Mommy never cries and there I was–crying. I couldn’t stop crying it was so painful. Johnny looked back over at me and said, “It’s that damn scarf. You need to take it off.” I was furious with him in that moment. It wasn’t the scarf! I knew instantly what was happening and it wasn’t the damn scarf! My hair was falling out! I had finally reached the really “out of the closet” part of chemo. The time had come. It was time that the whole world knew I had cancer. Time to look sick and time to figure out what my face to the world was going to be. We all drove home in silence. We all knew. We all hurt. We were all scared. This was just the next step in becoming a full-fledged cancer patient.

Once we reached the house I went straight through the front door, back into our bedroom and into the bathroom. I needed to see the damage. After all my hair was falling out! How do you prepare yourself for something like that? I had no idea, but I was about to come face to face with whatever or however one deals with it! I was desperate to see and to assess the damage. The only way to really understand it is to look at it as a natural disaster. Once you make it through the howling winds, the flying debris and the brunt of the storm you are ready to run for what’s left of the front door. You don’t really want to go outside and see the damage that’s been left behind by the tornado or the hurricane, but you can’t help yourself. You have to see it with your own eyes. So that’s exactly what I did. I sucked it up, took a deep breath in, removed the scarf from my head and looked at my scalp in the mirror. It wasn’t so bad, so I thought. Sure I had a few bare spots, but overall I still had most of my hair intact. So I took some Advil and went to bed.

Just like a really bad hangover, the next morning my head was not behaving as well as I’d liked it to. Most certainly my scalp was not being so kind to me and if I had the energy I would have told it so!

The aching in my scalp was worse and my already thinning hair was coming out by the handfuls. What do you do for a hangover? Take two aspirin and hope your head stops pounding, right? Okay, I’ll take two aspirin and a brick wall to throw myself into please? At this point I began thinking to myself, what were a few more days without hair? I should have just shaved it all off days ago! After all, guys do it all the time and women go gaga over them, so why not a woman? And anyway, isn’t bald beautiful? I managed to make it through the night. Morning came and I was heading toward lunacy at full speed while still outwardly trying to keep my composure. The conversation in my head was less than kind, but we won’t involve any innocent ears unless anyone here happens to have earmuffs within reach?

By the late afternoon I was just riding the waves. I felt like I was caught out in the open water and no one could see or hear my cries for help. I was furious at myself! I kept wishing I had let Morgen shave my head days before. No, by then I was actually kicking myself. At least it helped ease the pain on top of my head! I should have joined the club days ago, but no, I had to be stubborn! After all, I needed a few more days with my thinning hair to say goodbye. Well, this was goodbye all right, and it hurt deeply. In fact it felt like an explosion had gone off inside my head. Oh yeah. One had. It was chemo. Adriamycin, Cytoxan and Taxotere to be exact. That’s right, it was chemo and this was the fall out! Straight to the point, I was having a very bad chemo day and it was about to get worse.

Poor Morgen. I called her in a state of desperation. But there was nothing she could do to help. She was sick and I was on chemo. The two don’t mix well and so I just had to deal with my own madness. I know it really upset her too. Morgen and I had made a pack that she would shave my head when the time came. No stranger was going to touch my head. This was personal and it was going to be handled with care. Well, my stubbornness had just kicked that out the door and me in the butt! I could just hear my granny saying to me, “Christie honey, don’t let that door hit ya on the way out!” Too late! I had muddled through Saturday and by the time evening finally came, I had learned to deal with the pain. I was just trying to get through to Monday. Come Monday I would go find someone to shave my head. Anyone would do at this point. I just wanted to get the blasted stuff out and off my head.

I waited for a call to come in that night from another girlfriend that had said she would come over and shave my head for me, but the call never came. So I went to bed that night confused and hurt. I was saddened and in a state of mourning. No one tells you that you are going to lose friendships, that people are going to treat you differently and that some are even going to blame you. No, those are the life lessons of this thing called cancer and they aren’t part of chemo 101. So the truth was that I was let down and I needed to rest. So I did. I went to bed and fell into a fitful sleep. Most of my nights were fitful since chemo. Resting was not as easy as it sounded. But I tried. I made it through the night and I got through the next day.

The weekend was turning to be a bust, no pun intended! Evenings especially were beginning to get a bad wrap this particular weekend. But at last here we were. It was evening time and life was screaming at me once again. My scalp was roaring in pain and I wanted to pull each strand out by myself. It felt like my scalp was on fire, as if someone had planted a tomahawk dead in the middle of my head in an attempt to split it right down the center. News flash! They had failed miserably. The darn thing was still planted and wasn’t budging. Poor Johnny, again I say poor Johnny. He was beside himself. He had never seen me so pitiful and in so much anguish. I could see the look in his eyes. He was helpless. He wanted to do something. Fix it. But how do you fix cancer? There is no fix. No, I take that back. There is chemo. Chemo is a giant mushroom cloud with major fallout and you, the chemo patient are the target! After the first initial blast you just walk around in a daze, living with the chemo running through your veins and you watch as your family, the unintended victims of this poison, also get swallowed whole within the outer bands of the bomb that went off inside you!

I could see Johnny’s mind working. He wanted to fix what couldn’t be fixed.

I could see poor Johnny at that moment pulling and prodding. He was desperately trying to dig the blasted device out of my head with both his hands on the hatchet, one foot on my scalp, and a look of fierce determination in his eyes. “If it were only that easy,” I thought to myself, “life with this chemo would go a bit smoother?” No such luck! So when I pulled my body up and out of my rocking chair that Sunday evening, I surely felt as if I had become a monster. And if I felt like one, I was sure I had to look like one too. “A shower,” I thought to myself. “That’s the ticket! A nice warm shower will make me feel human again.” So I stood in there for a very long time with the water pounding down on me. What seemed like hours was only about half an hour in reality. I stood there, crying and crying. Each time I ran my hands through my hair, two fistfuls came out. By the time I turned the water off, there was a pile of hair (my hair), the size of a large rat on the bottom of the shower stall. It was just lying there literally detached from me in every sense of the word. Johnny still in his “Mr. Fix It” uniform, glanced over at me and said, “Don’t worry, it will grow back.” I was furious, and emotionally, I was in overdrive. I didn’t want to hear that my hair was going to grow back! Right here, right now in this very moment my hair was falling out! My identity was falling out. Every strand that made me Christina was going, going and would be gone in a matter of hours! I turned around away from his face and leaned down to pick up all my hair. Johnny came up behind me. Seeing the amount of hair, hearing the hurt in my tears, and seeing my hands covering my face in shame, he took hold of my arm and pulled me up. He pulled me close and held me. Then he reinforced every reason I love him. He looked me in the eyes and said, “Go lay down. I’ll take care of this.” I came out of the bathroom that night with tears streaming down my face. I was crying for the loss, for the pain and for the unfairness of the whole surreal scene playing out in front of me. So this was it? This was what cancer was like? I hated it. I hated it with every living cell left in me! Why? Why was this happening? Cancer sucked and I wanted answers!

The reasons didn’t really matter in the scheme of things. What did matter was that it was happening and I had to deal with it like it or not. These were the cards being dealt to me, and I could only bluff for so long. I needed a life-saving river card! And humor was the best bet. I needed to laugh, to cry. Yes, but to laugh and let it take hold of every part of me. I don’t remember falling asleep that night. Life was becoming nothing more than a blur. I was becoming a blur. I felt as if I were lost somewhere far from home, far from anything and everything familiar. This definitely wasn’t Kansas anymore! The wicked witch was anything but dead, and the yellow brick road had major holes in it! I was lost with no way home in sight.

By morning I was resolved to my plight. My hair had to go. I couldn’t stand one more hour with it the way it was.

I called my Mom and in no time she was at my doorstep. As I locked the front door and turned around I realized just how proud I was of my Mom. After all, this wasn’t easy on her either. Watching your daughter, and your only child, fight breast cancer wasn’t an easy task. There was no trick to it. It was literally sink or swim, and even with the water rising, she was there with me all the same watching me, guiding me and helping me through all the pitfalls of this thing.

I walked slowly out the door and down the driveway. I really didn’t want to do this, but it had to be done. So I made my way to where Mom was waiting. Once I was in the van, and buckled up, Mom reached over to me, grabbed my hand and asked me, “Where do you want to go sweetie?” I had no answer except, “I don’t know.” She backed out of the driveway, and I let out a sigh and mumbled under my breath, “Just drive.” So drive we did. We drove down Bayhill and then down Highland Knolls. Once we turned onto Mason Road. I saw the place. It was a little spot in an older run-down shopping center. It looked isolated, but it would do just fine. So I sucked in all the air I could and stepped out into the parking lot. It was time. Time to fess up to the world, to let everyone in on my dirty little secret… I had cancer, I was sick and I was now going to look the part. In effect I was going to be a ghost from here on out. I would suddenly have “cooties.” And the world could just bite me for all I cared! I just wanted my head to stop burning, pounding. I just wanted someone to remove the acid that had been poured on my scalp and ease the pain.

As I entered the salon I noticed how empty it was, and I was exceptionally grateful for that little bit of privacy. I walked up to the counter, looked the woman behind the counter square in the eye and announced to her that I wanted a buzz, # 3!

The look on her face was priceless. Poor dear, she must have thought I had lost my mind completely. I realized then that I needed to back track a bit and explain why. I proceeded to explain how I had breast cancer and that I had started on chemotherapy. She just shook her head and led me to a chair. I was trying to be brave as I readied myself for the next step. I took a deep breath and then closed my eyes right before asking her to turn me away from the mirror. I knew I would have to see the finished result once she was done, but I had no intention of watching my hair all come off!

This was it, it was happening. How could this be happening to me? Why was this happening to me? I just wanted to run and hide, to take cover and not come back out. This was not on my list of things to do in life! As I sat there listening to the razor buzz, feeling my hair fall, and listening to my heart cry I was ready to throw up the white flag and surrender. What happened to all my dreams? Where did my youth go? I had already lost my breast. What more was I supposed to give up? I could feel the anger inside of me. I could feel the fear and the pain of my emotions as I was being stripped of my identity. With each strand that fell, I screamed inside. Then silence. No more buzzing. No more screaming. I opened my eyes and took a deep breath in. Then I closed my eyes again and gave it all up. It was time to accept what was happening to my body ad make peace with my spirit and soul.

I opened my eyes again, and saw that both my Mom and the woman shaving my head were in tears. They were both crying for me. Then I heard, “Ready?”

I nodded and was now face to face with my new reality. I was looking in the mirror at the new me, the sick me, the cancer me. I tried to smile, but in no way did I look like me. Still I found a smile, thanked the woman and stood up. What happened next will stay with me forever. I was truly blessed and humbled. As I went to pay, the lady refused to take my money. Not even a tip. She tried to comfort me by telling me how I looked just like Demi Moore in GI Jane. I wanted to laugh out loud but chose to just smile. In my dreams, I thought to myself. What I really needed was a fuzzy navel! I just kept smiling as I felt the tears building and thanked her for her graciousness. Then as I was adjusting my scarf on my new bald head, she gave me a hat, her own hat to cover my head. I walked out of there that morning humbled, beaten and uplifted all at the same time.

I steadied myself that afternoon as the boys came through the door. I was scared for them because I knew this was the one thing they feared the most…mommy losing her hair. After all, this was the way they had seen me all their short little lives. Mommy always had long, black hair. Now Mommy had no hair. But as kids often do, they saw past the physical. My boys still saw their mommy. Sure it was hard and yes it hurt them, but they loved me just the same. From that moment on, life was all about living in spite of the pain, the fear and the what if’s. We grew as a family. We lived adventures such as going to Disney World and participating in the Race for the Cure together. My hair grew back in; I went into remission, and I found my voice. But I would have never found any of this without the loss of my breast, the pains of chemo, my fear of losing my hair and the love of my family. Through it all I found that humor is the key to life and I do not regret a single moment of this journey!

Christina

Share your story, make a difference.  If you are a Survivor, or a Co-survivor, help others by sharing your story.  For more information please email stacy@fightpink.org.

Christna’s Recommended Reading:
Long Road to Feeling Whole

Making Good On My Promise