Cancer is scary. It's a word you don't want to think. It's a subject that is difficult to talk about. Cancer is ugly. But sometimes it's not. Sometimes it makes you love harder and see things more clearly. And sometimes, well, sometimes cancer is what it is. A dark, lonely place.
By nature I am a fixer, a problem solver. Growing up, I was often the parent in the relationship with my momma. I became her child when she was very young, and as a mother myself now, I understand a little bit better. As a college student working full time and attending school full time I bought my mom a health insurance policy when I found out she didn't have one. She was someone that, for whatever reason, you wanted to help. I always wanted to save her from a very young age. A cancer diagnosis was no different.
She called in the middle of my 5th period literature class I was teaching to tell me her pathology results. If you are a teacher, especially a middle school teacher, you know that you can not answer your phone in the middle of a lesson. My ringer was never on. That day it was, and when I saw it was her calling in the middle of the day I excused myself to answer in the hallway.
She could barely get the words out. She didn't have to. I knew.
It's one of those moments that I can watch play out. The red student lockers lining the hallway. The industrial greige carpet. My present self wants to remind me to breathe.
Immediately I go into control mode. I've got this. I'll fix you. You have cancer? I'll get you another opinion. I'll fix you. I've got a plan. Or I will.
I'm carrying a child in a high risk pregnancy. You have a class of 30 thirteen year olds behind that door. Pull your shit together. Wipe your eyes. Tell your momma that you are taking care of it. Go back in there and finish that lesson.
I'm really (probably unhealthily) good at taking control of a problem. I like to be in control, which might be a problem. I was going to fix this.
After school let out, I was on the phone with her Abilene oncologist. I needed specifics. I needed to become the expert. It wasn't good. The diagnosis was terminal. I wrote down notes that I don't remember hearing. I remember thanking the doctor for his time, and he told me that he was sorry.
Phone calls were made to Cancer Centers of America and MD Anderson in Houston. Calls were made to insurance. I was going to fix this.
When she made her initial appointment to the MD Anderson campus in Houston, we thought her tumors were localized in one lobe of her left lung. Localized. Simple. Remove the lung. After the hours of appointments, we were told that the cancer was metastatic. It was found in her lung, diaphragm, bones, spine and brain. Her doctors were questioning how she was still alive let alone living a normal life.
The game plan was no longer to cure her but to prolong her life. They said 6 months at the most. She went through two courses of full brain radiation, multiple chemo rounds, gamma knife radiation and two experimental studies. She lost her hair, grew some back, lost it again.
She would call me and tell me that she couldn't do it anymore. She was too sick. She was tired. I would tell her that she could quit at any time. No one would blame her. We would understand. She fought hard.
Actually, when I told her she could quit, her response was the same every time.
"Fuck you."
And then she would keep fighting. Until there was nothing left to take into the ring with her.
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