Days of Whine and Roses

Ever wonder what it’s like to be me? Probably not, but just in case you have . . .

It’s looking at my husband and wondering whether he would or should find another woman once I’m gone. We’ve been together 18 years. That’s a lot of time learning to live with someone else’s baggage. Would someone else handle his myriad of crap the way I do? Would they handle it better? With tighter abs? And a better housekeeping ethic? Do I want him to spend the next 50 years alone? Do I want him to find that he is happier with someone else?

It’s experiencing a rage so blinding in its intensity that I am driven to tears every time I imagine my children growing up without me. As loud and annoying and messy as they are, the very last thing my babies deserve is the kind of pain that comes from living without a parent. Being 11 and 9 years old makes it somehow crueler. Who will fight with my daughter about the appropriate amount of skin to show? Who will argue with my sons about what a reasonable curfew is? Who will constantly remind all of my children that no means no, respect goes both ways and that they are to remain, at all times, kind and compassionate. I know my husband can do these things, but I’m a control freak. I need to know it’s being done my way. By me. And it won’t.

It’s knowing that the cruelest of all possible situations will befall my parents who will have to bury a child. It doesn’t matter that the child is 47, has children of her own, votes regularly, pays a whole pile of taxes and hasn’t been carded at the liquor store in years. It is an unnatural sequence of events and the very definition of unfair.

It’s volunteering for every single thing Ican related to my children so when they look back at their childhood, they remember that I was there for every single thing I could be. Doesn’t matter if I’m tired or in pain or if my house looks like a bomb went off in it. I show up. Even to the stuff that is mind-numbingly boring (I’m looking at you, third grade string concert). I never say no. And it is exhausting.

It’s feeling isolated and alone in a room full of family and friends. No matter how much they support and love me, no one can ever really know that anguish of knowing that you are not going to live as long as you want. The psychic pain is so much worse than the physical pain.

It’s getting a doc – A DOG! – because a warm puppy to come home to will be cheaper than therapy for three kids. It’s also trying to survive that warm puppy and his need to chew everything in sight (cans of corn, wooden spoons, flip flops, blankets, paper towels, scissors, etc.)

It’s trusting that my oncologist – my brilliant, has-read-the-Bible-in-English-Greek-and-Latin kind of brilliant – knows what the hell he’s doing. And second guessing him at every turn and seeking second opinions that confirm what he’s doing. And then fantasizing about the “vast right-wing conspiracy” of doctors and Big Pharma to keep me all cancer-y. Not really. But kind of.

It’s being eaten alive with envy not only for all the healthy people I see, but also for the ones traveling the cancer path along with me and doing better than I am. Because they’re older and have seen their children have children of their own or they are responding better to a treatment that’s failed me or they have a grace about dying that I haven’t managed to acquire. It is an unfair feeling, but very little about this circumstance is fair to anyone.

It’s realizing that every single holiday may be the last one I celebrate. The pressure to cook the perfect turkey, decorate the perfect Christmas tree and dye the perfect Easter egg is at times overwhelming. But if this is the last Valentine’s Day, 4th of July or Arbor Day, it’s going to be the most Pinterest-worthy celebration my side-effect-weakened and immune-system-compromised self can create.

It’s worrying that for all the evenings of girl talk, shopping weekends with close friends and hours on end spent on sidelines of every sport known to kid-dom bemoaning our parenting woes, I will reach a point where my friends are super-saturated with talk of my cancer and impending death and I will have overstayed my welcome. The response “Fabulous” when asked how I am is almost never even close to true, but it remains my fallback due to the fear that hearing about how I really am now will send folks packing when I need them the most.

It’s watching pictures of milestones on social media – homecoming, prom, graduation, field trips, driver’s licenses, college drop offs, more graduations, boyfriends, girlfriends, engagement rings, weddings, honeymoons, babies, new homes, dream vacations, grandchildren – and feeling so cheated out of my children’s future that I can hardly breathe.

It’s the absolute knowledge that the happiest days I have from here on out are also a little bit sad. And the more devastating absolute knowledge that the happiest days my children will have will also be a little bit sad. Because I won’t be there. And I can’t make it any better for them.

It’s constantly negotiating and figuring out when would be an appropriate time for me to die. After my kids are married and have children seems like to much to ask. How about after they graduate from college? High school? Middle school? OK, how about waiting to die at least until my daughter gets her first period. It seems doubly cruel to force her to go through that without me and to also force my husband to try to figure out which tampon and pad are best for a pre-teen. Please, God, let me live to see that.

It’s wondering what type of mark I’ve really left on the world. Whether people will really remember me once I’m gone. I know my family will. My name is on a couple of plaques in a couple of buildings in the town where I live. Will people remember who I am when they see my name? Will there be a sympathetic head tilt and the question, “Oh, don’t you remember Meredith?” accompanied by a negative shake of the head? Will my name be mentioned at the high school / college / law school reunion? Have I done enough good in this world to be remembered? Enough good that my afterlife isn’t a never-ending sauna?

My mother has always called me a “need-to-knower.” I used to unwrap all of my Christmas presents weeks before Christmas because the suspense was killing me. I could rewrap them so precisely that no one ever knew that I had done it. I only stopped when I was about 19 years old (!!) because the gift I unwrapped on my first day home from college for Christmas break was a lint brush – kind of hard to get excited about that.

My need to know what is going to happen to me and my family has me on the knife edge of panic. I want to fully immerse myself in the joy of my family and friends, particularly during the holiday season, but the freakin’ cancer keeps getting in the way.

Freakin’ cancer.

If anyone looked at my Facebook page during the month of October, they would have been “bashed over the head” (as some have accused) by a daily fact about the horror that is Metastatic Breast Cancer.

October is covered in a fresh coat of Pepto-Bismol pink every year, ostensibly to raise awareness of breast cancer. But here’s what I found out – it’s less about awareness and more about a marketing opportunity. There is no governing body to oversee companies slapping pink ribbons on everything from leggings to cocktails to athletic supporters. The general public, having been “bashed over the head” with the pink ribbons every year, are hoodwinked into thinking that they are helping the cause when instead they’re just buying into the marketing.

And for those legitimate uses of the pink ribbon? The companies that actually do contribute to breast cancer causes? Only a small fraction – the estimate is 2%-7% – of those monies go to research into advanced, terminal, Stage 4, metastatic cancer.

I’ve been fumbling around for the better part of a year, trying to figure out what to do with my life while knowing that I have a much earlier expiration date than I had originally anticipated. Educating my Facebook friends and family seemed a good way to funnel my anger and frustration about my disease and hopefully help the folks in my life have a better understanding of what I’m going through.

I think that I was successful in opening some eyes and certainly in raising money for a charity that donates 100% of its proceeds to Stage 4 research (metavivor.org). I know that a large donation from my old high school’s volleyball team went to that organization when in previous years it had gone to a larger, more well-known but perhaps not as Stage 4 friendly organization. Posting those facts and statistics made me feel empowered. Like I was using my disease and anger for good.

You know that feeling, when you were younger, and you’re hanging out in a bar and you’ve been maybe a little bit over served and suddenly you and your friends are that much more smart, that much more erudite and that much more able to solve all the problems of the world? You feel empowered and useful and like nothing can ever stop your brilliance? I remember that feeling.

You know what I also remember? Waking up after a lousy night’s sleep because the bed was spinning and I was losing my dinner of nachos and vinegar fries. The headache, the sour stomach, and feeling of dread. The hangover that was sure to make my day at work an absolute nightmare.

I’m kind of left with that feeling now. Spouting all the statistics and admittedly picking out the worst ones to shock people into paying attention has left me feeling nauseated and headache-y and feeling my mortality so much more than I typically allow myself.

What I was able to ignore in posting about 113 deaths from MBC per day and 30% of early stage diagnoses turning into a metastatic diagnosis and a median life span of 33 months from MBC diagnosis was the fact that all of these statistics apply to ME! I am going to be one of the 113 deaths one day. I had an earlier stage breast cancer that metastasized. And I am 15 months into a median 33 month life span.

My denial mechanisms are a little faulty after all of this “bashing over the head” information. In attempting to educate and enlighten those closest to me, I didn’t realize that I would be constantly reminding myself that my clock is ticking very loudly. And, my God, is that depressing.

To look at me, you’d never know that I have a terminal disease. And I do still feel OK. That’s one of the hardest things about this disease. I don’t look sick. I don’t feel sick. But I am dying. It’s easy for people to forget that. It’s a shame I can’t do the same.

Let’s face it. As much as we are constantly on our kids to tell the truth, not lie and always be honest, we moms tell a lot of fibs.

Yes, of course there’s a tooth fairy.

No, there aren’t any Oreos left.

Yes, I love listening to you learn to play the cello.

No, I wasn’t looking at my phone when you were going down the playground slide for the 47th time screaming, “Mom, watch me!”

Lies are a necessary fact of life and parenthood. We tell our kids untruths to protect them (I’m sure that our cat that ran away is alive and well and living with a wonderful family), to preserve their innocence (of course a fat man in a red suit can visit all the children of the world in one night) and maintain our own sanity (it’s against the law for kids to have cookies for breakfast).

Sometimes, I’ve been known to lie to my kids just for fun. The first time my older two tried mint, they decided they hated it. From that moment on, if there was any food I did not want to share with them, I just told them it was mint. I was able to hoard a lot of Milky Ways and potato chips that way. Damn the kid who gave them a piece of DoubleMint gum during a playdate and helped them decide that mint is now their favorite flavor.

My husband and I would laugh over some of the lies we told when the kids were younger. They were cute and funny and usually told only to either keep us from doing something we didn’t want to (toy stores aren’t open on Tuesday mornings) or keep them from getting something we didn’t want them to have (ice cream from Dairy Queen tastes like broccoli).

The thing is, the lies are getting bigger and they’re not at all funny anymore.

We still haven’t told the kids that I have Stage 4 breast cancer. It’s been almost a year since I was diagnosed with a breast cancer tumor in my liver, and I still look basically the same. My treatment, which is working well, hasn’t caused any outward changes. I haven’t lost my hair and you can’t see the arthritis in my hips or the neuropathy in my feet or the sores in my nose. So I haven’t seen a reason to tell them.

Lying by omission? Most definitely.

They’re kids and they’re curious and they still ask questions about my cancer. They know that cancer never really goes away. That it can lurk around in your body and that I take a fistful of pills every day to make sure that it doesn’t take up residence again. But that’s a lie. I take a fistfull of pills every day to make sure that it doesn’t find a third home after my breast and my liver.

My youngest told me the other day how proud he was of me because I beat cancer and it’s never going to come back. How am I supposed to respond to that? I thanked him and quickly changed the subject, lying by omission because I can’t tell my nine-year old that I wasn’t done with cancer and never will be.

I hosted a big family reunion and surprise 70th birthday party for my mom a few weeks ago. My kids sat in the back of the car yesterday and talked about how great it would be to throw a similar party for me when I’m 70 and asked me whether I’d like that. Of course I’d like that – because the likelihood that I’m going to be here at the age of 70 is a pipe dream. But I can’t tell them that. I just nodded, bit my lip to keep the tears from coming and told them I would like a silver and navy blue color palette.

The lies are easier during the school year, when I can drop them off at school and take up residence in the recliner or go back to bed on days when the side effects of my treatment leave me feeling as if I can’t move one more muscle. These long summer days are so much harder. They want to go places and do things and I cannot bear to disappoint them. I’m trying to create memories here – I don’t want these memories to be about how mom couldn’t do this or was too tired to do that.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – this cancer thing really fucking sucks.

I have no idea whether I’m doing the right thing. Lying about Santa and the correct number of remaining Oreos was so much easier. I’m glad my kids still trust me and believe everything I say. I can only hope that it’s not going to come back and bit me in the butt when they find out the truth. When I lie, it’s only to protect them.

Those of us who are around our mid-40’s like I am probably remember a Nike commercial from the mid-1990’s starring Charles Barkley in which he announced, without shame, “I am not a role model.”

Now, I’m more of a football and baseball fan, but I know who Charles Barkley is and I remember that commercial. And it runs through my head quite often these days with a small edit. My mind changes “I am not a role model” into “I am not a fighter.”

There is a prevalent characterization that having cancer is a battle, a fight, a war. And those of us who have cancer are fighters. And warriors. And we can beat cancer – if we just fight hard enough.

Please believe me when I tell you this – characterizing this disease as a fight insinuates that it can be won. That doesn’t help those of us who are facing Stage IV cancer – breast or otherwise. There is no cure for Stage IV cancer. By definition that means that there is no beating it. There is no winning this battle. There is staving it off, there is delaying the inevitable, there is praying for the miraculous, but there is no victory to look forward to.

Many have said something to me that sounds a lot like this – “You’ve beaten cancer once. You’ll beat it again.”

Actually, the fact that I have cancer “again” by definition means that I did not “beat it” the first time. My cancer did not slink off in defeat. It retreated, regrouped and reappeared elsewhere.

Cancer is not afraid of me. I, on the other hand, am brought to my knees – mostly figuratively and sometimes literally – by the reality of cancer.

Calling cancer a battle makes it sound as if there is a level playing field, with both cancer and I having an equal(ish) shot of winning. But, in the immortal words of Adriane Balboa as her husband Rocky took off to train in the Siberian winter against the Russian Drago, “You can’t win!”

In the same vein, when someone with cancer dies, they are said to have “lost their battle.” As if, had they only fought a little bit harder, they would still be with us. Now, I know that I’m ascribing my own point of view to this and no one is trying to say that someone needs to try harder to beat cancer. But for someone in my situation, asking someone to fight or saying someone has lost the fight misses the point.

Honestly, cancer feels more like a job than a fight – take the medicine, swallow the supplements, get the blood drawn, go for the second opinion, see the doctor, see the other doctor, see the first doctor again, eat the kale, drink the green juice, keep meticulous notes, take the chemo, suffer the radiation, lather, rinse, repeat. It is more of a job than any job I’ve ever had has been.

I am not a fighter. I am a disgruntled employee.

As a parent, I’ve never been a big fan of the end of the school year. Actually, it’s the last two months of school that set my teeth on edge. And it’s not just the impending school vacation where I am left with the “rock and a hard place” choice of either spending all of my drinking money on camp or spending all of my drinking money on drinking because my kids are home all day. My eyelid still twitches when I remember “The Great No Camp Summer of 2013.” Never again, folks. Never again.

But more than that, it is the never-ending round of parties and meetings and art class visits and field day and field trips that drives me up a tree. I’ve got to be at the kids’ school almost every day over the next 4.5 weeks. There’s the 5th grade talent show and the 5th grade beach party and the 5th grade moving up ceremony and the 3rd grade animal adaptations presentation and the all-school field day. If one more person asks me to chaperone a field trip, I’m going to lose my damn mind. It’s enough!

It doesn’t end there, though, because it’s not just the stuff at the school. Oh, no. It’s trying to force three kids to do their homework when all they want to do is play Butt Tag and Don’t Touch the Ground Tag and TV Tag (whatever happened to plain ole tag?). It’s trying to get those kids to go to bed before the sun goes down when bedtime is 8:00 and sunset is 8:30. It’s baseball games that go until 8:00 at night and feeding kids dinner at 8:30pm and waking them up at 6:00am to do the homework they didn’t do the night before.

And adding a new wrinkle to my irritation with the end of the school year? Seeing all the pictures of kids off to prom and newly minted graduates and not knowing whether I will be around to take those pictures of my own kids. Every post on social media congratulating a friend’s kid on their chosen college or university is a freakin’ stab to the heart.

How will my daughter go to prom without me there to pay for her manicure and hem her dress and remind her to tuck a condom in her bag because sometimes things happen even when you don’t plan them? (And if you think I’m being naive thinking that things won’t “happen” before prom, believe me, I know. I just don’t want to say it out loud.)

How will my sons go to college without me nagging them to refine their essays, broaden their extracurricular activities and devote as much time to community service and homework as they do to sports and clubs?

I hate the idea that I won’t be here. I hate it so much it causes me physical pain. There was a study released this week that shows that people living with MBC (metastatic breast cancer) are living longer. The problem is, it’s by months. Not years. Not decades. Not enough.

I know that there are people who beat the odds. And that lots of the people who don’t survive for five years with this disease were diagnosed when they were 80 years old or older and they wouldn’t have been alive at the five year mark even without the cancer. It seems that everyone has a story about a friend or relative who had Stage 4 cancer and they lived for 30 years. But the statistics still suck and seeing all these milestones being celebrated when I have no guarantee I will be there to celebrate them with my children sucks. It. Fucking. Sucks.

I am not giving up. I am not denying that I am strong. I am not about to lie down and wait for the Grim Reaper to come and take me. I’m just saying that it’s hard. And I’m tired. And feeling a little blue.

In the immortal words of Tammy Wynette, sometimes it’s hard to be a woman.

Just don’t waste your time trying to explain that to a 10.5 year old on the cusp of puberty.

Oh, my girl is a hormone machine. She pinballs from ecstasy to tragedy and back again in the time it takes to ask her how school was today. The tears are ready to flow at a moment’s notice and the only guaranteed way to stop them is to offer her copious amounts of chocolate and a trip to the nail salon for a mani-pedi.

She is, after all, my daughter.

Her BFF’s are now sworn enemies. Until tomorrow, when they are BFF’s again. Until the next day, when they are sworn enemies again. And so on and so on and so on.

Boys are gross. Except this one. And that one. And, please mom, I beg you, don’t tell anyone, but that one too.

School is torture, school is awesome. She can’t wait for middle school next year. She never wants to leave elementary school.

And through it all, my mother laughs at the stories of my girl being bitchy and cranky and prone to tears for no apparent reason. Because she and I traveled this road together 35 or so years ago.

I recognize my girl’s moods. I remember her moods from when they were my own. When nothing anyone said was right thing to say. When all I wanted was for someone to see me. When all I wanted was to just be left alone. When I wanted more than anything to be an adult. When I wanted to stay a kid forever. When I had no earthly idea what I wanted.

She is, after all, my daughter.

And here I stand, on the opposite side of the hormone journey. Forced into menopause to keep the cancer at bay, I too am bitchy and cranky and prone to tears for no apparent reason. I’m not fighting with my BFF’s, but my husband sure has learned to take a verbal punch. I want to be with my kids every second of the day. I want to ship them off to boarding school. I want spend every waking minute with my husband. I want to smother him with his own pillow.

As my daughter gets used to wearing a bra every day, I’m still trying to remember to wear my prosthesis every day. Winter is a great time for forgetting to wear my fake boob because I’m covered up by sweaters and coats and no one can really tell when I’m not wearing it. It’s when spring comes that I’m going to be embarrassed if I forget it at home one day.

And as my daughter is reading about getting her first period, I’m scheduling surgery to have my ovaries removed to further lessen the production of tumor-feeding estrogen in my body.

She is right at the beginning of becoming a woman. With cute bras from Justice and the 5^th grade health video looming. Giggling about boys without really knowing what she’s giggling about quite yet. Fighting and bonding and fighting and bonding with friends as they each grow and change and figure out who they are and who they need their support system to be.

And while she’s at the beginning, I am fighting the notion that my womanhood is coming to an end. I know that genetically I am forever female and my gender identity has never been in question. But what kind of woman am I, with one boob, no ovaries, and a beard that, thanks to my hormonal confusion, comes in even more luxuriously than my husband’s?

I have to guide my girl into womanhood at the same time I’m trying to preserve my sense of femininity. Both of us bitchy and cranky and prone to tears.

To my husband and sons, I wish you the very best of luck. We are not easy to deal with, my girl and I, but we’re doing the best we can.

I haven’t written in a while. I’ve tried. I really have. I’ve spent countless minutes sitting in front of a blank page, willing the words to come to help me deal with the cluster that is life with Stage 4 cancer. And nothing comes.

I’ve spent hours in pickup lines and parking lots, waiting for school/basketball/playdates to be over with, mentally composing and deleting dozens of blog posts. Funny lines drift in and out of my head, but putting pen to paper (keyboard to internet?) erases it all.

Perhaps I’m having so much trouble writing about the cancer because I spend a lot of time pretending I don’t have it.

Lots of folks ask me how I’m doing over the course of a day. My response is almost always “I’m fabulous.”

Fabulous? I’m fabulous?

I’m a freakin’ liar is what I am. I am so far from fabulous I couldn’t find it with my Waze app, a telescope and a Sherpa.

Scared, nauseated, fatigued, depressed, terrified, guilty, grief-stricken – I could write a book filled with nothing but the negative emotions that I’m trying very hard to ignore. But putting them in a blog post or answering the “how are you doing” question that is almost always now accompanied by a sympathetic head tilt? That all hits a little too close to home. Unless I spend time with my new best friend – denial.

Denial shields me from worry, protects me from the negative emotions and allows me to cut off sympathetic head tilts before they turn into tears.

Unfortunately, denial as a coping mechanism is not fool proof. Witness the Christmas season and the pressure parents feel to make it all so magical.

Then imagine that you don’t know how many Christmases you have left and the backbreaking pressure to make this Christmas the Best!!! Christmas!!! Ever!!!

Pressure kicks Denial’s ass every time.

Ordinarily, I love Christmas. I start playing Christmas music the day after Halloween, I own hundreds of Hallmark Keepsake ornaments and Rankin and Bass are my heroes. I love sharing Christmas specials and holiday traditions with my kids. What I don’t love is not knowing how many more times we’re going to decorate a tree together or fight over who gets to put Baby Jesus in the Nativity set manger or sing Wham’s “Last Christmas” together.

Denial keeps that bitch “Ugly Cry” from taking hold and not letting go. But Pressure likes to keep Ugly Cry on speed dial just in case I get too comfortable and let thoughts of what Christmas will be like as a grandparent creep in. And Pressure wants homemade Christmas cookies and a perfectly decorated tree and thousands of dollars’ worth of presents under the tree or she will invite Ugly Cry for a sleepover that will last until Valentine’s Day.

I hate that bitch Ugly Cry.

So my friend Denial and I are going to continue to sit here, telling everyone we’re fabulous, freebasing Christmas cookies and fantasizing about what Christmas as a grandparent is going to be like. Just let Pressure and Ugly Cry try to stop me.

It is the first weekend of October, also known as Breast Cancer Awareness month.

A few years ago, when I was still in the midst of active treatment, my older son started playing tackle football. During the month of October, they swapped out their maroon socks for pink, the boys wore pink wristbands, shoelaces and eye black, and all the cheerleaders, including my daughter, started wearing pink bows. When he asked me why everyone was doing this, I told him it was for breast cancer awareness. With a look that only a sarcastically-advanced 8-year-old can pull off, he smirked at me and said, “Mom, don’t you think I’m already aware?”

Fair point. He was certainly more aware than any third grader should be.

This morning, both of my boys suited up for football with their pink socks, wristbands, eye black and shoelaces, and my daughter dressed for cheer with a big pink bow in her hair and a pink ribbon pin on her bag. My kids are aware of breast cancer in ways that their friends are not, and hopefully never will be.

They’re just not aware that their mom has breast cancer again.

They aren’t aware that I’ve been forced into menopause and I’m taking a fistful of drugs and supplements every day to keep myself asymptomatic for as long as possible.

They aren’t aware that chemo is inevitable and that I’m dreading the day I have to tell them that I’m going to lose my hair again.

They aren’t aware that if the statistics are to be believed, I will not see them graduate from high school.

I am aware. Every second of every day, I am aware that I have breast cancer.

Every time I think about snagging a French fry off of my kid’s plate and wonder if that fry will shorten my lifespan.

Every time I yell at my kids and wonder if their only memories of me will be of a yelling, nagging, shrieking harpy whose only concerns in life are underwear on the floor and homework getting done before midnight.

Every time I picture my babies having babies and wonder if maybe teenage pregnancy wouldn’t be so bad if it meant that I would be alive to meet my grandchildren. (I’m kidding, of course. Teenage pregnancy is not a goal. But how I would love to meet my grandchildren.)

I don’t know if we’re doing the right thing by not telling them yet. There is so much awfulness coming their way because their mom has cancer that I want to put it off as long as possible. I want to protect them. When they think about breast cancer, I want them to think of the pink and shiny breast cancer that they think their mom survived. Not this dark and scary breast cancer that their mom is fighting.

I do worry that someday, once I’m gone, they’re going to be pissed because we weren’t honest with them from the get go. That they won’t understand that in our desire to protect them from the worst, we kept the biggest secret from them that we possibly could.

I know I can’t keep them protected forever. But I want to keep them in this bubble of ignorance as long as possible. I want them to wear the pink socks and wristbands and cheer bow and feel proud that their mom is a survivor. And I will keep the dark and scary from them for as long as I can.

And since it is Breast Cancer Awareness month, here is my PSA – go get your mammogram. If it’s been more than a year, call today and make an appointment. If you’re 40 or over, call today and make your appointment. If you’re under 40 but have any reason to think that you might be at risk, call today and make your appointment.

1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in their lifetimes. Scary thought, isn’t it? There are 7 women out there who can be thankful to me, because I am the 1 in 8, but unless you’re one of those 7, please take care of yourself and be proactive about your breast health.

I like to talk. A lot. In school, there was more than one occasion where I had to change desks because I was too chatty with my neighbor. My husband and I can’t get through an entire television show without me interrupting at least three times with random observations, jokes or anecdotes, most of which have nothing to do with what we’re watching. I generally irritate folks sitting next to me in movie theaters, concerts and shows because I like to comment on what I’m seeing.

No one would ever describe me as quiet.

And yet, I find myself with nothing to say.

People ask me how I am. I honestly don’t know. I can’t put this feeling into words. This anxious feeling that makes my stomach feel like it’s being gnawed from the inside. This scary feeling of impending doom. This terrified feeling that my life is over.

What I do not feel is brave. Or strong. Or inspirational. Or any of the dozens of other lovely but hyperbolic adjectives friends and family have been using to describe me.

I want to write about how I feel. About how I vacillate between insomnia and sleeping too much, because when I sleep I don’t have to think about my diagnosis. About how I truly believe I caused my own cancer, whether by drinking too much Diet Coke or by carrying my cell phone around in my bra or by eating too much sugar and not enough kale. About how looking at my children and imagining them growing up without me causes such profound grief that I almost can’t stand to be around them.

I want to write, but putting the words onto paper (or online) makes it my reality. And that reality is excruciating.

I keep trying to poke fun at the cancer. My jokes tend to fall on deaf or, more usually, offended ears. It’s too hard for others to hear me make jokes about death and pain and cancer. I’ve joked about laminating a card with a giant “CANCER” written on it – my own personal cancer card to flash when people ask me to volunteer for something or clean something or cook something. No one but me finds it funny. I’ve tried to tease my husband by saying he’s going to miss me when I’m gone, but he just gets pissed off and leaves the room.

I don’t know how to be this person that I find myself being. I’m doing everything that I did before finding out that it’s Stage 4, but it feels fake now. Like I’m pretending to be Meredith. Pretending to enjoy my life and pretending to not be absolutely terrified with every minute that ticks by that I’m coming closer to the end.

I know that no one is guaranteed a certain number of years on this mortal plane. I know that I could get hit by a bus today (or more likely hit by someone in the elementary school parking lot who doesn’t know how to navigate the pick-up line). But getting hit by a bus or an idiot parent is a what if. Cancer is.

I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to feel. I don’t know how to be. But cancer is. And while it is, so am I. A good friend wrote to me yesterday, “Fake it til you make it.” I will continue to fake it and pretend that I am still me until I figure out what to say, what to feel and how to be.

We’ve all heard the stories. Or seen it played out on countless sitcoms. Pregnant mom and dad head to the hospital, convinced that baby’s arrival is imminent. They invite everyone they know – family, friends, co-workers, high school nemesis, Uber driver, et al. – to come join them at the hospital to wait for the blessed event, only to sheepishly come out of Labor & Delivery a few hours later, still pregnant, and apologizing for the false alarm.

The baby is definitely coming, but not tonight, folks.

I got my biopsy results yesterday. It is exactly as my doctor thought – this is a recurrence of the original breast cancer I fought off two and a half years ago. One little cell apparently thought it was too good to be killed by the surgery, chemo and radiation, and decided my liver would make a nice home. So here we are.

There is no good news here. There is, perhaps, fair-to-middlin’ news which is that since this is the same tumor, we know it’s pathology and how to fight it. Essentially, my tumors are estrogen and progesterone receptor positive, meaning that hormones are the food for my tumors. My oncologist, in consultation with other oncologists at Yale-New Haven, has decided that my best path right now is not chemo, but instead hormonal treatments.

Since I am asymptomatic, the goal now is to put me into menopause (I’d ask for prayers to help Anthony deal with the inevitable mood swings, but he’s well aware he married a bitch, so I think he’ll handle that part just fine). I will take shots of Zoladex, which will put me into menopause and then take Aromasin, which is a drug they give post-menopausal breast cancer patients. I will also take a new drug called Ibrance, which is neither a hormone drug nor a chemo drug, but has shown great promise in putting those with metastatic breast cancer into remission.

I will have monthly blood work and a PET scan every three months. As long as the treatment is working, I will continue with it. Once it starts to fail, then it’s on to chemo.

The chemo is definitely coming, but not tonight, folks.

The likely chemo drug of choice will be Adriamycin, known in chemo circles as Red Death – sounds pleasant, doesn’t it? And I will continue that treatment until it starts to fail.

My cancer is by definition Stage 4, and unless I get hit by a bus, this is what is likely going to end my life. But I will do the hormonal treatment and I will suffer the Red Death and I will enroll in every clinical trial that will have me. I am exploring alternative therapies like acupuncture and and will do everything in my power to ensure that I stay not only asymptomatic, but as healthy as possible for as long as possible.

I have years left, but whether it is 2 years or 5 or 10 or 20, the only thing that is certain is that it will never be enough. There are dozens of items on the family bucket list – natural wonders to visit, conversations to have, experiences to share. I may not live to see my children as adults, but I will make damn sure that their memories of me are varied and powerful and full of the overwhelming love I have for them.

I remain humbled by all of the offers of support and love from family and friends – whether we see each other every day or haven’t spoken in years, I appreciate your kind notes, positive thouts and prayers more than you know.

Love to you all – MLV