TW: In depth discussion about cancer treatment proceedings.
I kind of/sort of just jumped into the thick of it, didn’t I? Honestly, I went where my muse was taking me, but maybe I can admit to not having wanted to relive that day just yet. Especially because I really wouldn’t be able to tell you where my mind was at the time. Most of what I’ll say now is from the perspective of adult me rather than child me. With that cleared up, lets go back to 2003.
Leading up to my diagnosis was a number of frustrating circumstances. Not two or three months before, we had what has come to be known now as the Northeast Blackout of 2003. It was just my luck that me and mom had come from an appointment that fitted me with a new cast because I stupidly broke my foot running down a flight of stairs in my building. At the time, I thought that was the worse of my luck: suffering a black out during one of the hottest days in the summer with a new cast. If only I had known back then what I do now, I might not have been so whiny. I’d take another broken bone over the life altering events that followed soon after.
Once the headache over my foot seemed over, I woke up one morning complaining of a deep ache in my neck. My mom, having been a nurse in her previous life, checked me over and honestly – even if she wasn’t a nurse – there was no missing the sizable lump she found. If my mom had concerns over it being something nefarious beforehand, she never made me aware of it and we went to who I imagine was my primacy care doctor for a check up. They diagnosed it as mumps, wrote a script for antibiotics and scheduled me for a follow up just to see how I was taking to the medication. You would think that, after appearing at their office once again but with a larger lump than before, some alarm bells would be ringing. Instead I was given yet another round of antibiotics against my mother’s insistence of more tests. It didn’t take long for her to schedule a visit with another doctor for a second opinion.
After many tests and a pretty painful procedure to dissect the ‘tumor’ and drain the fluid that had built up in all that time, I had the unfortunate luck of getting the bad news exactly on my 13th birthday. At the time, I had no idea how grave it was to hear ‘Hodgkin’s Lymphoma’ and ‘Stage 4’ in the same sentence. Then again, as a freshly turned 13 year old, I suppose hearing those words shouldn’t have struck a cord in me until after we were home. My mom explained the gravity of the situation so the dread soon filled me with a fear like no other. Even now, as an adult, those words haven’t chilled my bones quiet like it first did when I was kid. I guess I no longer perceive it as much of a threat, but I digress.
By November, I walked into Memorial Sloan Kettering for the first time. I tried to follow along with my doctor as she proceeded to explain the battle I was about to begin but those days are rather hazy in my recollection. I do recall going through with getting my catheter implanted in my chest, the one that required a physical line to protrude out of me (I can’t remember the reasons why I didn’t get the port right away). My memory leads me to believe that all this happened at the same time, but that shouldn’t be possible with how fast I lost my hair. We were told that the approach to my cancer was going to be highly aggressive, so maybe it did end up being in that order. All I can remember is taking a shower one day and the strands that weren’t neatly tucked away in my French braids were quickly filling my hands.
I remember the tears I cried in horror. The fear that was practically choking me up and then my mom appeared to hold me close. As a young puertorriqueña, I’m sure I’ve complained about my thick hair multiple times up until that moment. Mom had put my hair in two braids, and at the time I wasn’t sure why. She always fawned over my hair and made sure it was well taken care of and tended to, so braids weren’t a normal hairstyle for me. As I look back to those harrowing hours, I can see she was trying to keep me from physically seeing large chunks coming away in my hands. However it would seem as though we both underestimated how hard my first round of chemo would be.
I don’t blame her for the fact that I had a braid of my hair in my hand by the end of the night. I only wish I could have that hair texture again as I never had an opportunity to truly appreciate it. It never did grow the same way. When that night ended, I had hoped that would be the worse thing I’d experience during my treatment. I didn’t feel prepared, at all, to tackle whatever was coming next and as I look back on it, it has led me to realize where my anxiety most likely began. My future was looking pretty bleak.
(….to be continued.)
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