flashback: you have cancer

I was digging through an old notebook a few weeks ago and found some musings I wrote almost 10 years ago…10 days after I found out I had cancer. It was one of those days when I was stressing about work (tellingly, I don’t remember what exactly was pushing my buttons that day) and didn’t have enough time to make it to the gym in the morning and was just generally in a bitchy mood. I was just about to chuck this notebook because I was down to the last couple of pages and as I was thumbing through it, there it was.

4/21/2001.
It’s been a week and a half since I found out that I have cancer.

Wow. What could I possibly have said, I wondered. Here it was, not even 10 years later and I literally can’t remember what I felt, or thought, or what possessed me to write something in a notebook I used for work. You would think (and you do) that you would remember everything. But you don’t. It must have been important. Let’s read on, shall we?

It’s been a week and a half since I found out that I have cancer. I’m 32 years old. I don’t feel sick. I’m getting married in two months. I have a wonderful life, amazing friends, an incredible family. And I have cancer.

I have been shocked, scared to death, angry, guilty for not checking on the symptoms sooner, fatalistic and – the last couple of days – incredibly strong and filled with hope and conviction that I will beat this. It’s an emotional yo-yo.

I guess I do remember that. The roller coaster. And it’s all in your head. Like who do you share all of that with? You can’t freak anyone out with your “I’m gonna die” stuff. That’s all scary stuff that you have to be strong enough to address inside your head. If you’re lucky, you have someone who kinda gets it. I did.

Scott is inspiring. He is my rock. I continue to be amazed by what an incredible, genuine, strong, caring, loving person he is. And by how lucky I am to have stumbled across him when he was a diamond in the rough, how fortunate I am to have had the patience and fortitude to suffer through the rocky times to get here. My love for him overflows.

When I was certain the other night that we’d have to cancel the wedding in favor of a pre-chemo quickie (wedding, that is) in Lake Powell and the reality of not being able to have kids started to settle in he said, “ I don’t care if we have kids. I don’t care if we have a big fancy wedding or even if you want to live in sin for the next 70 years. I just want to spend the rest of my life with you and getting you better is all that matters to me. I just want you.”

Seriously, there are some conversations that you should just write down. Not the bad ones – those seem to live on in your memory just fine on their own, some of the everyday ones too, but damn! How glad am I that I wrote that down?!

I brought those pieces of paper home and read them to him that very night. We both cried but I’m glad I have these words so that even in the dark moments of our relationship – and I don’t care who you are, there will be some cloudy days - I’ll always have a reminder that I married the man who said that. And I love him today more than ever.