Bad Teachers/Good Lessons

I took trigonometry in tenth grade. I found it incomprehensible and worse, I hated my teacher with a visceral passion. Mr. Burrows was a weightlifter and was very identified by it. It seemed like he only spoke to the athletic boys in the class. If you needed extra help, which I did, your only choice was to follow him around during his workout before school began. It was ineffective (because I had to move from weight station to weight station holding a textbook and a notebook) and kind of humiliating. You could tell when you walked into the classroom whether he was absent or not because it either did or didn't smell like B.O. Looking back, I don't know if I hated him or trig more but sometimes, before I went to bed, I wished he were dead.
In addition to the aforementioned challenges, he had a tough-love strategy. He made the coursework so difficult that by the time the regents exam would roll around, it felt like kindergarten math. The entire year, day after day, I was lost in a sea of cosine curves and trinomial equations. But guess what? The strategy worked. In spite  of the D's on my report card, I got an A on the regents exam. It was painful to learn something this way but  learn it I did.
I think that is what I'm writing about today. I feel like I've had the opportunity to unearth the lessons that you'd anticipate would result from a cancer diagnosis. I'm become extremely focused on gratitude. I've learned how powerful love is as an agent of healing.  And I've had the chance to both witness and admire the power of my own pluck.  But I think it's  hubris to think that you can know or can even anticipate what any new experience has to teach you. I'm still in the diagnosis phase. Who knows how it will be or how I will interpret all of it? This business of living is indeed mysterious and it only seems to become more so as I get older. I have no answers, just more and more questions.


This diagnosis has felt like a sucker punch and though it has an echo to my previous trauma, it is in fact quite different. And I think separating the two bears some examination. In my last (mis)adventure, my recovery was going to be about doing-- building a narrative of the failed relationship and creating a healthy, new life for me and the kids. I had to make sure the kids felt safe. I had to make sure they had time and space to greive. I had to make sure I did too. And I also have to do the laundry and the recycling and mow the lawn. My days have been busy but I've enjoyed the work and it has filled me with purpose. It wasn't just the love from family and friends that helped me heal, it was the satisfaction I got from 'doing' all by myself. I'm beginning to understand, almost two weeks into this how exactly it will be different. This time, because the nature of this disease, I will need to stop doing. I will need to learn to receive.


I've been reading a book, written by a pathologist, about her journey through breast cancer. Wisely, she figured out what she would need to survive the ordeal of chemo, surgery, and radiation; she asked for help. She gave people jobs. I've been following in her footsteps. I've asked my sisters for more than I can list here. I have friends who will make me high protein smoothies. I have parents who will help with laundry and tidying. Some friends have  bought me funny flip flops so I can have happy feet during treatment and others are bulking up my hat collection.  I am overwhelmed both by how much I suddenly need and also, by how much is being given and continues to be offered. There seems no end of the goodness and care of the people in my life, both near and far. I guess my only real sensible response to all of this is to figure out how to open my arms and my heart to it. It's not what I want but I'm learning to do it.
We don't always like our teachers and we don't always like their lessons. But that doesn't mean that the learning isn't valuable. Maybe that's my first lesson in all of this.

Left-Right-Left

I went on a bike trip last summer that included several tunnels that were originally built for railroads. One, in particular, was very long and very dark. One of my companions had encouraged all of us to get light fixtures on our bikes but it was one of the items that fell off my 'must-have' list and onto my, 'I'll work it out when the time comes,' list. That was one of several things that I wished I had seen to, including bike fenders so that when it rained, I didn't look like a doofus with a mud splash up my back.

As we approached the tunnel, I got scared. The path was narrow, wavy, and made of hard-packed dirt. There was just a flimsy plywood railing separating the path from about an eight foot drop to the ground. Because I was afraid to be in the tunnel at all, I was determined to stay on my bike till I got to the end. That was my goal: to be through it as quickly as possible. My companion with a headlamp was in front and I focused on staying near enough to her so that I could benefit from her light. I made it about ¾ of the way through when I realized that I'd begun to tailgate, which was dangerous for both of us. It's difficult to ride slowly and in a straight line and I began to wobble.  Briefly, I grazed my elbow or knee against the rock wall which would send me correcting out to the edge. After a several wobble-scrape-careen-recover sequences, it became clear that it was time to get off the bike and step-by-step my way to the light. It was slow and scary and a darkness like I've never known.

My goal is to get through this as fast as I can. On Wednesday morning, unbelievably, I signed up to have breast surgery with a man who specializes in bariatric procedures. I felt so desperate to be on the other side. But with my sisters' love, support, and intelligence, we've changed our plan. We cancelled that surgery and now, I have an appointment to meet with a team of specialists at the Dana Farber Cancer Center. It's clearly the right path but it requires more time. I've been wobbling and careening (i.e. crying) all day. I want to show up at the Dana Farber Cancer Center and have them knock me on the head with a mallet and take it out with a big knife. But it's just like the bike trip through the tunnel. I want to ride but the evidence has suggested that I get off and start to do the step by step thing. It will take more time. It is scarier. I'm reluctant but I'm not stupid. This is an exercise in patience, faith and surrender. All worthy, all difficult, all ephemeral.

The Real Day One

It was a Tuesday, the 15th of May. I'd had a biopsy the day prior and had repeated assurances that the mass that the various radiologists were viewing was not cancer. I didn't think it was cancer. It was painful. It moves around. It's strangely large and visible. The biopsy was unpleasant but I was optimistic because I was told over and over that I had every reason to be. That morning I was working in my new office when it suddenly struck me that it might make sense to rearrange the furniture. Still sore, I managed to lift and shove all the furniture into the middle of the room when my phone rang. The radiologist  asked if I wanted the results on the phone. I did. Standing hip-deep in furniture, with one hand to the phone, the other to my head, I tried to absorb the news. That's it. Day one.


Like (but certainly not like) the soldiers who were injured in the war,  they celebrate their "alive day," to commemorate the day they were seriously injured but not killed. Maybe I'll celebrate next year. Maybe