March 17th

My mom is having yet another surgery tomorrow.  This will be the second in the last 10 days unless of course you want to count the 2 biopsies before that and then we would be up to 4 procedures.

Tomorrow's procedure is to perform a biopsy of the lymph nodes and to try to get clean margins where the cancer is.  The scan on Monday shows that it appears to only be in the one breast for now.

I am counting the days until I see my doctor.  I could really use some clinical reassurance that my breasts are changing because  I am aging and losing weight and for no other reason.

The funny thing about cancer is everyone has a story.  You tell them that your mom has breast cancer and they all offer you some story of someone they know that had it and made it though.  I know that these stories are meant to be reassuring but it's hard to hear them.  They are all of someone you don't know, a stranger.  Someone who is outside your whacked up family.

My mom is still adament about celebrating my birthday this Sunday ( a week late) even though she is having surgery on Thursday.  I don't know who she is trying harder to prove nothing will change to, me or her.  I love her for it but it seems so weird.  I mean, I feel a little like time should stop until this is over.  Is that wrong?

I bought a fish the day we found out my mom had cancer.  I called my sister to talk about it and my mom answered her phone.  I was trying to navigate the parking lot around East Towne and my mom goes, "I have cancer".  Luckily I had it together enough to get into a parking spot where it hit me fully what she said.  So there I sat, in the parking lot at Jc Penny, sobbing.  That is how I found it.  Funny thing is, I don't think I'll forget that.  The weird part was as I was driving home, it looked like the sun was trying to come out.  That seemed wrong but at the same time like some omen like everything was going to be ok.

March 1

I saw my mom this weekend.  It was weird, we all acted like everything was fine, except talking a little bit about what was going on and making the obvious jokes about cancer.  I found myself unable to stop looking at my mother's breasts.  She was wearing this aqua shirt, it was not like there was a big flag on one of them that said, "hey! ticking time bomb here!"  I mean , you would think that there should be.

My mom cried when I left.  I told her I was certain it was a lipoma and the doctor was wrong.  She just gave me a look.

I made it to the car and out of the driveway before I cried.

I didn't come right home last night.  I stopped to spend some time with some friends and their baby girl.  It was good, because no matter what is happening, life doesn't stand still.

My dad called me this morning about 9:00 am to tell me that they did the ultrasound already.  They found a second spot and aparently again the phrase it doesn't look good was again uttered.

This is so different with Dad calling being the giver of the information.  I mean, when he got sick, it was my mom, telling us about what the doctor said, trying not to cry.  My dad gave me the facts and then scolded me for not immediately answering the phone when he called.

There is an appointment with the surgeon at 3 pm today.  Everything is moving so fast.  Is it because it looks that bad? Is it because everyone at the hospital knows my mom and is pulling strings?  Is is just a light day? 

So I talked to a friend of mine because I feel guilty for caring on like normal today.  I mean I've been cleaning like Marta Stewart herself is coming to visit, checking the internet for any kind of exciting communication, eating cheese, watching my "stories", making plans for fun things. She reassured me that this was ok.  I feel like it shouldn't be but what else is there today.  I feel like until the surgeon gets in there and we see the actual cancer cells, we don't know what we are up against.  Until there is PET scan, we don't know if there anymore cancer.  Either way, life goes on , right?