Pinkish

When your day is long

And the night, the night is yours alone

When you're sure you've had enough

Of this life, well hang on

Don't let yourself go

'Cause everybody cries

And everybody hurts sometimes

"Everybody Hurts" - REM

Ahhhh, October in Texas. Finally, we can all venture outdoors without fear of our lungs liquifying in the heat. High School football is king. The State Fair of Texas is in full swing. Turn off the a/c. Open up all the windows. Time to buy pumpkins. Time to buy Halloween candy. Time to buy something pink. Love it or hate it, October means a sea of Pepto-Bismol pink almost anywhere you look. Welcome to breast cancer awareness month. It seems, more and more these days, like slapping a pink ribbon on everything from yogurt to mechanical pencils to powdered sugar doughnuts has big biz thinking we'll be more apt to buy, buy, buy. Are you as tired of it as I am? Do you often wonder if ANY of the money spent actually winds up funding a single study or helping even one patient? Hot pink. Hot pink with glitter. Camo with hot pink. NFL with hot pink. Save the TaTa's. Save the Boobies. Fight like a girl. Get your pink on. I mean really? So irritating, right? So unfair to all the cancer patients who weren't "lucky" enough to get breast cancer? Who picks the ribbon colors, anyway? Is there a khaki ribbon? Relax. Settle your feathers. I'm not crazy over the commercialization of breast cancer either. But it kinda saved my life. If you read my blog and feel like we're sort of best friends even though we've never met, this one's for you. Now you can tell people that cancer touched your life. Cause your sort of best friend is a survivor. 2008 was decidedly not a good year.

I buried my beautiful, 16 year old daughter, on April 16, 2008. She did not have cancer. She had a congenital heart defect that was never diagnosed until late March of 2008. 3 weeks later, she died after an unsuccessful attempt to repair her aorta. My husband offered me the opportunity to take a few months off of work to get myself together. Translation: I cried everyday until I vomited at least once. I slept in her clothes. I slept in her bed. I crawled into her closet and refused to come out for hours. I went a little cray. It's not so much that you had to know this, but you had to know this. I cannot tell one story without telling the other. They are just so intertwined. You'll see. I am 40 years old in this story.

My house was full of kids. Three more of them, in fact. Ranging in age from 7 to 21. And 3 dogs. And a great husband. And a cat. We were all shaken and broken....and we missed her...and we understood our own mortality for the first time. And I could feel us all free falling. Untethered. Off the rails. One day, I just decided that losing one child was enough. If I wasn't careful, if I let this go on, who knows what could happen to us. So, I made a conscious decision to hide my crazy, as Miranda Lambert would say. I got up the next day and washed a million loads of clothes. I washed my hair. I put on makeup. I told my 18 year old high school senior that he would, in fact, graduate soon, regardless of what had to be done to make that happen. So, we went to many meetings at the school. We worked out a plan. He had friends over. We swam. Life was exhausting and the nights were way too long, but I was trying so hard to go through the motions. Maybe it was the chlorine residue from the pool that day? Maybe it was insanity? All I know is that I could not stop itching. My chest itched. My underarm itched. My chest itched some more. What is that? It feels like a scab. Like a tiny pellet from a bb gun is under my skin. Dear goodness, I've scratched my boob until I've made a scab. Except I can't pick it off. It won't come off. So I look, but I can't see it either. But I can feel it. A little pellet under my skin. It's there. It is there. My husband says it's there. He says it that night. He says it the next morning. Still there. I have just turned 41 in this story.

I needed to see a doctor. I needed my gynecologist. But, I couldn't go see her. She worked in the hospital where I just camped out for a week. Where I didn't get to bring my daughter back home with me. If I have to see those halls, or that lunchroom, or that parking lot, I don't know what I'll do. So, I pick another doctor off of the internet. Randomly. I call. I tell them about the bb pellet. I tell them I don't know what to do. They ask about my last mammogram. I tell them I've never had a mammogram. They asked why I haven't. I tell them I skipped it. Accidentally. I tell them I meant to schedule it. I really, really meant to schedule it. They set my appointment two weeks away. It was a whirlwind 2 weeks full of graduation parties and graduation ceremonies (because HE MADE IT) and lots of nagging thoughts in the back of my head. Finally, I meet my new gynecologist. She's lovely. She's caring and thoughtful and so sure this pellet is absolutely nothing. But I should still have a mammogram. The very next day. So I do. During my mammogram, the phone in the exam room won't stop ringing. I think that was when I knew something was wrong. Having a mammogram is much like playing "Deal or No Deal". There's a banker up high in a booth somewhere who dictates what happens. Except, the banker is really a radiology doctor who's watching your mammogram images. And they need more views. Because that pellet is there. Then the door flies open. Your boob is out and you don't know who this man in the white coat is doing the Risky Business/Tom Cruise floor slide, but you sense that he's the banker. He wants more images. And a sonogram. And a meeting in a secret room. He wants to know who's with me. I explain that I came alone. He says there's something there. He says there are two somethings there. He says I should have a biopsy. The next day. So I did. I went alone. I didn't tell anyone. It was a Wednesday. The banker told me he'd try to rush the test so I wouldn't have to go all weekend without knowing. When the phone rang at 7 pm on Friday night, I knew it was him. I sort of knew what he was going to say. You have cancer. My daughter has only been dead for 6 weeks in this story.

I could go on forever. Literally. But, I won't. Here's the Reader's Digest version....two tumors in one breast. Very slow growing breast cancer. Probably had it 7-10 years before it was diagnosed. Tumors have very high levels of estrogen and progesterone. My surgeon says stage 2. My oncologist says maybe stage 3. My lymph nodes are affected. Mastectomy. Chemo. Radiation.

Depressed yet? Here's the deal. I took my grief and all my untetherdness and all my lostness and I DOVE into cancer speak. I read everything. I talked to everyone. I participated in a clinical trial. I ate differently. I spoke differently. I woke up one morning and saw everything so very clearly. I would take my husband and my children and my 3 dogs and my one cat and my parents and everyone else who so graciously supported me, and we would FIGHT. Win, lose, or draw, we would not go down easily. I had all of these beautiful, precious souls looking at me every single day. I saw that I was the only one who could lead us. Well, actually, God would lead us, but I would have to be the first one to fall in line behind Him. If I chose to fold, they would fold around me. If I chose to fight, they would fight with me. If I chose to live the best life I possibly could, even if it were just because I felt I owed my daughter to see the world for her and live a good life for her......they would all see and feel and live, too. I think I just didn't want the tragedy of a beautiful girl who left too soon to be the defining moment of my other children's lives. Or mine.

Moral of the story: MAKE MINE PINK! I'll be the sell out. I'll wear the pink shirt. I'll drink out of the pink mug. I'll pop the pink breath mints. I'll do it all. Thank you, cancer. Thank you for saving my life. Because you made me, I crawled out from under my bed one day and decided life was worth living. So, I'll take your pink. Hopefully, I won't have to take your yellow or your purple or your khaki or any of your other ribbon colors. But, hey, I'm still standing. I am cancer free, as far as I know. Do I live in fear of a recurrence? Yep. But, I live. I am 48 years old at the end of this story. My story.