Two births and a surgery

When I met with the endocrinologist (Dr. S.), I felt like such an idiot asking him if my cancer surgery could wait (!!!!) until after the mamas I am on call for gave birth. Two mamas due at the end of June which meant I needed to be available to them until mid-July (42 weeks!), so could we please make my cancer treatment convenient to my schedule? It was important to me to not have to withdraw from these births. Dr. S. said that it would be up to the surgeon to schedule it really, I'd have to chat with her about it. It made me feel better that my cancer is so conveniently slow-growing that I can make it fit within my life, rather than having to drop everything to accommodate something that is trying to threaten my life.

Sunday night I had this urge to henna my hand which my friend, the midwife, and I joke 'starts labors'. I posted on Facebook about wanting to see some babies out and really thought about my midwife friend because she's now a few days past her due date and has for weeks, been eager to meet her babe. I figured I'd just help things along in my own way.

I woke up to not one, but two women in labor- and neither one of them was my friend! I went and witnessed the birth of two lovely human beings with shiny eyes and darling cries, and hugged their strong amazing parents while they celebrated the transition of their families with me.

So now this means that I can have the surgery sooner than mid-July. I'm relieved and scared about this information. Let's get this show on the road/Holycrap. I don't want surgery. But then, I don't want cancer either, and 'not wanting' didn't help me there, did it. So let's just get this crap done.

I loved being immersed so heavily into something else. The distraction that my work, whether it's co-op or births or house work, affords me is really priceless. I still found myself fighting this urge to say to the midwife attending the second birth, "I have cancer". A part of me wants to see how she'd react. A part of me wants to just inject it out there because it feels like a bubble inside of me, and maybe the pressure will release. A part of me still doesn't believe it and saying it still sounds so weird, like waking up one day and discovering that somehow, you can fluently speak another language.

I wrote last about feeling sort of invisible- and I did get some feedback and I appreciate that. I sat with it today and I what I want to say is that it's not that I think no one cares- it's that I'm vulnerable right now. I'm sensitive, and I'm soft, and vulnerable. This stupid cancer has exposed my soft little belly and every little bur pokes me in tender places. I give myself the grace and permission to just do what I need to do and say the things, even silly things, in retrospect, that I need to say in the moment.

Some days I want people to call me, email me, whatever. Some days I don't want to think about it. I don't expect anyone to be able to read my mind, and I hope that it's understandable that I am just a little crazy right now. When treading water, some time you keep your nose up, and sometimes you blow bubbles.

How am I feeling physically? My lymph nodes bother me (both sides of my neck pretty consistently now) and I just choose to believe that they're enlarged and cranky because they know there's an intruder. I do not want a biopsy. Randy says I'm dreading it as if I know it's giong to happen and frankly I think that's easier than hoping it won't happen, and being disappointed. I'd much rather be surprised the other way, if that makes sense.

Some days when I'm talking I can feel my voice sounding hoarse, and I clear my throat a lot. It's not every day, just some days. Today my lymph nodes feel enlarged like I'm getting a cold, only.. I don't have a cold. That achy pressury feeling that will now and for the rest of my life be a reminder that cancer is in me, was in me - because now it makes me worry that it has spread there, and this cancer does recur.

I don't even know what to say about that. I wonder if I were to get this same cancer again if I'd feel so ground into little bits about it, or if it would be more like, "Okay, whatever, been there, done that." I hope I never have to find out.