Angel

I have made a study of looking deeply at pictures of those that I know have cancer.  I recognize the "blimping" of steroids.  I recognize the fear or pain or acceptance or sometimes even 'glory' in their eyes.  Sometimes, while sitting in waiting rooms I am getting to the point that I can tell just by hair growth and a person's demeanor how long they have been in treatment.

At least at my cancer treatment center.

It appears that while we are becoming unwilling mini-experts in the field of "triple negative breast cancer", we know little about other cancers and their treatments.  

I study how much weight other patients might have gained or lost.  Thirty percent of cancer treatment patients die from malnutrition.  Realizing that, I make myself "throw back" a few high calorie Ensure drinks when I cannot eat well.  I've been somewhat a student of rapid weight gain and rapid weight loss some of my life it seems, and this is the first time in my life that I have been instructed "to not lose weight".  

I study how they are handling their hair loss.  Are they wearing wigs, or hats or scarves?  I am beyond what looks 'good' necessarily, and now study what looks easiest and most comfortable.

Three times a week chemo kind of does that to a gal.

My favorite head covering to date is now a ratty looking, fleece 'pill-box' shape hat.  It's warm, and comfortable to wear on chemo days - my only day out of the house most weeks - and it just feels good.  Further extolling its attributes I should probably tell you that I can roll down the brim to cover my eyes in the car to sleep.  I can wear it under a hood.  I can move it around without it losing its shape. 

I sound like a candidate for "What Not to Wear".

***

While sitting in waiting rooms, I also study how other patients handle their emotions. 

I am not sure there is medical proof for this, but my brain as well as my body reacts to different blood work levels.  I'm here to tell you - and I cannot speak for anyone else - but when my blood work is going south, I cry.

When my red blood cells are tanking, I am extremely weak and fatigued and weep.  When my white blood cells are giving up the fight, I. cry. over. everything.  We don't need a lab so much anymore to tell us what is biologically going on in my veins.  

Scott looks at me now when the tears start and my anxiety is suddenly ratcheting up a few ladders (it never seems to happen by steps); but he looks at me and instead of saying something like "did you remember to take your thyroid pill this morning?", now says, "take it easy, your blood work is tanking".......

Or on nights that he has to put on the "counselor" name tag, I remind him after my hour session not to take it all too much to heart - as this is "Day 13" after my last carbo-taxal-ro triple earthquake, and my blood cells are waging a war that seems closely tied to the emoting part of my brain. 

In my previous life, I didn't usually cry easily.  But when my blood work starts dropping dramatically, it seems like my natural suppression is "off", and the tears just fall.  Sometimes it is fear, but more often than not, it just seems that it's what my body knows it should be doing when hearing some news or thinking some thoughts and the tears just fall even though we all learned in childhood the *laws of suppressing tears*.

It surprises me more than anyone.  I don't usually cry.

*******

Almost two weeks ago, I was refused one more chemo treatment.  I kind of knew the facts before I even got in the car that morning, but when they told me, I still cried some - not out of surprise, but just because my brain immediately knows what that cost will be down the road, and it knows it should *feel*, and it sends the message immediately to my tear ducts.

Julie, my study nurse manager, just gives me a big hug.

But before I got the news, while I was sitting in the waiting room, "studying" again, I met *someone* .

There was one other couple waiting and she still had all of her hair, so I was guessing she was at the beginning of cycle one.  Then another woman walked in - alone.

You are not supposed to walk in alone because after they are done pimping your body full of chemicals, you are in no shape to drive.

I had seen her in the lobby and she had smiled really big and waved at me.  It is difficult to get any patients at the treatment center to make eye contact with you or talk, let alone smile that big and wave to someone they have never met before.

She walked into the chemo waiting room and made a bee line for me.  She sat across from me and she was glowing.  I don't mean her face only, but there was a glow *about* her.  There was a shining, a shimmering.

Tell me my brain has had too much chemo and is possibly riding the horse backwards, but it's like the atoms around her were moving brilliantly and I could see them.

She wanted to know how long I had been in treatment and I told her.  Then I asked her the same.

She said "eight years".

Along with breast cancer, she had cancer discovered in her stomach and liver and had been doing surgeries and treatments for eight years.

I leaned forward and asked her "how'd you do it?"

She had the biggest, most delightfully blessed smile.  I could not look away.

She said she "had the best doctor" and wanted to know if Dr. Mrowzik was my doctor.  She said she "really had to learn to lean on her friends".  She said "no matter what, you keep going".

I felt like I was listening to two different languages at the same time.  I felt like she was telling me more than anyone around us realized.  I felt like not only were we communicating with our mouths and ears, but that somehow our souls were connecting.  Communicating.

We were called back at the same time and she walked ahead of me.  She suddenly turned and grabbed my hands and said something that seemed of utmost importance.  It felt like it was words straight from heaven. 

And I could not remember those words for days and days and I knew in my soul that they were the most important words that had been uttered to me since my husband said "I do".

***

We sat in my chemo room and received the bad blood work results.  Scott for the first time there showed anger and disgust.  He threw his phone and cleared some things off of a nearby table.

We both know I am missing too many treatments.

I cried.  But inside me there was a calm amidst the dark clouds all around us.  Inside me there was a 'pillar', a beckoning away from the darkness.  A light.

I told Scott on the way home that I thought the lady in the waiting room had been an angel.  He had been reading and hadn't noticed so much.  I told him I thought she was talking directly to my soul.

I tried desperately to remember for days what she had turned and said to me when parting.  It came back to me last week while sick after chemo.

She turned and grabbed my hands and said "it's going to be ok."

I remember clearly that it was not "you" - as in "you are going to be ok" -- but she said "it's".  Still, I take it as a promise from God Himself in heaven that through this storm He is holding me.  I take with me the reminder to lean on my friends now.  I am glad she said our common doctor 'was the best'.  I needed a reminder to 'keep on going - no matter what'.

And I really need that promise and those reminders sometimes spoken out loud to me.

And if she was a mere mortal with over active, beautiful atoms swirling around her that I could see, how did she know what I needed to hear at that moment before all darkness descended that day?

I have said before that if we are truly lucky in life - or truly blessed - sometimes, sometimes we get to see the curtain lift a little bit between the 'secular and the sacred'; the human and the divine; the world and the heavenly. 

Or as our Jewish friends say when performing the end of Sabbath ceremony each week:  

Blessed are You Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, who separates the holy and the profane, the light and dark, Israel and the other nations, the seventh day and the six days of the week.

Blessed are You Adonai, who separates between the holy and the profane.

And I might add, blessed are those who bless You and Your people mightily whether of this earth or of heaven.