Bringing Up Metastatic Cancer Baby

If only I were a leopard being raised by Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. But, nope. I am grown woman with metastatic breast cancer, which is far less glamorous.  Why am I talking about Bringing Up Baby?  Well, my theory is that, just like any being in this world, the metastatic cancer patient has stages of development.

Here's what I've seen so far of my own development:

1) Diagnosis: An extremely terrifying and hectic phase filled with roller coaster conversations with medical staff who inevitably left me hanging over cliffs of terror, often over the weekend.  Shall we compare this to birth? A very, very painful birth.

2) Treatment: This phase is what I like to call Fight, Fight, Fight.  My entire focus was on getting the treatment I needed as quickly as possibly, and then on getting through the horrible side effects of treatment.  Little things like decrease in tumor markers and improving liver readings mattered a great deal, and were holier-than-thou moments at this phase.  This stage might be comparable to those first few years of life, especially the Terrible Two's or a toddler learns the word, "No."

3)  Getting the approval for the double mastectomy: Another iteration of the Fight, Fight, Fight phase, but this time done in a measured and insistently persistent way.  A continuing argument with my oncologist who felt that removing the breast would be just so much fluff and risk, when the cancer had already escaped it's country of origin.  Could this be baby goes to school and pushes the teacher to her limit?  She finally gave.

4) The Mastectomy: How can I describe this? Wound care, agonizing muscle tightness, inability of the surgeon to understand how her placement of a 700 cc silicone breast implant beneath my pectoral muscle might cause pain, and require pain management and physical therapy.  What good is work well done when it makes your life a misery?  Even beautiful furniture can be unbelievably uncomfortable. Coda to Fight, Fight, Fight but with a whole lump of depression thrown in.  I'll compare this stage to Middle School.  Baby goes Emo.

And now where am I? Perhaps the teenage phase. A pissed off teenager. The muscle pain is less, thanks to good physical therapy, and I've got no more fighting to do, at the moment.  So now I'm trying to figure out how to live my life with Stage IV cancer.  Plus, now that I'm done with the fight, I am discovering that I am pissed, I am moody, I am scared, and I am sad. Very, very sad.  Like any good teenager, I am coming awake to how fucking unfair life is, and I am finally feeling the full brunt of all of last year's pain.

The breast cancer was the pièce de résistance of several horrible years.  In 2008, my beloved mother had a hemorrhagic stroke, leaving myself and my siblings to take her off support and help her die. In March 2009 my sister Melissa, during basic surgery, could not be taken off the ventilator, putting her in ICU for a month, and then rehab for another month. In 2010 my friend Joe killed himself. We had such similar lives, I worried that if he couldn't find a reason to live, especially since he seemed to have such a good life, how could I.  I subsequently found out that he had been living with a a very hidden case of major depression.  As a friend put it, he was finally pulled down by living alone with that depression.  In February 2011 my dear sister Melissa finally died of a massive heart attack caused by her compulsive overeating (she was 5'3" tall and was likely close to 400 pounds). And then three months later, one of my best friends died a painful, painful death from cancer, my daily calls to her often met with strained silence as she fought the unbearable pain. The doctors could not give her adequate pain medication because this then sent her heart rate and respiration spiraling down. After they had finally diagnosed the extent of her cancer, they then gave her pain medication, and she died within the hour.

All of this nasty horribleness preceded my January 2012 diagnosis with metastatic breast cancer.  No wonder I'm pissed, scared and sad.  Who wouldn't be? And now that I'm not fighting, and have time to think about the last several years, I've gotten even more angry.  But as they say, it's just a phase.  At some point, I will come through the anger, I hope, and perhaps enter young adulthood. Maybe rent an apartment, buy my first dishes. Who knows.

One thing that has been giving me comfort lately is a performance by the comedian Tig Notaro.  In 2012 she was having an experience similar to mine. She had pneumonia, and the antibiotics to treat this then gave her something called C-Diff, which almost killed her.  A week after she got out of the hospital, her mother died in a similarly tragic way to mine. After all this, her girlfriend broke up with her. Finally, to top it all off, she was diagnosed with breast cancer in both breasts.  Now this is a woman who I can identify with.  Two days after being diagnosed with breast cancer, she performed at the Largo Theater in California, and did an impromptu set that I've downloaded and play every time I start to go too deep into the anger.  You can hear a sample of it at This American Life's What Doesn't Kill You.

Frankly, I don't really get into the what doesn't kill you makes you stronger philosophy. Based on this philosophy, I should be strong enough to bench press Toledo.  But I do believe that what makes you cry can be made better by laughing at it. And that's what this comedy performance does for me, makes me laugh at it.  Because if I didn't have some way of laughing at all this tragedy, and people to laugh with, then I'd be like my friend Joe, alone with my depression. And that didn't work out so great for Joe, you know?