Unexpected Beginnings: Part 2

 Unexpected Beginnings, Part 2:

It begins when we sit in the doctor’s office to listen to my diagnosis. Atypical ductal hyperplasia. I expect her to say it’s no big deal, but instead she says, “It’s complicated.” Then there is a drawing and some statistics and my good fortune to not have a family cancer history but ductal hyperplasia is trickier than lobular because it is tiny andandandand. As she draws something that I think are concentric circles and inserts some numbers, I start to space out. 

It begins when I tune back in and she continues on about all the types of prevention which include wellness. Exercise, diet, yearly mammograms, self exams and then, “Have you tried the Mediterranean diet?” I then notice the big poster with the statistics on how being overweight increases your chances of developing breast cancer. Inside I am screaming and angry because I am overweight and I have to work to stay just this amount of overweight. I have to work so hard to barely be average. But of course it begins because this is how I hear it and not what was actually said. 

It begins as we leave (Bob was with me the whole time) and I can see he is startled when he notices my tears threatening to spill. Just then, she asks one more time if I’d like a pamphlet on the Mediterranean diet. Nothing else is mentioned again about the solid plan that has quickly been developed: a surgery consult to remove the asshole cells they did not get in the biopsy, an appointment to discuss a Tamoxifen regime, and an MRI is 6 months. We have a plan and she is asking me about a diet. I am angry.

It begins when he says, “What hon? What’s wrong?” I heard that if I weren’t fat none of this would happen and I need to do more, eat better, blahblahblah and he hears, “Oh, she already does all that. We just keep going.” My god, what we hear! I laugh. I keep crying. He is stunned and confused as we walk towards the Chihuly this magnificent building houses. Not everyone gets to see a Chihuly at their appointments. I should feel grateful, but I am lost in my head. I say about 1/57th of what I am thinking. I say, “Oh, ok. I am annoyed at all the diet talk.” He says, “You didn’t tell her what you do. Why not?” I shrug. I was stunned, overwhelmed, I don’t have a science brain. This feels like science class and I always barely managed to get a C. It begins when I decide to let it go.

It begins when he heads towards his work and I stand to look up at the glass. Chihuly is freaking astonishing. I look. I stare at the shapes and colors and wonder: who does this? It is my way to get lost first before I get found. As I stare, my breath returns to normal. I feel my feet on the ground and the sun drawn to the glass making it shine and it begins when I know it's all ok.

It begins when I get home to learn my dearest heart’s dad is dying of Covid. He’s has not been a great dad and still, or maybe because of that, it’s hard. My friend is sad and confused and angry and all the things and dare I say it begins to feel better to think of someone else, this dear friend and her pain and not my own confusion? It begins when I admit I like thinking about her much more. 

It begins when we cackle over this: Her dad likes free shit. He will drive hundreds of miles to claim anything that is free. He did not drive 5 minutes to get a vaccination. She cackles so I do too. Soon enough we cry and cackle some more. 

It begins when she thinks she’s not been sensitive enough to my experience, one so eerily similar to hers 6 years ago. I remember taking her to appointments, waiting for her biopsies to be done, texting her hubby, seeing her in the OR. But she has a thick file of other health concerns and a personal story I cannot begin to unravel and so she says, “I am sorry. It is a lot, but for me, it’s like a Tuesday.” We howl with laughter. I am not all offended. She has carried so much shit that it would take a million pages to explain and all along, she’s been doing the work and is a grounded loving, empathetic friend. And her dad is dying so it begins when I say, “Shut up. I know you love me. Forget it.”

It begins when I finally settle enough to Google “How serious is atypical ductal hyperplasia?” Answer:  Serious.

It begins when I finally read more on my own time and it’s ok. It’s not yet cancer. I will learn to live somehow hoping that nothing changes and knowing if it does, I will catch it early. It begins when I find a support group online with my exact diagnosis and read the stories and I am comforted. I read more about other’s confusion that mirror my own and stories of how it has evolved over time. Some who are still in the clear and others who are not anymore. I read nothing dark and gruesome if you don't consider radical mastectomies gruesome. For some reason, I do not.

It begins in another exam room with whirring fans and another machine smooshing my boob just so. It begins when the doctor who is placing surgical seeds in my breast asks if I am ok. I stare at her. My right arm is hoisted above my chest. I am leaning forward, butt out, right breast hitched up by a machine, head cranked to the left as far as I can crank it. She pauses. “I should ask, are you as ok as you can be?” I nod and then realize with a start that I feel like I am in the bean field. I was a sensitive kid so the hard labor of walking beans and pulling weeds in the hot sun wore me out not just physically but emotionally. The buzzing of flies, the scratch of leaves, the clammy hands in leather gloves, the sun burning on top of my skull, all of it was A LOT. I had to find a place in my brain to float so my senses would not overwhelm me. I realize now that how I got through those long mornings in the field was a sort of meditation. I would choose a moth to follow with my eyes as far as I could. I would recite every poem or song or sing every Bible school song. I would create elaborate fantasies in my brain. First, though, I had to place myself where I was before I could detach. I realize quickly that I must find a way to do this in all of these appointments. And so I find a place on the wall to stare out and robotically breathe and stop breathing on command while I visit the words of Mary Oliver and my one wild and precious life. 

It begins with knowing what I know and what I don’t know. I know I am ok and I don’t know what the future holds. None of this is new and yet, somehow it is. Another chance to begin again. And so I will let myself begin.