Wedding Anniversary #5-twins and tumors

12:10PM
We are driving to Calgary, on the highway just outside of Ponoka. We got out of town relatively quickly. S and the babies are staying with mom. Her sisters, L and B, are coming to help. R and I are going to the Group of Seven exhibit at the Glenbow museum, going for dinner at Murrietta's and staying tonight at the Palliser. Our friends are meeting us at Murrietta's for drinks after dinner. R and I have been talking about where to get pot for nausea if needed later. My stomach hurts a little but not too badly and I am not too tired. I am really looking forward to a fun night and a "trip back in time" to when we were first together (and childless). S gave me an album of hers with pictures of her in it so I wouldn't forget her. I don't have a present for R. I was meaning to look up what a five year gift should be. I feel like I have been a little self absorbed. I thought about upgrading our rings but frankly, anything material seems rather shallow at the moment. The only present I want to give is to be there next anniversary...and on our 30th.

There is a song on the country station. The guy is singing that he wants to live until "he is too old to die young". I don't want to end up this tragic sympathy story. This is going to be a strong and successful fight.

Needle Biopsy

Friday, August 30, 2002 8PM
We arrived at the hospital at 10:15AM. I was prepped with an I.V of something called Verced, a derrivitive of Vallium. Dr. P__ did two needle biopsies. I stayed in recovery until 3PM. I am down today. Tired of talking about it, tired of not knowing. I wish I knew what I am supposed to fight.
I told R. that I feel like just reaching in and ripping it out of me-that there is this evil, foreign entity in my body. I have been invaded.
Rob has been keeping an eye on my bandages and asking about my status-it feels really good to have him right here with me.
I have reconciled this as the best thing-that, statistically, it was bound to happen to someone in our family and I am glad it was me. I can handle this- and I could not deal with Rob, or the girls, or anyone else being sick.

Love the Verced. I was tired and scared during the drive down but during the biopsy I am calm and euphoric. It is the M__show. All M__, all the time. I have Dr. P__ and the nurses laughing. I put on such a good show. Look how strong she is, they think. I see my character acting in the made for TV movie of my life. A role of lifetime. But already I am tired of it.

Snow in August

I had been feeling something hard in my stomach for a few months. Don't worry, be patient, your stomach will shrink soon enough, you just had twins. Still somewhere in the dark, I kept wondering. It is just your bowel, you're full of poop my GP said. She scheduled an ultrasound just in case. Probably just a fibroid.

And I wasn't worried. Odd, for me really. I usually worry. I am strong, I thought. What can happen now?

The ultrasound was scheduled a week earlier, but we wanted to go camping. I rescheduled. We took S. and the twins and camped with my aunt and uncle in Kananaskis. We all slept in the trailer. I nursed the twins every three hours and fretted about waking everyone up. In the morning, the world was blanketed with a wet, heavy, coat of snow. The air was crisp and new and the sounds of summer mixed with the music of melting snow. I was tired and grumpy but also proud. Just proud for being there. Look how strong I am, I thought. Look at how beautiful my family is. We are perfect.

CT scan

7:30 AM-CT Scan, R___ Hospital. Dr. P__.

Ultrasound

Monday, August 26 2002

C__. Dr. P__. 10:00AM
I don't think I have ever been more afraid...
I went for the ultrasound this morning. I lay on the table thinking about our plans this week. But something was wrong. She went and got the radiologist. Neither looked me in the eye and she kept glancing at him. He asked alot of questions. I knew it was serious.
I have been thinking that maybe my time is up. I have been so amazed lately at my incredible family-at my incredible fortune. Maybe this is it. Certianly it is more than I ever dreamed of having and I do feel like I have dealt with some of the things I was sent here to work out. At first, I was OK with this-accepting my good fortune for such a short time. But now, I am just scared. And sad. I am not ready. I want to see my girls grow into women. I want to be old and happy and crazy with R and drive around in our Westfalia. I am scared.

I am in the ultrasound room. I wait as the tech rubs my lumpy belly with gel. We are talking about the twins. She recognizes me from before, I was here so many times in the last months of pregnancy-twice a month. She asks how the birth was, if things are going ok.. And then she is quiet. I don't notice right away, but she stops initiating converstaion, answers my questions briefly, professionally, revealing nothing.
Revealing everything.
I know there is something wrong. And still, I doubt myself. I am just overracting, being melodramatic.

R often says I am being melodramatic. Sometimes I am. Sometimes the fear and anxiety is more than I can handle and it takes a hold of me. I have been calm lately, though. Calm and at peace. I have a sense of acomplishment that is tangible, solid like a monument of stone. I am nursing healthy twin babies. Identical beautiful four-month-old girls that audibly slurp and gulp as they hungrily drink from my swolen breasts. I am healthy and beautiful and strong and I am nurturing, holding it all together, holding the family together. I am a mother. I am present and I am happy and I am bemused at my good fortune, but grateful.

The Tech finishes and says that she wants the Radiologist to take a look. I lay on the bed and look at the ceiling, feeling the surreality and feeling a dark calm. I know something is wrong.

The Radiologist comes in. His name is Dr. P__. He sits down and silently moves the sonograph wand across my abdomen. He finishes without speaking to the tech. He wipes my belly clean of gel and asks me to get dressed and come to his office.

I am in a dream. I am sleep walking. I do not feel emotion at all. I dress and walk to his office. I do not remember the conversation. I know he tells me that I have large tumors, enlarged lymph nodes that he thinks are lymphoma. He has booked a CT for 7:30am the next morning. Wow, I think. That is special service, I have heard it is hard to get a CT. The CT will confirm what he is already fairly certain of: that I have cancer. He wants to know what kind, and how far it is spread. I shake his hand and say thank you. He looks very sad and serious.

I walk out to the waiting room, where there are young pregnant women and their partners waiting to see their baby for the first time. R is sitting, reading a magazine. He stands up and we walk to the elevator. In the elevator, I tell him that it was not a fibroid but a tumor. He is quiet and I cry.