Fighting The "What If'" With The "It's Not Gonna Be So"

Sarah both emailed and called me yesterday to tell me she was going to, and had already, made an appointment with Dr. Bretzke. I tell it this way because I found out about the appointment being made before I found out she was going to make the appointment. Dr. Bretzke is the surgeon who did Sarah's bilateral mastectomy last March.

Sarah has been feeling a pain or a pang between her armpit and her implant on the right side. That was the side her two small tumors were located. She talked about this pain with Dr. Migliori in December and he thought it was because she was still healing from her reconstruction surgery. But, the pain hasn't gone away.

She wants to be checked out by Dr. Bretzke and she will also have a blood draw and have her "cancer marker" checked out along with other things.

This is new to us. In the new world of cancer you learn things you don't want to learn. One of those things is that a person can have a recurrence. They can be cancer free and have done all the right things in their treatment and one day....one day... it can come back.

There is something new you live with once you or a loved one has or had cancer. It is called the "what if." It is not something you dwell on. In fact, some days you forget cancer has invaded your world. You forget and you start to live.

And, when something reminds you of the "what if," it takes you off guard. You feel vulnerable once again. You wonder...how did it find me again? You get scared. And, you want to meet that fear with some new knowledge or wisdom or grace.

You leap to action. You make the calls to calm your fears. You become proactive again. You do whatever is in your power to take some kind of control. You look to the heavens and talk to God. You say, "Please, let it all be ok." You know, in some part of you, that it is going to be ok. The cancer won't be back.

You want to believe. You do believe. And, in the midst of believing, the "what if" creeps in. You let it have a voice. You do your best to make it a small voice. You know if you don't let it have a voice at all, you will make yourself sick. And, you have to stay well. You will stay well.

Sarah's blood draw is tomorrow. The results will be sent to Dr. Bretzke in time for the appointment next Tuesday. Dave and I will at Dr. Bretzke's with Sarah.

I haven't cried yet. My tears are still unshed. I feel them. I haven't given in to them yet. I expect I will. If I don't they will come anyway.

Grief is a funny thing. Our bodies don't know the difference between the imagined and the real. If we get afraid that something bad might happen, our bodies react as if it had happened. I don't know of a way to stop or change that. The best we can do is to know that that is a real phenomonon and talk to ourselves about it....and love ourselves in all our humanness.

And, believe.