I did not get the phone call to cancel my follow up appointment at my doctors office yesterday. Which meant that the biopsy did not come back good. I was not in the clear.
It meant the dreaded “C” word.
But to what degree?
I had two spots biopsied. To ugly little patches of discolored skin, not quite freckles, not quite moles, just something else…but what? Would they be basal cell carcinomas, not likely to spread or cause to much damage? Or would that frightening black thing on my ankle, which to some may have just looked like stray sharpie marker slash, be the notoriously feared melanoma?
I have three friends who lost parents, lost a vast chunk of their childhoods, to melanoma.
Two glasses of wine and an Advil PM could not lull me into a blissful unconsciousness. The darkness of my bedroom formed a backdrop for the scenes playing across the screen of my tightly squeezed eyes. Some were dark, grainy, and frayed at the edges like and aged Super 8 film while others played like HD IMAX blockbuster, clear, bright, and real enough to trigger faint traces of sense memories. A technicolor slideshow…
Have you ever wondered what you life looks like when it flashes before you eyes?
Why had I spent so many years baking in the sun, unsuccessfully attempting to darken my pale, freckly skin? Because you can’t be pale in Florida. Because I wanted to fit in. Because I wanted to be pretty. Everyone hears about skin cancer, but who really gets it?
I didn’t know much about skin cancer. Would they just have to cut it out deeper, leaving a playing card sized pit on my calf? Would I need radiation or chemo? My hair was finally starting to grow out. I’d look terrible in a scarf. I’d have to buy a wig. Why have I bothered sweating at the gym when I will just become a fragile skeleton from the nausea and sickness involved?
What will I tell my son? He’s only seven. He still cries when he thinks about a cat we lost two years ago. I’m terrible at keeping a game face and hiding my emotions. How can I possibly be strong enough for him?
This can’t be happening. He needs a mother. He needs ME. It’s a good thing I have that life insurance policy—but it was short term. When does it expire? Will I expire first?
I should have dropped what I was doing yesterday when he asked me to play a game with him. The laundry could have waited. I should have challenged him to a cannonball contest in the pool last weekend, but I hadn’t, I wanted my hair to stay dry. I am a terrible mother.
I should look for one of those recordable Hallmark books so he can have my voice reading him a story when I am gone, so he won’t forget me, won’t forget the sound of my voice lulling him to sleep each night. I should have taught him how to roller skate, showed him how to properly make a fort in the backyard, taken him on a camp-out. We might never get to learn to surf together. But I had promised him…
An hour past my appointment time I still sat in the doctor’s office waiting room. My stomach had liquified. Distracting myself with a book was out of the question. I couldn’t even focus on a glossy fashion magazine. Hubby sat next to me, calmly reading a classic.
“What’s wrong,” he asked?
Everything’s wrong, I thought.
My foot bounced, my bowels knotted, I picked at a snag in my fingernail. I just shook my head and mumbled, “nothing…nothing at all.”
Ten more minutes of waiting once I was escorted to the sterile blue and white room. Posters advertising Botox and eyelash growth serums decorated the walls. Beautiful, smiling women sitting on the decks of sailboats and at fancy restaurants stared down at me, their lives complete now they had fewer wrinkles. I felt as if they were mocking me. Don’t these people know there matters of life and death going on in this room? I imagined I was only worried about the crow’s feet creeping around my thinly lashed eyes.
The nurse returned with the folder and silently sat down across from me.
That’s not good, hold it together girl…
“How are you’re wounds healing?” she asked…kindly, compassionately, as if she were talking to a timid child.
“Fine. Great.” Why do you care when you have to cut off my skin all around my wounds anyway?
“We got your biopsy results back,” she started…
No shit. That’s why I’m here. Come on already…
“The good news is, the one on your ankle is nothing. It’s just a mole.”
My exhale echoed between the glossy white walls. That was the spot which sent me running to the dermatologist’s office last month when I spotted it’s dark, motley, irregular shape. Okay, but…
“The one on your shoulder did come back as a Basal Cell Carcinoma. You have cancer.”
Everything was still. Absolutely still.
“But that’s the good type,” she smiled.
I didn’t know there WAS a GOOD type of cancer.
But apparently, if you are going to have a cancer, this is your best choice. It’s very common. No chemo or radiation. I just have to come back in next month to get a hunk of my shoulder carved out. I guess I should wear all my strapless sundresses now.
I’m still shaking when I walk out of the doctor’s office. I’m still shaking now.
But it will be alright. Nothing is going to stop me from watching Kiddo finally win a soccer game, graduate from college, become a father himself.
I will still get to read to him each night in bed when all big kid pretenses are brushed aside and he is my gentle little boy again, innocent and bursting with a day full hugs and kisses. We can just switch positions for a while so he can snuggle up and rest his head on my unscarred shoulder.
We can still learn to surf together. I just might have to be wearing a tacky long-sleeved sun shirt.
The sun is now my enemy. But life will go on as I learn to embrace my scars, inside and out.
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