My Diagnosis – Part One

I can’t say that I have a vast knowledge of the world. I graduated from high school, got married and worked at our family business. One thing that I do know for sure is that being diagnosed with cancer is hard, really hard. Not only is it hard on the one that is diagnosed, but it is just as difficult for all the family and friends of the patient. There are some that believe they would curl up in a ball and die, not able to cope and fight. There are others that believe they can dig deep down within themselves and find the strength to fight, not only to survive, but to thrive. After almost eight years of experience, I’d like to believe that I belong in the latter. People often tell me that they wouldn’t be able to do it. My response, “you have no idea until it happens to you.”

It was December 31, 2008, a New Year’s Eve l will never forget…

I opened my eyes and realized I was lying on the kitchen floor, my head cradled in the tiny hands of my four year old son Tristan. He was urging me to “spit it out”, thinking I was choking.

The last thing I remembered, we were sitting at the kitchen island eating lunch, leftover pasta carbonara. Out of the blue I heard a loud buzzing sound inside my head and my left arm was rising on its own, my hand clenched so tightly that my fingernails were digging painfully deep into the palm of my hand. I tried to tell Tristan to call 911, but only jumbled sounds came out of my mouth. Then everything went black.

When I woke up and the fog cleared from my head I tried to stand up. My body was so weak, I barely had the strength to crawl on my hands and knees to my couch. As soon as I laid down, the phone rang. It was my husband Marcus calling me at the perfect time, as though he knew something was wrong. I told him that something strange had happened, maybe a seizure, but I wasn’t sure. He was home within ten minutes.

We went straight to the hospital emergency room. They took me in immediately and began several tests. By this time my parents had joined us.

I can’t remember how much time had passed but it felt like an eternity by the time the doctor came back with the definitive news. He told us they found something, and then he hesitated as though he needed to find the strength to finish his sentence. We all stared at him, anxiously waiting when he finally said, “It’s a brain tumour, possibly two.”

My jaw dropped and my first thought was that there had to be a mistake. I was thirty-two years old and I lived a very healthy lifestyle. I never smoked or drank alcohol and I ate organic foods as much as possible. I never suffered from headaches, surely there had to be a mistake. Part of me was numb because the nurse kept giving me pills which I now know were sedatives to soften the blow when the news came.

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I turned to look at my family. Marcus was sitting on a stool with his elbows resting on his knees and he was looking down, his head in his hands. I heard my mother blurt out,”Oh Jesus”, and my father looked utterly lost, he had to leave the room. When he returned, he was doing his best to hold back the tears that were streaming down his cheeks and said, “If I could, I would trade places with you.” Once again, he left. It’s an image forever seared in my brain.

None of them would or could look at me. In my head I was wondering, “Why won’t you look at me? Look at me. Look at me!” It was my mother who finally turned her head and made eye contact with me. I tried to speak but my words were soundless from the lump in my throat. I mouthed, “Marcus?” to her and she nodded her head and said, “I know.”

My first and main concern was for my husband, the love of my life since I was fifteen years old. How would he survive this diagnosis that not only I received, but my entire family received. What about my son? Who was going to take care of him and love him as much as I do? This wasn’t part of the plan. I didn’t sign up for this!

Just like that, with the blink of an eye, the rug was pulled out from beneath my feet and my entire world was turned upside down.  As I left the hospital, my nurse was standing outside of my room crying. She handed me two more pills. I told her that I had taken several of them already but she tenderly replied, “That’s okay, take these too.” She knew I would need them to get through the night.

I said goodbye to my old life as I knew it. I was abruptly forced into a new unknown disaster. I had no choice but to walk through those doors and face this journey head on.