Hitting too close to home

I never thought that lumpectomy, clean margin, BRCA gene test, and breast cancer would be part of my everyday vocabulary. That all changed about a month ago when I found out that my best friends wife had breast cancer. I never thought I would be walking into a cancer center and be waiting with my friend for his wife to come out of surgery to have a tumor removed. Up until this time our time had been spent playing video games and going to movies and dinners. Things change in a second. I have lost so many people to this disease. This time seems to be hitting the hardest. She is not even forty yet. She should have not had to deal with this. But these are the cards that have been dealt. So I did what I do, and started doing research. I learned that the BRCA gene test is done to predict how much more susceptible you are to cancer, and the chances of it coming back. Luckily both of these came back normal. I learned that clear margins are the area around the tumor that they have to clear out to make sure that tissue around the tumor is cancer free. I am a layman so these are these things as I have come to understand them. Doing the research made me feel like I was able to have control of something through all this. With cancer this is a rare thing.

My friends have already come up against some road blocks. She has to go in Monday because they thought the clear margins were not good enough. So this sets her recovery time back another week. They also have to wait for a test to come back from the pathology of the tumor, to see if she may have to do chemo. My friends thought she would be going the radiation route. They have to wait a week for this test to come back. That is something else I have learned about cancer and the tests you have to have. Tests take forever to get results back for. I cannot imagine something having to do with whether you live or die taking that long to get results back for. As if there was not enough fear and the unknown involved in this process in the first place.

Plans that were made at the last minute are out the door, replaced by how she is feeling. I come over their house and at times at a loss for words as to what to say. I can see she is getting thinner. It breaks my heart. I have not had good luck with loved ones with cancer. They have all passed. So I am really looking for a win on this one, because frankly it would break my heart. I know this is my selfish view from the outside. I can’t imagine how my friends are dealing with it. That again breaks my heart, knowing there is not really anything I can do to help. I can’t heal her; I can’t donate an organ or marrow. All I can do is be there for them when the need me, and let them know that I love them. The fight is far from over. I know it sounds like I have already thrown in the towel. But I haven’t, nor will I. I owe my friends more than that. So that is kind of why I have not been doing much, well any writing lately. I am trying to wrap my head around this. So Geek Happenings has kind of taken a back seat for now.  

Heavy questions for a Sunday morning.

What would you do if you found out that someone you had just started following on Twitter has cancer? Would you keep following them as if nothing is wrong? Would you be afraid of starting a friendship up knowing that it could end up breaking your heart? This is something I have recently found myself faced with. I know the right answer is to go in with both feet and cultivate a friendship. Is it the honest answer though? I would like to think that it was for me, and that I would not give it a second thought. I tend to think of the people I follow and interact with on Twitter as friends. No I am not going to go the Manti Te’o route, but I would definitely be upset is something happened to one of them. So there lies the dilemma. I have lost a lot of real life close people to cancer and every time it breaks my heart. Would I rather not have know them and not had to go through watching them die? No. They were my family. We had awesome times together, which made their passing hurt even more. I want to try and put myself into the person with cancer’s shoes. Would I want people treating me differently because I have this disease? Would I not want to have a friend when I needed them most because I have this disease? The answer to both questions is absolutely not. People with cancer have got enough things going on with chemo, transfusions, radiation, and doctors visits. How could I abandon someone during this time because it is inconvenient, or that I don’t want to feel bad? Imagine how they are feeling.

With people that are sick I see a lot of people pulling back from them because of these feelings. There are also issues of not really knowing what to say to the person. Do you avoid the elephant in the room? Do you talk about it? Maybe the person that is sick is tired of talking about it. I think what the sick person most wants is to be treated normally, to have a normal life, in spite of everything they are going through. I know it is hard when you see the physical toll that they disease takes on them. I remember going to visit my aunt before she passed away from Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. We talked about what was on TV, what was happening with me, anything but her failing health. I am glad I took that time to go see her, as much as it broke my heart to see her like that. She was the first person that I lost as an adult, and when I could actually process the feelings. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life.

So I keep coming back to the same question. Why would I want to put myself through that kind of hurt again? The answer: it is not about me. It is about being a better person. It is about helping out any way I can. It is by trying to give a sick person friendship. I am not saying I am perfect by any stretch, but I can listen, I can make inappropriate jokes with the best of them. Love and prayers go out to the people fighting this horrible disease, you are the bravest people I know. Keep up the good fight, and never give up.