Welcome to the Cancer Club

When a summons from the Cancer Club invades your emotional inbox, you avert your eyes, bow your head, and begin whatever passes for prayer in your world; Not me. Not now. Please.

When the phone call comes that confirms you've been inducted into the club against your will, you'll do just about anything to resign. Get me outta here! I want to go on with my life. I have PLANS, dammit!

But a cancer diagnosis isn't negotiable. If you have it, you deal with it. You stick it out. Not just your tongue and your attitude, but your perseverance. Your grit. Your spirit. I've seen too many friends die from cancer, and I am not saying they died because they didn't have enough gumption to fight it. They did.

Oh dear, my friends who died from cancer fought like crazy, fearsome spirited battles against their invisible and ultimately, invincible, enemy. Even determined troops of friends, families, and medical experts couldn't swing their battles. Dying from cancer isn't the victim's fault. It's not anybody's fault. It's just part of life, the dying part. You gotta go somehow, some way. You don't get to choose. (Except in Oregon, and some other states, you can choose to die earlier than the disease, whatever it is, dictates.)

I've also known many more who have beaten the disease, chief among them a Spartan cancer warrior  named Mike Amaranthus, who was diagnosed in the prime of his adult life with stage 4 esophageal cancer. He worked incredibly hard for his victory, and I hope to tell his story no matter what happens with me. (He's six years out from diagnosis, disease-free. He does something to fight cancer every three hours. Would you like to know what? Me too.)

Me? I am early in this game, a new club member. I'm not sure I'll have to stay and test myself against such a formidable invader. I hope not. I hope I can scamper on with my Ordinary (wonderful) Life and file this episode along with other bullets dodged, lessons learned, disasters avoided.

Here's a quick synopsis. And by the way, please don't refer to my experience as a journey. I love to travel to foreign places, but not this one.

December 10, 2015: routine annual dermatology exam. Small reddish raised mole-like spot found on lower right flank. I'd noticed it because it itched. Had it a few months, maybe longer. Shaved off for biopsy. Doctor states it appears to be a basal cell carcinoma. No sweat. Had  a couple removed previously. (Melanoma lesion arose from a a Spitz nevus. Rare in adults.)

December 11, 2015: I forget about the biopsy. The "lesion" looked nothing like melanoma images, and I was not worried. The doc said someone would call me in a few days with the biopsy results. A couple weeks later, I made a mental note that no one had called, so assumed everything must be fine. We continued with plans to help out with grandchildren's holiday child care during Christmas break in Reno, a 5-6 hour drive from our home in Southern Oregon. 

December 29, 2016: Beautiful bright blue sky day in Reno, out and about with the grandchildren. No reason to expect a lightning bolt. My cell phone barks. It's the dermatologist. In a rambling, almost apologetic fashion, he informs me, 19 days after my biopsy, that I have melanoma. He can't mean me, can he? Is he looking at someone else's pathology report? There must be a mistake.

He goes on about best and worst case scenarios: WORST -  the skin lesion that was biopsied could be a metastasis from somewhere else in my body. Metastasis is a hideous word. I have melanoma, and it may have already spread? Can you give me a break here, please?  BEST - The lesion was classified T1, which means it was small and found early. The surgeon, during a consult on January 6, said there's an 85 to 90 percent chance that the excision margins will be clean, as will sentinel lymph nodes that will be biopsied at the same time as surgery. If everything is cancer-free, I'm done. Except for skin exams every three months for a long time. (That metastasis thing weighs heavy despite the surgeon's favorable guess at odds.)

January 19, 2016: Surgery day, which begins in the nuclear medicine lab at the Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford, OR, where I'm injected at the site of the melanoma lesion with four doses of radioactive dye in preparation for a sentinel node biopsy. If it wasn't me laying there scoping out all the technology employed on my behalf, it would have been interesting.

Isn't it just weird that I documented this? The bright light in the lefthand image is the melanoma site where a radiologist injected four doses of radioactive dye. Soon, the techs (and me, immobilized but comfortable beneath a giant scanner) can see the dye "draining" up into lymph nodes in my right armpit and breast. The sentinel nodes are those that collect the most radioactive material, and are the most likely places that the melanoma may have spread. The brightest two are taken during surgery later in the day. 

I watched the screens as lymph nodes in my armpit basin lit up. The techs seemed pleased that the images were clear, providing a good map for the surgeon to take the brightest nodes, those to which the melanoma may have "drained" malevolent kill-her cells.

Later, after surgery, the surgeon met with PK to say that things had gone well, there was "nothing obvious" to report, but that I should definitely not travel to South America the next week. (As planned Jan. 27-Feb.23. Plans be damned.)

January 24, 2016: I enjoyed a leisurely walk along the river this morning with seven girlfriends. Most of us have been friends for 40 years, or more. But just two know about the "problem" and are sworn to secrecy. Do I think if I don't tell people, it isn't really happening?

Up until this moment, providing I gather the courage to press PUBLISH, only family members and a few close friends, and some random people, know something bad may be lurking.

I understand now why people who get a grim diagnosis need time and space to process before they share what's going on. They don't want to talk about it because they have not yet accepted that it's real, and they are already consumed emotionally and don't want to dig deeper into the rabbit hole by having people ask them questions and look upon them with pity, or define them by the disease.

Not knowing the pathology results from surgery and lymph node biopsies is hell. WHY does it take so long!?

If the results are positive,  I will be a certified member of the Cancer Club. If negative, then life goes on, but not with the same spirit of invulnerability that I've always possessed. What was I thinking? Pretty sure I was going to live to 100, even if reluctantly.

It has been four business days and six actual days since surgery. We should know this coming week what lies in our immediate future. When I say "our" I'm talking about PK and me as a unit. He's  been incredibly supportive and suffers as much anxiety about this as I do. It's not quite so lonely having him with me. It's like we're holding hands beneath a cliff where a huge black rock is balanced on the edge. Either it will roll the other direction or crush us. Unless we somehow leap out of the way in the nick of time. That's hope for ya.

PK is more private than I am, and before I press "publish" I've made sure he's OK with this.

I guess I'm ready to say to the wonderful people who continue to read my blog, and to many dear friends, that I've been diagnosed with effing cancer, and that you may be hearing more about it.

Waiting for medical test results feels like a log has lodged sideways in your head, and an anvil is pressing on your neck, and your heart is trying to jam its way through your chest, and you think you're about to blow a gasket because you just want to know, dammit. 

I know one thing for sure, though. I'm not alone. And neither are you.

UPDATE: