My Story

Recent events have made me wonder about my story. There are many, many events that have happened and I'm sure I record not only the actual things that happen but also the way I feel about them. When I tell others, am I really telling them the facts? Am I telling them what happened or am I describing the way I want them to think about me?

A friend has recently suffered yet another loss, on top of two other big ones she's managed to live through. I wonder how she will someday describe these things to someone new, someone who didn't witness them, because the way I see them and her reactions to them seem to be quite different from her perceptions of the events and her reactions. I also wonder now about the things she's described to me from her past, things that happened to her before we met. Were some of these more horrible for her than she lets on?

And in this, I realize that my story can be whatever I want it to be. For months after my daughter died, I didn't want to be that woman, that woman who lost her daughter. I feared that would be my entire identity. Over time, as I met new people, I didn't always tell them about her. I realized a couple of weeks ago that it's actually painful to me for someone to not know about her. If it's someone I'll never see again (e.g. saleslady at the mall) it doesn't matter, but someone I will see repeatedly, such as a neighbor, needs to know so that I'm free to talk about her whenever I need to.

So my story includes my daughter--the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all. It also includes everything I went through, which yes, is sad and horrible but is real. I can't claim to tell the "real" story, what someone simply reporting the facts might tell. But I hope I'm honest, I hope I convey my true feelings and the impact it's had and continues to have on me. I am strong, I can make it through days and weeks and even months now without feeling that impact. But for two years, I couldn't see straight because of the grief. There are things from that period of time that I don't remember and probably never will. Other things I wish I could forget.

My friend seems to be working hard to try to make her story as even as possible, despite all of the horrifying events that make her life full of more peaks and valleys than she might care to acknowledge. I don't want everyone in the world to see all of these in my life, but they're there, and I hope that at least I'm honest with myself and those closest to me about them.

The hardest day

I turned 40 this year and had my first mammogram last Friday. I've been wanting to get one for a while, and my OB initially suggested I start at age 35 because both my mother and her sister had breast cancer. Well, I was pregnant or breastfeeding basically from age 32 until last year, so it wasn't possible.

I wasn't afraid of getting it, didn't fear the squishing of my breast tissue or even the potential results of it all. It was supposed to take about an hour, with the radiologist reviewing and giving me the results during that hour. Well, it actually took 3 hours. They did one mammogram, saw some calcification and did another. They wanted to know more, so they did an ultrasound on one side and saw a cyst, so then they did another ultrasound of both sides. After all this, I finally met with the radiologist. He showed me the results and very carefully told me that basically the next step would be to do a needle biopsy and aspiration. The results show abnormalities, and with my family history, this is the usual course (yes, I used Dr. Google to check all this out).

Within a couple of hours of me getting back to the house, a nurse had called me to schedule the biopsy and gone over all the details. I'm going in this Friday for the hour-long procedure.

I'm not scared, and that feels bizarre. Shouldn't I be afraid? I can only come back to my usual mantra of this isn't the hardest thing I've ever had to do. That day is over, and while I may have to remember or talk about finding my daughter with her soul leaving her body, I never again have to relive that day. And whatever the results, something can be done. That wasn't the case that day.

I remember in the months after losing my daughter, I thought that if I were to fall sick, or get injured somehow, I wouldn't mind and wouldn't fight. That is definitely not the case now. I have another daughter to be here for, and a son. I have many years of life left ahead of me which I have to live to the fullest to make up for the daughter who won't.

The radiologist probably thought I was crazy for my reaction (OK, sounds good, let's do it!) but I'm guessing that'll be my reaction to pretty much anything. The only thing I fear at this point is losing my other children. There are so many bad things that can happen over the course of a lifetime, many of them beyond our control. I fear that, the lack of control, and maybe a day will come when something else horrible happens that I can't do anything about. Until then, I'll just keep saying, this isn't the worst or hardest thing I've ever done, so let's get on with it.