Last year on July 16th I learned that I had cancer. I didn't want to talk to anyone about it. I didn't want to answer my phone or see anyone. I even dodged a few of my best friend's calls which says a lot. I did the bare minimum in communication. I spoke briefly to my Dad. For everyone else's benefit, I wrote a quick blog that didn't reveal any panic or hysteria I may have felt.
I didn't cry on the way home from my bronchoscopy. I chose to ride home with my mom; David drove behind us in his car. I was afraid I couldn't hold it together if I rode with him and alone he had the opportunity to call his folks and our closest friends with the news. I don't know what he said to them. How he broke it to them. I don't know how they reacted. I never asked.
My mom watched Jackson that evening and I had David take me to a mexican restaurant for dinner where the salsa burned like hell going down my throat, raw from the broncoscopy.
He and I broke down that night in bed. We sobbed like crazy and held each other. We didn't know anything about what would come next. We didn't even know what kind of cancer it was. We were told to hope for Lymphoma, Hodgkins, preferably. I didn't know how to act or what to feel. I just kept imagining my own damned funeral and hyperventilating. Scared doesn't begin to cover it.
Today I worked my butt off at the Palace. Worked hard to get the new season info ready for the website and wrote down all the questions that came up that I needed to ask the webmaster at my 6:30 p.m. dinner meeting. Had an incredibly productive meeting where the office, production side and webmaster all got on the same page with everything we need to do to go live on the new season sales on the website. Just got home half an hour ago.
Got my hair cut between work and my meeting.
It has been a very full day.
What a difference a year makes.
5 comments:
Marsha,I will never forget the day when I got the call from Dave, informing us that you had cancer..NEVER....I have never been so angry in my whole life.......and I lost my Mom to cancer...
I screamed and cried for a long time all by myself, before I called Lou.....
And here we are , a year later,
I am very proud of you....
you have come a long way baby....
And a very cool thing is..you got your hair cut......
What a difference a year makes, there are just no words to describe it,
Love,
Susanne
Happy Cancerversary, Marsha.
Oh, Marsha, I get tears in my eyes reading this. You're an amazing woman!! Happy Cancerversay indeed.
We never doubted you'd be here to get your hair cut a year later. (Or to do a lot more stuff, too!) We don't doubt you'll be here in forty to have your grays colored and not just cut.
Congratulations.
Love, Light, and Laughter,
Joni and Leanne
Congratulations, Marsha...you, by dint of a lot of raw courage and innate stubbornness, have pulled through.
Not only that, but you've done it with humour and grace.
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