I joined a ton of Facebook and Reddit support groups in the name of research. A main takeaway I got from reading people’s stories is that the worst time emotionally tends to be right after the diagnosis.  This is because you don’t have the full picture yet and you haven’t started a treatment plan.  On the night I found out, though I was able to fall asleep, I’d startle awake every half hour, sob and lull myself back to sleep. My partner was away on business, so my mother had offered to sleep over.  I kindly told her not to. Years ago, when I first left my ex-husband, she had slept next to me on that first night.  I would feel like regressing if she did it again.  

Though she didn’t sleep over, my mom did rush to my house when she found out.  I needed her there less to console me, but rather to distract my kids.  They know me well.  They learned from a young age to carefully scan my face for signs that things are okay.  I know children can bring parents a ton of comfort in these times, but at certain moments, their sweet little faces tormented me.  All moms can admit that parenting requires expert acting at times.  We sing, dance, console and contort and sometimes we just want to scream:

“I THINK I’M REALLY F*CKED HERE!”

That first night was followed by more nights- less sad in comparison.  Over time, a process evolved.  I got more information, I developed more coping strategies and I become a life philosopher. Here were my stages in no particular order.

Why me?

This stage is pretty certain because let’s be honest, all of us have these feelings, even without cancer.  I was only 40.  I maintained a good weight.  I ate pretty healthy.  I kept relatively active.  I had even taken the step to eliminate alcohol, a known carcinogen (more on that).  Also, it’s not like I had some charmed life.  I put in a lot of work to overcome a fair amount of adversity.  Most recently, I could only afford to buy an old lady’s house after putting in bids on a million better ones.  I have to regularly deal with an ex-husband (no details for the sake of my kids).  It all felt so unfair.

Everyone likes to remind me that I have a right to be in this stage, and I totally agree!.  Only problem is, it’s just so hopeless and depressing to stay there for any length of time.  The, “why me,” perspective is also inherently flawed and biased.  So much of it is fueled by comparison, and we conveniently choose to compare within the confines of our own, privileged circles.  We don’t compare ourselves to prisoners of war, victims of crimes or extreme poverty.  We’re usually comparing ourselves to that elusive mom in town, who has a movie theater in her house and goes skiing in Aspen (OK I do that).  This just creates pain.  And let’s be honest, that mom may have some serious shit going on that we don’t even know about.

Why not me?

We all will experience hardship.  It’s inevitable.  I heard a line that really impacted me.  It said:

“Everyone has a story that if you knew it, would break your heart.”

There’s people around us hurting deeply, and not all of them are getting the sympathy and support they deserve.  Someone in their family has an addiction.  Their child struggles with debilitating anxiety.  Their spouse has cheated on them pretty publicly. They have some unknown, autoimmune disorder and they are barely able to work.  By the way, these are simply stories I’ve heard from other people over the course of last month.  Everyone has something.  This is my something (on top of some others).

Here’s my plan.

I’m productive and I can’t help but be.  Once I had my diagnosis, I did everything I possibly could to push my way into every doctor.  Within a span of days, I had seen a surgeon, gotten plastic surgery referrals, met with the oncologist  and generally had a plan. That helped.

What will everyone think?  

I can’t help but live out loud and having cancer is obviously no different.  However, I wondered what people would think of my new, high sitting, rock-hard pair of reconstructed boobs and fake hair.  It kind of plagued me.  I had a vivid image of myself at the town pool, filling out a bathing suit top and having to say:

“Folks, just so you know, these are cancer fake boobs. I HAD NO CHOICE!  Don’t judge me.”

That’s pretty silly, right?  But I’m sure everyone can relate.  We’re so scared about the cruel judgment of others.  However, that thing that we fear is typically just a telling reflection of our own self-loathing.  Why do we have to be so mean to ourselves?  It’s a process to move past this, and an important one to work on.  I have a lot of work to do.

I want to make it count.

I felt bad for myself and I recognized that I too had been spared and lucky in life.  I made some hard calls, enlisted the right doctors and made a plan that made sense to me.  I recognized just how silly it is to filter your experience through others’ eyes, especially during cancer and treatment.  Lastly, I let myself welcome my new, reconstructed boobs and said goodbye to my quickly mutating, natural ones.  

There’s some deep lessons to be learned  while navigating the horrors of life.  People always say it’s about the journey, not the destination. I guess that’s what I’m learning, but it’s much more nuanced than that.  We’re perpetually waiting for the moment where we can say we finally made it. The reality is that we’re actually already there, but at the same time, we’re not even close.

Buddhist philosophers believe that certain people are destined to be born into greater adversity.  These individuals learn life lessons earlier, and then have lots of life’s time to impart their wisdom.  I love this idea because it makes me a teacher, not a victim. 

Each day and each stage of life is filled with extreme amounts of ups and downs. We are literally having losses and wins over the course of the day.  The best we can do is fully embrace them, let them empower us, and kind of surrender to riding the rollercoaster.  Life can be beautiful, as long as we don’t become too exhausted by the ride.