I’m not sure if you were aware, but October was breast cancer awareness month, and I am so glad it’s over! Don’t get me wrong, I fully appreciate the effort, fundraising, and awareness for breast cancer, but it was sort of like being pregnant – all of a sudden everyone around you is pregnant or has a baby, and you can’t escape it.. It’s been a month of spotlight on an issue that I am still coming to grips with.
Turndown service at the hotel in Nantucket almost put me over the edge. Elissa is a true friend – after the first night of breast cancer pink ribbon chocolates on our pillows, she had a word with the front desk, asking them to skip the pink ribbon bit the following night. I love chocolate as much as the next girl, but the last thing I wanted on my girls’ weekend getaway was yet another cancer reminder. I imagined the housekeeper creeping into our cottage with her pink ribbon chocolates, taking special care to set them out, because don’t you know – the guest in this room has breast cancer.
Our girls’ weekend was fabulous, but even so, I found myself struggling with material to write about. We took walks on the beach, bikerides, drank plenty of wine, and ate our faces off. Not exactly great blog material, who wants to hear about a perfect weekend? As far as how I was feeling and treatment… blah blah blah, cancer sucks, blah blah. Nothing I wrote felt interesting or the least bit entertaining, and my malaise grew.
Nothing a trip to the ER can’t fix, because with cancer, even a migraine is more exciting. My timing for unwanted exciting events is stellar, and said migraine hit me like a brick wall while I was home alone with Grace, and Lee was in Europe for a conference. I used to get migraines regularly, but haven’t had one since I was pregnant, much less had one come on so quickly and violently. Within minutes of the headache beginnning, I was throwing up in the downstairs bathroom. Neither pregnancy, chemotherapy or bad hangovers have made me vomit, but a migraine will have me praying to the porcelain gods in no time. When you have cancer, you’re encouraged to call the Oncologist to report every sniffle, so I phoned the hospital thinking I would be told to take some migraine medicine and get some sleep.
“I’d like you to go to the ER. Did you hit your head today?” the on call Doctor asked.
“Uh, no. It’s just a migraine. But on the opposite side of my head from my usual migraines, and I’m throwing up. How serious are you about this ER thing? Because I’m home alone with my 17 month old daughter, and my husband is Europe.”
“Uh, pretty serious. Because of chemotherapy and your compromised immune system, I’d like to get you checked out and rule anything out, like hemorraghing. You sure you didn’t hit your head today?”
My brain bleeding internally? Well, that didn’t sound good. So I decided to follow Doctors orders, and with a herculean effort yet again from my friends, found someone to watch Grace while another friend drove me to the ER.
By the time we arrived I was glad that I had gone, because my headache was violent. I was processed quickly, and brought into a small dark corner room, perfect for shielding my eyes, which were sensitive to the light. I was told that the room doubled as a psych room because of the small size and lack of windows. After settling in and realizing the only TV station was set to a WWF “RAW”, I assessed this was more likely the reason it was a “psych room”. As the nurse admininstered morphine for the headache pain, I fell asleep wondering about female wrestlers and staged catfights.
After a CT Scan and spinal tap that left me crying for Lee, it was determined that my migraine was in fact, just a migraine. I was released from the ER at 2 a.m., an hour after cabs have stopped running in the suburbs, and again called in a favor from a neighbor, who came out in her PJs to pick me up.
The following day I was sore from the spinal, but headache free and home, thankful for everyone that had jumped into action to help while Lee was away. But more than anything, I found myself missing Lee, and appreciating all that he does. If anyone understands what I am going through, and has seen my illness first hand, it’s him. At the same time, he juggles work commitments, takes care of Gracie while I’m too sick, and helps to keep our house running. He loves me, and tells me I’m beautiful, even when I have no hair and have been lying on the couch for three days.
I could hardly imagine five years ago when we first met, all that we would go through together so quickly. In that time Lee and I met, moved in together, changed jobs (me once, him twice), got married, bought a house, had a baby, wrote a book (Lee), and got cancer (me). Ironically, Lee still drives the same car. I don’t think either of us anticipated that our wedding vows, “through sickness and health” would be put to the test until we were much, much older.
Sometimes it takes a trip to the ER alone to make you really appreciate the people who are normally there to hold your hand.