My Strange Relationship with Cancer

I began writing another blog all about my surgery and recovery, and maybe I'll actually finish it. You probably won't be interested, but it'll be a great record of history for me and possibly my daughter. Because mine isn't simply a heritage of heavy menstrual bleeding, fibroids, and endometriosis, it's a heritage of cancer.

My doctors so nonchalantly spoke to each other and to me about my grade 1 endometrial cancer that I  didn't realize at first that they were saying I had cancer. Writing that out just now put a lump in my throat, and I have to wonder if the Nexplanon implant is amping up my emotions. Anyway. They were so casual about it even as they said it was a good thing I'd already decided to do the surgery and that I wouldn't need to follow up with chemotherapy or radiation. Jenna was the one who broke it to me. "Grade 1 IS cancer!"

Prior to the surgery, my surgeon (who is not my usual gynecologist) did a biopsy. He called me a few days later to report that they were precancerous cells. I was at work at the Theatre and couldn't talk so I Googled. I wasn't worried. And when my surgeon reminded me again post-op that it was a good thing I'd had the hysterectomy and that I wouldn't need further treatment, I still didn't get it. I was very groggy and in pain.

Then I had my first post-op appointment yesterday. My surgeon and my usual gynecologist were talking about the extensive internal scarring from my C-sections ("Who did your surgeries," he demanded. "It's no wonder you had pain!"). The scarring made it one of the most difficult surgeries he's performed, he informed me, and it took at least an hour to get past it. He even showed me a picture, which I didn't understand because I have no frame of reference. And then my surgeon told my doctor about the grade 1 endometrial cancer that got cut out with my uterus. They nodded and said what a good decision it was, and I still didn't get it.

Apparently, I dodged a bullet. I had cancer and no longer have it because the offending organ was already removed. My feelings and thoughts about this are complicated. Because I didn't have to live with cancer or fight it or mull over the rest of my life for weeks, months, years at a time. I didn't have to struggle with it. It almost feels as if it never even happened. Obviously, I didn't even know I had it after the doctors had told me about it!

Both Charlie and Beth have said that it was a good thing I took my troubles seriously. There were times in the last year that I hadn't heard back from my gynecologist's office for weeks. And I always say that I've been living with this for the last year, but it has really been much of my life and got progressively worse in the last couple of years. It was only last November when I bled for two months that I finally said something must really be wrong. What might have happened if I did nothing?

But it isn't really about cancer. That didn't motivate me. The emotional and physical toll of bleeding so heavily and fighting so hard to build up my iron stores to stave off anemia and blood transfusions were what guided me. I couldn't live like that indefinitely. In fact, I had just gotten my period AGAIN the day before my surgery, and I swear if I hadn't had that hysterectomy on the calendar, I likely would have despaired.

So I don't know what I'm supposed to think or feel about this cancer I didn't know I had. If you look it up, my grade 1 endometrial cancer (which can take many different forms, and at the time that I'm writing this, I don't know what mine was) was not likely to metastasize. It wasn't an aggressive thing. I know startlingly little about what my condition was and how this will affect me in the future. It came and went, and I didn't have to grieve or worry or think about treatment. And at the same time I wonder why none of my doctors thought to do the biopsy. How much trouble might I have been saved? Why didn't any of my doctors (and, not including the surgeon, I saw two Ob/Gyns and my internist) think to do the biopsy sooner?

I have friends and family who have fought and lived through cancer diagnoses and treatment. I have been fearful for them and thrilled for them. I respected them for what they had to endure. For their strength and even their weaknesses and for their continued struggles for wellness despite their fears. That was not me. I feel a fraud. I have no claim to my disease if I didn't even know it existed. It's just weird.

Anyway, I've shared this story with my family. My sisters and their daughters need to know. I didn't know how to tell my friends or if I even should tell them. And maybe I made the wrong decision, especially since I don't have all the information right now. I'm going back on Friday to get that damn Nexplanon removed, hallelujah! I'll ask then. But writing is thinking and I've got nothing but time to think (thus my intense desire to not be at home today, and yet here I am, writing this blog). Maybe you'll have insight you'd like to share with me, in which case, please do. I don't want sympathy, though, because I don't deserve it. I'm good already and I didn't suffer. I'm gonna go distract myself with yet another activity that will take me outside of my house and hopefully outside of my brain.