There are so many ways to describe the variety of emotions that surfaced when I was going through the diagnosis stage of this cancer. In reflection, one that stands out now is that of feeling dazed. How I processed everything slowed down because in every thought, in every action, in the background of my mind was the floating question and then statement: I have cancer? I have cancer.
My breast biopsy on July 17th was also my 14th wedding anniversary and while the cancer was not confirmed until two days later, I was informed that based on the scans, it was pretty likely going to be cancer. Because of the way my vacation had fallen in coordination with my mammogram and biopsy, I had been wondering for two weeks if it was really going to turn out to be cancer. Every thought, every activity, was jammed with cancer on the brain.
Ferris Wheel Selfie!
I recall watching my kids and friends’ kids swimming in the pool on vacation and finding myself dedicated to every single second of that magical pool time, wondering if in the future cancer would take moments like that away. I recall sitting at the top of a ferris wheel, remarking on the view, wondering if cancer was growing inside me, and then really seeing the view [and, of course, taking a selfie]. I recall grocery shopping with a chatty check-out clerk and smiling back, wondering if she’d ever dealt with this. I recall then looking beyond her, at all the beautifully diverse people in the check-out lines, and wondering who else was grocery shopping with cancer, and then, who else was managing a silent struggle while still getting the groceries done.
I recall going through this odd period of doing every normal, summer day-to-day thing, while silently fostering a running dialogue. “I’m filling my gas tank and might have cancer.” “There’s cancer in my breast, but the laundry is the same.” “I’m driving in a car and going home and I have cancer.” “I’m sitting at the beach with cancer.”
I recall seeing everything just a little bit differently, too. It’s hard to describe, exactly. And it wasn’t like my own personality changed and I just saw LIFE and BEAUTY and NEVER SWEAT the SMALL STUFF everywhere, but there was a tweak of positivity, or was it of possibility, to everything I was experiencing.
Simultaneously, with the confirmed diagnosis, along with the continued daze, were all of these all-consuming emotions. Fear, crying, anger, disbelief, shock, shock, shock, confusion, urgency, the list could go on. Then, the emotions moved into acceptance, acknowledgment, action. And then they’d move back again. And so forth.
At some point in this, I’d been doing a dazed scroll through Facebook. Someone had posted a quote from the Grateful Dead’s Scarlett Begonias, “Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.” And I paused and stared at that post. I read it over a few times. I sang it. I tried it on for size and it fit. And I felt the daze lift. [And the true irony here is that it was while reading lyrics by the Dead that a daze lifted rather than ensued. I know.]
With the lyrics on repeat, I saw what had been so foggy for the past few weeks in a new light. I realized that all of my tangled emotions in this were related to being angry with having the disease while being elated that it was discovered so early, being distraught at what it would do to my body while being relieved that it was only in one part of my body, being so sad that my life would forever be impacted while being so thankful that my life would go on.
How I looked at this disease, and this diagnosis, was my choice. Regardless of what I chose or thought or felt, the disease was not going to go away and the course of treatment was not going to change. I could choose positivity and gratitude or I could choose anger and resentment. I wouldn’t be foolish enough to think I could control my emotions, because those all needed to come and swing and be felt and processed, but I could choose which to hold and which to let move along and when to do so for each. There were so many choices I couldn’t make about cancer, but how I chose to approach it was up to me.
In this very strange place of being diagnosed with cancer, I could see the light and I could feel gratitude, if I allowed myself to really look at it just right.
And so, this blog titled, “If You Look At It Right.”
If You Look At It Right 