for me, especially since they know that I’m not good at doing nothing. If I didn’t do this protocol and I had a recurrence, I would kick myself a million times.
I have learned throughout this cancer journey that when the options aren’t so appealing, you have to go out there and make new options. As much as I acknowledge how little control I have in my life, I do try to control what I can. Then I can let everything else go and let the universe do what it will.
22
The Cancer Is in My Lungs
It seems that the cancer wants to live, too.
In late December comes awful news.
I have about twenty 2- to 4-millimeter spots—also known as nodules—in my lungs. We are fairly certain they are cancer. The CT scan also shows that my right ovary is enlarged, which could be indicative of metastatic disease. If these are indeed cancer, then I am no longer curable, and my prognosis is, assuming I respond to chemo, “several years.” That is the long and short of it.
No one went with me to see Dr. A.C. I went alone, and received the news alone. Which was probably for the best, as it allowed me time to cry alone, as I walked out, dazed, into a city all dressed up for Christmas. The thought of leaving my children and husband is unbearably painful. How will they go on without me? Who will pay the bills? Who will go to Costco to buy everything they need? Who will cook for them? Who will take the kids to school? Who will make their school lunches? Even as I think about going back on FOLFOX and enduring the horrible neuropathy, I have similar questions about how I and my family will get through the days, weeks, months, and years to come. And my parents…the thought of them watching me die breaks my heart anew. My sister told me she felt like we were back at square one. No, I told her, it’s worse than square one, because now it’s in my lungs and I’ve already tried chemo regimens that haven’t seemed to be that effective. In addition to having already tried the two leading chemotherapy treatments for colorectal cancer, I am tired now, so tired of fighting, so tired of having any kind of hope and being painfully disappointed. I am so tired.
My instinct is to plan. I need to record for Josh how all our bills are paid every month so he will always keep the appropriate accounts funded. I need to figure out who is going to help raise my children, to make sure they take piano and swimming lessons, to make sure they learn to eat foods from all over the world, to keep the fridge and pantry stocked with the foods my husband and children love. I need to make memory books for the girls. I need to tell people how much I love them and let them know how they have affected my life. I need to extract promises from people to help look after my girls when I’m gone and for those who knew me best to tell my girls about me, to fill their ears with stories of me throughout all the phases of my life; I need those people to share with Mia and Isabelle what mattered to me most and the Chinese-rooted values that I hope my girls will learn. I need to take Josh and our girls to Disney World and the Galápagos Islands so we can walk among hundred-year-old tortoises. I need to make a caramel soufflé like the heavenly one I ate with Josh in Paris last February. I need to scratch Josh’s head just the way he likes it and to snuggle with my girls as much as I can. There is so much I need to do.
I know that soon I will regain my footing and I will get up and fight, that I will research and advocate for myself, that I will endure the treatments. But I also know that in order for me to suck the marrow out of what remains of my life, I need to acknowledge that I am now planning for what is an inevitability. I must do all the things I have outlined. Josh has made me promise to fight, not to give up; he still clings to hope. But the most I can hope for now is time.
The sense that we ever had control over