Love and MRIs

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One thing that this unexpected cancer diagnosis has brought with it is unanticipated amounts of love. My email is more likely now to signal an expression of love than a work issue, and I am hearing from people all over the world—poems, songs, stories, offers of meals or research or reiki or prayers. I want each of you who have emailed or called to know how unbelievably grateful I am for your support. Each of your expressions of love and sadness and hope and joy is a balm for me. I feel small pieces of you joining with me and making me stronger and more resilient. As the days have passed and I’ve gotten more used to the idea that I have cancer, I think it is the love I feel from all of you that weaves me back together again, that helps me form and reform a new identity that includes the cancer but is not driven by it.

Cancer takes more than just my ability to plan and control my life; it seems to also take over some of my ability to know myself. As I wait for the doctor to call to let me know what surgery will be done and when, I am in some ways a passenger in my own life. I go where the doctors tell me to go, get on planes or not, cancel gigs or not. And I’m just 16 days past the discovery of the lump. This thing gets darker before the dawn. And in the darkness, new insights will come along with the pain and misery, and new connections and new love and delight. Each of you thinking about me is a pinpoint of light. I used to wonder whether the notes or poems I sent to friends in need or sick or mourning were anything more than a flood into already full lives. Now I know. Each sentence is a light in a time when it is sometimes unexpectedly dark. Thank you.

Yesterday morning I had my first breast MRI. For those of you who haven’t ever had that pleasure, I’ll quickly explain. The MRI is a big tube and you get wheeled in on a table and lie there while REALLY LOUD sounds happen around you. I’ve had them for my head several times but never had one for my breasts. For that, you lie on your belly on a kind of plastic frame that holds your body on an upwards incline. Your breasts dangle through openings in that support (sorry that you’ll never get that picture out of your mind). Then you lie like that—on your belly, breasts dangling through these holes, face resting on a soft opening looking straight down, arms resting above your head—for 30-45 minutes as loud noises happen all around you.

I was a little anxious at first (that doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?) but in the tube itself, I realized that this was the best part of the diagnosis and treatment part of the cancer journey. Only one needle (for a contrast that they injected at the end), no pushing or squishing or blood of any kind. And I got to chill out with only the job of lying very very still. More frightening will be the results, which we’ll get today, which will give us a sense of the extent of the cancer and thus of the surgery. Fingers crossed the lump we know about is the only one that’s there.

Here is our favourite sculpture from the garden

Then Michael and I had a big brunch (you can’t eat or drink before the MRI) and took a walk through the Auckland Regional Botanical Gardens which was so beautiful and healing (I've attached a picture of our favourite sculpture, which could stand proudly in your garden for NZ$30,000). And then we came home to Wellington, hopefully just to wash clothes and repack for surgery on Thursday, but knowing that if the MRI news is bad, there will be a bigger surgery, probably some time next week.

It is weird and wonderful being home. I am different now and see the place differently already. Plus it’s different too: No kids (still at camp), no dogs (still at the kennel). But the sea continues its pounding and reminds me of how cycles work, how enduring the world is, how precious each wave is and how brief. We had friends make us dinner, bring it over, and eat with us, and then we watched the movie that always, always makes me laugh (Soapdish). I slept well enough and woke only briefly at 4 and got to watch the orange sliver of the room dip into the sea.

So today, with a blue sky and sea in front and my own garden behind me, I am awash in gratitude—for non-invasive medical technology, for the kindness of doctors who see cancer every day but are still sympathetic about mine, for the sweetness of mint, fresh from the garden. I am afraid of what I might learn this afternoon (I’ll post briefly when I hear) and grateful that breast cancer treatment has come so amazingly far and that they can learn so much with less and less cutting things open. I am honoured that you’re reading these words and grateful that you’re here with me. And every wave, and every breath, seems pretty amazing. Here’s a poem my dad sent this morning, for us all:

Sometimes

Sheenagh Pugh

Sometimes things don't go, after all, 


from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel 


faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail, 


sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war; 


elect an honest man; decide they care


enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor. 


Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go 


amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to. 


The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow 


that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.