The Human Experience

I was recently greeted with an email from my doctor stating that my mammogram was abnormal. Being a breast cancer survivor of an aggressive cancer nobody wants and some die from, I was knocked off my center. Abnormal. What does that mean exactly? I know what it meant before. I took a deep breath, reread the email slowly, and noticed my doctor had ordered additional testing. I called immediately and added “additional testing” to my calendar.

During cancer treatments and soon after they ended, ten years ago now, I fretted that any little ache or pain, twinge, or pang meant a metastasis. As a fresh survivor, learning to re-enter the land of the unincumbered after walking the tightrope between treatment and terminal, I struggled to find ordinary, where my temperamental internal magnet repelled fear instead of attracting it.

Red and Green decorated my house with the anticipation of Christmas and the promise of the New Year. I sat in the twinkling lights of the artificial Christmas tree with a nervous tummy, wondering how I would take care of Doug’s dwindling resources and manage cancer again. I wanted to stop time, reverse it, replay less burdened days when Doug was stout, and I was infatuated. Hot tears stung as fear took hold.

I called my kids, one at a time, and let them in on my secret. Doug did not know, and I did not want him to know. Managing his heightened anxiety, or worse, his indifference at hearing of a possible second cancer, felt daunting. Mustering the strength required to put it on repeat, again and again, to accommodate Doug’s shrinking brain’s inability to hold new information felt impossible.

Each test warranted an additional test until a biopsy was done and the real waiting began. The burden of news hung on me like a weighted blanket draping from my shoulders. Waiting is exhausting. Dying is exhausting, even if it is just in my imagination. When the results were in, an email alerted me, and my finger hovered over the OPEN button with a slight tremor of complete terror. I gave myself the Pep talk; you can do it and clicked OPEN.

Fibroadenoma, in other words, benign! Grateful.

It didn’t take long for me, after realizing a benign diagnosis, to get back to normal – whatever that is. I got busy packing up Christmas and redecorating in any color other than red and green. I lifted a glass to Happy New Year and reflected on my good fortune.

Turning the page into January suddenly felt lightweight, welcomed, and more human. Not that a cancer diagnosis would render me less human, but the entire experience – cancer, no cancer, and the wait in between – accentuated how frail human existence is with no immunity from infirmity and death. I didn’t want to think about that, at least not with me as the target. It’s easier to live in the illusion of strength and long life, ignoring the reality that our human existence is as fragile as a soap bubble. We live on the razor’s edge between life and death. And we hustle, we strive, we breathe, and laugh and love, with dreams and expectations for tomorrow. It takes guts to live here, between anticipation and completion. The wonder is that tomorrow shows up as today, and we get to try again, at least, most of us do.

I used to set goals and objectives and put them all out on 3×5 cards that I could carry around and memorize. I don’t do that as much anymore. The magical thinking in my goal-setting sessions harvested goal options like they were produce offerings on display at the grocery store -that one there looks good, oh that one could work, hmmm, I think that one will do the trick – and separated my life into neat categorical logical pieces that fortified the illusion that I was in control.

Life is less sequential and chronological these days. Months, days, and minutes are elastic and loose, less ridged, except for the pill box reminder and the dog’s feeding schedule. Closing out last year by surviving abnormal with news from a biopsy, watching Doug’s frailty as he slowly loses his footing on this earth, needing my help more and more, and navigating into a new year that will likely introduce Hospice is sobering. Unfastening. Real.

We are often marked by experiences we do not pick, tragic and beautiful. Being present in the whole human experience allows all the pieces of being human – picked and unpicked – to exist without controlling or exiling any single piece. Doug’s silent, slow, fading form reminds me every day that this time right now is true. In all its frailty, trials, and uncertainty, this loose, unfastened moment is beauty and holiness and standing alongside each other as we peacefully and graciously walk towards Home one day at a time.

Karen