This week is my 27th birthday. This week also marks the the 19th month since I first heard the words, “You have a brain tumor.”
Yes, it’s true. I have a brain tumor. And it’s probably been there a lot longer than 19 months.They found it on November 19, 2009: easily the worst day of my life.
It was just a stubborn headache, we thought, and so did our doctor. Still, she called for a CT scan, to cover all possibilities. That doctor probably saved my life. More would soon join her.
Six weeks later, I underwent open brain surgery to remove what my neurosurgeon thought was a relatively harmless tumor. He was wrong. The pathology revealed the tumor to be a stage II glioma. In case you are not fluent in brain tumor-ese, that’s not good. It’s not horrible, and it’s not the worst, but it’s not good. Thankfully, stage II means no treatment is necessary, until something changes. It also means MRIs every three months for the rest of my life to make sure the remaining portion of the tumor remains stable. Every MRI since has revealed no change.
This is great news and we give thanks for this every day.
Still, the three month cycle is terrifying. It starts out smooth, almost normal. Two months in and I’m starting to make plans on my calendar, which means means I have to stare at that appointment. Two weeks later, I’m scared. What if this is the scan that changes everything? I’m only 26. I don’t want to think about cancer and scary what-ifs.
But this is my new normal. Cancer affects all of life: financial decisions, career questions, family matters. It’s something we both want to think about, but also not dwell on constantly. I’ve learned to laugh whenever possible, but brain tumor jokes really aren’t funny. What doctor did the fish see when he had a brain tumor? A sturgeon!
See? Not funny.
This I’ve seen: life is vulnerable. My life changed in the 5 seconds it took for me to pick up my cell phone. There’s nothing more horrifying than that moment. But there’s the other truth: life is good. It’s not just Hallmark card copy; the terrifying sweetens the normal. I can enjoy the mundane, the ordinary, because it is so often threatened. When we hear the post-MRI good news, it’s a delight to just revel in the commonplace: watching Netflix episodes, devouring Chipotle burritos, or taking Nate to the pool.
I don’t feel like a survivor. I just feel like me, albeit with a large dose of “Could this just go away, please?” I want life to be normal, without any doctor’s appointments, with kids, anniversaries, birthdays, Christmases, and ordinary days. This week, my birthday will be a quiet one, with a sushi dinner date with Daniel and some shopping at my favorite stores. I’ll probably take a nap. I already got what I wanted: a clean scan and three more months of normal.
Life is a gift.