539 Days

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I win.

Two words forced through the white-edged glare of propofol. The nurse who was sitting to my right looked up from her charting to ask me what I had said, but I didn’t bother repeating myself. I hadn’t been talking to her. If I was talking to anything, I was talking to the ceiling tiles uncentered over my bed.

Over the past 539 days, I had been conversing with a series of bored, faded ceiling tiles. On the way to and from ORs, in waiting rooms, in hospital rooms, in doctor’s offices, in MRIs, CT, bone scanners, infusion labs, and surgeon’s offices, in labs, in hallways, in pre-op, op, and post op.

The most entertaining ceiling tiles were in the room where I got my radiation treatments.

When you are receiving radiation for breast cancer of the left breast, they use cameras and breath holding to keep the radiation from zapping your heart.

Because that would be bad.

The process is as follows:

Arrive at the radiation oncologist’s office

Check in with the adorable and exhausted front-of-office-clerk who will be delivering her third baby girl during the course of your treatment

Sit in the waiting room and stare at the water stain in the south west corner of the ceiling

Upon hearing your name, jump up and hustle to the door, exchanging pleasantries about the day (the lovely sun/rain/wind/hail…whatever)

Duck into the closet-turned-changing-room

Take off your shirt and bra and put on a gown with the ties in the front

Walk into the radiation suite

Exchange more pleasantries

Climb onto the glass topped table that lowers to approximately four inches higher than sitting level

Take off your gown

Lie down exactly the way you did yesterday: face up, arms over head, neck in the custom molded foam chuck

Wait for the radiation tech to come adjust your limb-inaccuracies

Stare at the backlit picture of a blue sky dotted with perfect clouds with a maple branch shading your face from the glare

Take a breath…hold it…

Count to yourself to keep from fretting or moving (if you move the cameras will shut off the machine and you have to start over)

And breathe…

Times eight

Try to count the leaves on the ceiling-tile-tree (unsuccessfully as you cannot turn your head and the leaves extend beyond your peripheral vision)

Ok, we’re done! You did a great job!

Feel absurdly pround of being able to lie still for eight minutes

Try not to groan as you bring your arms down, gather your gown back over your chest, and slide off the table

Exchange pleasantries as you gather your things and scuttle back to the changing closet, smear Aquafor on your chest, and redress

Times thirty-three.

The PACU (Post Anesthesia Care Unit) ceiling was plain: white tiles punctuated at intervals with curtain tracks. It was impassive as I grunted out my victory. Honestly, I don’t blame it.

Those two words marked the end of 539 days of acute treatment for invasive ducal breast cancer. They were my first thought when I woke up from breast reconstruction. It has been 298 days since then. I have not felt like a winner for about 264 of those days, but I am making my way back to health.

Because I am a person of my word.

Turns out winning doesn’t look like I thought. Surviving is not a montage set to music, zipping by as you battle your inner and outer demons, coming out at the end tough but beautiful. Surviving breast cancer is getting up every morning different. Brave and beautiful, sure, but different. Older. Lumpier. Scarred.

This is my story.