WE MET WITH A PLASTIC SURGEON for reconstructive purposes whom many people referred to as “the breast guy.” We scheduled it for 9am and with the girls only five and two and a half years old, my mom agreed to babysit, but she could only watch them until 11am. We were running about five minutes late and we called to let them know, but apparently that was enough to push us way back in line, and we ended up waiting two hours as he went ahead with his next patient. At first this didn’t bother me; why make everyone wait when he could keep things rolling along? But the more that time went by the more pissed off I got. Finally around 10:30am I left to go get the kids. My mom had to work and we had only planned on being there a few hours, so I had no choice but to bring them to the office. Again, we were blessed by their youth because they were so young they didn’t know where we were going. I just told them Mommy had to go to the doctor so we were going to wait with her.
Finally, around 11:30am they called us in, but I got hit upside the head with another curve ball. The doctor refused to allow me in the room with her! As if I didn’t already have a good case of the red ass with this guy. Rather than make a scene, I grudgingly agreed and sat back down with the kids. She was only in there for about a half hour so my mind bounced back and forth between feeling livid at this asshole and wondering what was being said.
When she finally came out, she was quiet. Driving home I didn’t comment on anything because the kids were in the car, but about a half hour later after we had dropped the kids at the next sitter (we had to go to the oncologist appointment next) I exploded. ‘What the hell’ was the first thing I could get out and that was all it took for Gina to burst into tears. That freaked me out because I thought that my temper had broken some sort of barrier and pushed her to tears.
My regret quickly turned back to rage as she told me that during the examination, the doctor had grabbed her remaining breast. That didn’t necessarily bother her as that’s his job but it was the way that he referred to it as ‘saggy’ that cut her to the bone. Never in my life have I wanted so much to get in a car and go find someone with the sole purpose of beating the bloody hell out of him. What the hell kind of professionalism is that? Especially from the doctor who everyone calls ‘the guy!’ I took her into my arms and felt devastated for her. Needless to say, that was the last time we ever saw that jackass.
We moved on to our oncologist Dr. Smith to get his prognosis. As I mentioned before, three of Gina’s lymph nodes were positive for the cancer. It was looking like four cycles every three weeks. Dr. Smith was completely the opposite of the plastic surgeon. The entire way he was great; he was instructive, educational, and a great hand-holder to both of us. Even still, I felt so bad for Gina. All I wanted was to be with her and make her feel better. Obviously it was hard for her but for me, it was a rough time going through this sort of thing and there truly was not a thing I could do. There was nothing I could do to make her condition improve, nothing I could do to make her feel better, and there was nothing I could do to really even take her mind off of it.
Even at this point, I wasn’t being naïve but I felt like we just had a long, hard road in front of us before we could get rid of this thing. I still thought there was no chance of a dark outcome, just a long journey back to good. Sure, I knew she was going to lose her hair and I was pretty ready for that. I had seen her in baseball hats so it really wasn’t much different than that. But between the medicine and the chemo she was wiped out. She didn’t do much getting out of bed and who can blame her. I on the other hand, kind of overreacted and really freaked out. I was really worried about maintaining the house and I had this irrational fear of having to do it all myself. I tried at first, but I was all thumbs and that only angered me more.
My mother suggested the idea of a nanny. When I brought up the idea of a nanny to Gina she was lukewarm to the idea. I didn’t really think about it as much as I should have then, but this house was her turf. This was the home she created and kept for her family and here I was asking her to allow someone else to do that. I convinced Gina that a nanny was something we needed, so rather than fight me she caved and we hired a woman for the duration of the chemo. We went through the hiring process together, calling a local agency and interviewing a few candidates. We ended up settling on Sofia, a Chilean woman. She was a good cook and had a very nurturing way about her.
Looking back we really didn’t need her. I should have just sucked it up a little bit and figured out how to manage it. Not only did we not need the added expense, we just flat out didn’t need her around. It was a luxury and one that in the end, I think may have started causing a wedge between Gina and I…but we’ll get to that later.
I took her to chemo each time and that was exhausting even for me. I know that sounds selfish but walking in there and seeing not only Gina, but all those other cancer patients, was depressing as hell. There was always somewhere between six and eight patients getting treatments. I remember it looked like a bullpen at a baseball game, only these people weren’t waiting to go into the game, they were already in it fighting like hell to win. As is my nature, I always tried to lighten the mood with everyone. I would clown around, tell jokes, stuff like that. I don’t know if it was me trying to make them feel better or trying to make myself feel better.
That was the first time I really started to grasp some of realness of it. This was where it started to really sink in. You would look at these people and see it in their eyes. They were fighting, but still they possessed this obvious exhaustion. They had this clammy, kind of empty gaze fixed on their faces as the chemo pumped into them.
I would catch myself at times muttering ‘why us,’ and it wasn’t just once or twice. I did it a lot even though I wasn’t trying to. I wanted to keep a positive outlook but man, being in that room it was hard NOT to ask the question. I know the other people in the room were muttering the same thing under their breaths as well.
After a while, I got to the point where I would just drop Gina off and go into work while she was getting her treatment. When she was done my sister would pick her up and drop her off back at the house. I know that sounds like I was abandoning her but I never saw it that way. Gina was a fighter and often, she was a silent fighter. That might be the kind of thing that is different for other people. For us, it was the mental break that I needed.
Usually by the third or fourth day of treatment, Gina would be taxed. The first week was nothing much more than physically exhausting on her, but it was the second week where it really became apparent. That was when her hair started falling out and that was really rough on both of us. Don’t get me wrong; if anyone could pull that look off it was Gina, but it was rough because it was yet another sign of reality. It was hard for me to see her take these different steps into cancer and even though I know this was the point where we were fighting it and driving it out of her body, seeing these things made it feel like it was setting in.