Some Thoughts on Cancer

It seems like more than one day ago I found out I've been diagnosed with Stage 0 DCIS.

Yesterday, I was all, I can totally handle this. This? This is like nothing. I've always assumed I would get cancer because my mom did and this is the totally easiest cancer. This is going to be fine.

I told people my biggest relief in all this was that I didn't find out I had it when I was unemployed, because my head would've exploded. I am being totally sincere in that. God made the insurance refuse to cover my mammogram until after March 15. I started my job on February 13. That is so not a coincidence.

If I had found this out when I was unemployed, I'm not sure I would be in the same place mentally I am in today. Thank God for small favors, because these calcifications were totally in me a few months ago. I know they were. I just did not, at that time, know they were there.

Tonight I went to see Sheryl Sandberg talk about her new book, OPTION B. It was a good talk and she's an amazing person, but at one point she said, "If you want to shut down a room, just say yesterday you got diagnosed with cancer."

Yesterday I did get diagnosed with cancer.

Of course I started bawling there in Unity Temple.

And of course people came up during the question and answer period with stories so much more horrific than mine that I felt bad, but we've all been down the road of the Suffering Olympics and know they don't give out medals at the end. My suffering is mine and yours is yours and the poor pregnant woman whose five-year-old had died of cancer LAST MONTH WHILE SHE WAS PREGNANT CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE has hers. All we can do is lift each other up.

The thing I didn't realize that I'm sure other people do is when you tell a bunch of people who care about you something scary and dangerous has happened, the response can be a little overwhelming. I have always adored people paying attention to me for good things, but I'm finding it extremely uncomfortable to have them pay attention to me for bad things. That is super interesting to me. I wonder why that is? It probably means I'm really arrogant and don't want anyone to think I'm weak or something for having like ductal carcinoma in situ with necronic asswipey cells that are determined to dance the cancer tango if I don't annhilate them like the little rat bastards they are. And that's true. I don't like people thinking I'm weak, though I am so totally weak. Especially not after they just had to be nice to me in 2016 because I broke my leg and wrecked my car and lost my job. It's like I can't even navigate basic life skills or something.

Damn, this is embarrassing.

But in some ways, the cancer thing is slightly less embarrassing than the leg, or the car or the job, because this one is totally not on me. I couldn't have headed my asswipey cells off at the pass any more than I did by getting yearly mammograms. For once, it wasn't my lack of foresight or tendancy to stay put in a company I liked or lacking brake pads or eye-hand coordination that got me here.

I swear I did not bring this on myself.

That's actually one of the things Sheryl Sandberg talked about that I really liked, that you really shouldn't take trauma personally. As much as I'd like to why, me this whole thing (and it is so beyond tempting, because seriously, 2016, how did you follow me into 2017 just when things were looking so up?), cancer isn't personal. Why not me? Actually, I'm a good person for this to happen to because I have an amazing support network and I have insurance and paid time off. There are millions of people who don't have access to treatment or insurance or even running water. Why me? Why not me?

Sheryl said journaling really helped her, and I've blogged through so many hard things and great things in my life, I'm going to blog through this even though about twelve people still read Surrender, Dorothy. I'm going to do it for me, just as I started it for my daughter, WHO IS THE SAME AGE THAT I WAS WHEN MY MOM HAD CANCER AND HOLY SHIT THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE FEARED WOULD HAPPEN THIS WHOLE TIME SO MUCH I EVEN WROTE A BOOK ABOUT IT WHAT THE FUCK?

Sorry - sometimes the voice in my head is super annoying. That's the voice that wants to play the victim and say I told you so, life, I knew this would happen, I was born doomed, but that is not true and even if it were I'm not that Rita anymore who always finds the worst in everything and then makes out with the worst because the worst is so damn sexy.

This is the new 2017 Rita, as Steph said, who is made up of the eating disorder 1992 Rita and the anxiety-disorder-crazed early 2000s Rita and all the other Ritas who came before those two. 2017 Rita is RESILIENT, DAMMIT and is thus going to blog this stream-of-consciousness bullshit and have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up because ruminating WILL NOT HELP.

Onward.