2014. It has been a year. A life altering, inconceivable, hell of a year.
It wasn’t all bad, of course. Great things happened in 2014. I worked a lot and had some exciting residencies, working with students of all ages in all five boroughs. I watched Oliver learn how to walk, talk, make jokes. I watched him take risks like run into a freezing cold sprinkler in the summer, choose the tall slide where the big kids play, ask to get pushed higher in the swing.
As a family, we took our first real vacation together. I’ve always wanted to go to the Pacific Northwest so we traveled to Oregon, stopping in Portland and Willamette, we drove down the coast, stopping at each beach along the way, even though it was freezing cold out.
There were so many great things about 2014 but behind it all, just waiting to make it’s debut, was my cancer. Behind every smile, every embrace, every surprise and accomplishment, my cancer was growing and spreading silently, waiting to change everything forever.
I want to say that I’ve come out the other end of this year stronger and braver. I guess I have. Did I have any other choice? But more than anything I’m angry that this has happened to me and my family. I don’t feel brave. I feel afraid every moment of the day. Afraid that I will get too sick to move, to care for Oliver, to be a good wife. Afraid that despite the poison that is pumping through my veins, promising to kill the cancer, it is really spreading or will come back one day anyway. I’m afraid that when it’s all over, I won’t know what to do next, how to move on. This is how 2014 has left me.
I wish I could be inspirational and tell you all of the wonderful things I have learned this year. Say that this has all been a blessing in disguise and that I’ve grown as a person. But that would be a lie. I just want to kick 2014 out of my life, kick it in the ass. The same with 2015, which won’t be much better.
In 2015, I will continue with 2 1/2 more months of chemotherapy, begin radiation, continue treatment for the clinical trial and finally get more surgery when I have my breast reconstructed. 2015 is going to be a long year. I just hope at the end of it all, I can hear the words “cancer free.” I hope that I will be able to look at all that I have been through and see the purpose of it all. Understand why this has happened to me. Will I ever understand why this happened to me?
When can it be 2016?