Green Day

Today was Green Day at Lillian’s school. So naturally we listened to Green Day on the drive in. It hit different today. Bottled up feelings I haven’t been able to name, to fully see, came rolling down my cheeks to Basket Case.

Whether to see how much I could push Lillian or my tears I’m not sure, but we listened to Good Riddance next.

I immediately felt the nostalgia wash over me — unironically this time as opposed to when it was played at anything even loosely tied to graduation many, many years ago.

I thought of that Keri singing along to that catchy, catchy tune with stars in her eyes thinking “it was worth all the while.” What even was? Relating that song to high school graduation, in hindsight, is comical. It’s honestly a better funeral song, but I digress.

Big developments over the past week.

I am officially scheduled for a double mastectomy! Chemo is done after my June 19 infusion, then I recover for a few weeks before going under the knife on July 25. I thought it would feel so good to have these dates set, but the anxiety that left earlier this year has come back and sunk deep in my chest. Perhaps it’s because of the other big development.

I met with a new doctor from gynecologic oncology to begin discussing removal of my ovaries. Because of one of the types of cancer I have, preventing my body from producing estrogen is recommended — hence the removal. However, the BRCA I mutation also increases — not insignificantly — my risk for ovarian and uterine cancers. Cancers which are much harder to detect than breast cancer and, because of this, often result in advanced staging when diagnosed. So, we traded in the plans for removing the ovaries and upgraded to a total hysterectomy. Sweet.

Justin and I knew a while ago we were done having kids. I love my kids, I loved being pregnant, and I would love to have a house full of littles, if only we had infinite time and money. So we made the decision to cap our family at four, where mom and dad aren’t (technically) outnumbered, everyone has a buddy, and everyone can get ample amounts of time and attention.

But still, meeting with the doctor and hearing with complete certainty that not only would I be losing my ovaries, but also my uterus and cervix — it was a lot.

Then that thing happened where I thought about something and it showed up in my algorithm. Justin and I talked about tin roofs recently and suddenly ads were in my Gmail for tin roofs?! Ick.

This time I was fed a reel of “celebrities who waited to have children” filled with women in their mid- to late-forties and their newborns. Why, Instagram? I didn’t even want to have another baby, but now I’m mad that I won’t be able to?

And as the universe always does, it reminded me that as grumpy as I may be with my situation — we also had to cancel our family beach vacation which was scheduled for days after the mastectomy — there is always someone who has it worse.

A friend, much younger than me, is soaking up the last moments she’ll get with her father. A father who a month ago was undiagnosed. Now he’s in hospice with stage four lung cancer. My heart aches for her and for her family. How unfair. Like a Trojan horse, cancer sneaks into our bodies and can hide there, waiting patiently, growing stronger and wreaking havoc while we go about our lives, ignorant to the battle within.

While waiting recently with other patients in the infusion wing, I struck up a casual, friendly conversation with the man sitting across from me.

A man whose age I couldn’t discern. Cancer makes even young men look old. Move as though they’re old. He told me he’d been battling cancer for three years and it had advanced to a stage where it was now categorized as incurable. He spoke to me from his wheelchair, his means of getting around now thanks to a cancer-related stroke. Yet despite all of this, he shook his head and told me he would continue fighting.

Who has it best or worst is not a competition, although there are certainly enviable positions.

There is always much to fight for, to be grateful for. Cancer can cloud your vision there — it can be a real downer.

But there’s something unpredictable, and in the end there’s right.