Then I had chemotherapy. I suppose having a baby is nothing like injecting cancer killing meds into your body a couple of days a week, hours at a time, over the course of several weeks. But I’d thought I’d do okay. According to my oncologist and the nurses that attended me during treatments, I did do okay. But I felt like shit. I felt exactly like one would expect when cancer-killing toxins were injected. The only perk was that by the end of my first round of treatment, all my belly pudge was gone, although as a diet, I didn’t recommend it.
To get through it, I had Emma to help with the kids after school and a cleaning person came in once a week to scrub. I signed up for a meal service so neither I nor Brayden had to cook.
At first, I think the kids were rattled by how much the treatment wore me down. But eventually, they settled into the new normal. I wasn’t completely useless. I was able to play quiet games and read with them. I didn’t go to the park or other outings. Brayden took those on because my immune system was down and I didn’t want to risk getting sick.
For his part, Brayden was focused and involved on my treatment days. He took care of the kids and me, got dinner on the table, and managed the bills. But on days he worked, he started coming home later and later, and often, when he did get home, he spent the evenings in his home office. I didn’t get a sense that there was something urgent at work that needed all his attention, so all I could think was that it was is paranoia around the business failing and us ending up in the poorhouse that had him working so much. Then again, he’d always been like that.
At first, I tried to be patient and understanding with the amount of time he was putting in at work when he wasn’t helping me with treatments, but eventually, the old resentment built. I felt like the business had too much importance. Maybe me and kids were more important, but not enough that he could trust his staff to manage in his absence.
We fought about it several times, until I gave up. I tried to be happy with the fact that he was always at my treatments and present for the kids on those nights. But I worried what would happen if my cancer didn’t go away and I ended up like my mother. Would the kids have an absent father because of his work?
A week after my last chemo treatment, I went in for tests to see if they worked to shrink my tumor. A few days after that was the meeting with my oncologist to discuss the test results and the next step.
Because I wasn’t having treatment, Brayden was back at work as usual, and would meet me for the appointment instead of taking me. We’d planned to meet for lunch, but he called and said a last-minute meeting popped up. Annoyed, but knowing I couldn’t do anything about it, I agreed to meet him at the doctor’s office.
I arrived early and waited, but he didn’t come or text. When I was called in to meet my doctor, I thought about asking him to wait until Brayden arrived, but then I didn’t want to put off his schedule with other cancer patients just because my husband was late.
“Is Mr. Burrow coming?” he asked as he sat behind his desk.
I sat in the chair in front of his desk, putting my purse in the one Brayden would be sitting in if he’d shown up. “He’s supposed to be here, but I guess a meeting went long.”
The oncologist sat for a moment studying me and I got a bad feeling.
“I’m sure he’ll be here shortly,” I said. “We can get started. I know you have other patients.” I wanted to hear whatever news was coming. The anticipation was torture.
He opened the file on his desk. “We got the results from your last round of tests after chemo back.”
“Did it work? Is the tumor smaller?”
“Yes, a little.”
There was something in his tone that suggested a ‘but’ was coming.
“But there are new areas of concern,” he finished.
“What do you mean?” I took a breath, willing myself to stay calm.
“There are areas that suggest some spreading. I’m going to recommend a full mastectomy. Both breasts. And then both chemo and radiation.”
I swallowed and tried not to break down. “Is it bad then? Stage four?”
“It’s not stage four, but we need to be more aggressive.”
He sat quietly as I took in the information.
“How aggressive is that?” All I could imagine was my mother during her treatment. She’d wasted away to bones and skin, her ability to communicate or experience anything but pain rapidly declined. I didn’t want that for me. I didn’t want my children to see that.
“It’s aggressive, but not unusual. Simultaneous chemo and radiation shorten the time you have to be in treatment,” he explained.
“Then what?”
“Then we hope the cancer is gone.”
“And if not?” Was all this effort a waste of time?
He sat back in his chair. “It’s best not to think about that now.”
“Why not? If I’m going to die, I’d rather spend my last days living, not slogging through too tired to hug my children.”