Remapping time

It was only two years ago that we first had any idea that the cancer had returned. I'd felt a sense of relief a few days earlier, on May 1, as the third anniversary of the end of Sandy's initial treatment ended. We had no idea that the collection of seemingly unrelated symptoms she'd been experiencing were cancer's calling card.

She'd begun having migraine auras in the summer of 2009, but because I routinely have migraines, we weren't alarmed. I suggested she mention them to her doctors, but she didn't think they were relevant; I wasn't accompanying her to those appointments. We assumed the auras were a symptom that came along with the onset of menopause.

She had lower back pain, but it didn't seem markedly different from lower back pain she'd had off and on for much of her adult life. She'd had trouble catching her breath for a couple of years, too, and chest X-rays had shown nothing of interest. So she assumed she just was out of shape. A bone scan in September 2009 had shown only her osteoarthritis, no cancer. And her mammogram in November 2009 was reassuringly uninteresting.

Meanwhile, she was trying new antidepressants, so we attributed weight loss to their side effects. In fact, she stayed on them longer than she should have, despite other side effects, hoping to lose more weight.

When she was having trouble catching her breath even on the downhill stretches of bike rides, I became much more concerned and urged her to get her heart checked out. She agreed and took it seriously. We were worried about what the echo and treadmill test would show, but we had confidence that we'd be able to rectify any problems. We were completely unprepared for the phone message from the oncologist, noting areas of concern in her chest X-ray, and informing us that they wanted to do additional tests.

It was late in the evening on May 6 that we heard the message. We'd just walked home from an evening spent with friends. We were in a good mood, and ready to be home and get ready for bed. I pressed Play on the answering machine and we both heard Dr. Chen's voice. That moment is frozen in my brain and in my body. I know where I was standing, where she was; I know exactly how I walked toward her, saying "Oh my God, I could lose you." And her typically understated response, with a sigh: "They'll probably want to do a biopsy."

I could lose you.

I hadn't been thinking about breast cancer that much as the threat had seemed to fade into the distance. But I'd done my homework earlier, and I knew that metastatic breast cancer is a death sentence. I knew that breast cancer usually travels from the breast to the lymph nodes to the lungs, the liver, the bones, and the brain. I knew that we wouldn't have heard from the oncologist if they weren't pretty certain it was cancer in the lungs. I knew this was very bad.

Two years ago today, Sandy called as soon as she could in the morning to learn more about the X-ray results, and then she went to work. I spent most of the day on the phone. I'd call a close friend, sob as I told them what had happened, accept their comfort, and then, feeling better, hang up. A few minutes later, I'd panic again, and I'd call someone else. Lather, rinse, repeat. I remember walking to the library as the unwanted thoughts about Sandy dying slipped into my brain: I stood on the corner of 14th & Madison, just a couple of blocks from home, and the world went dark. Completely dark. No sun (though it was a sunny day), no noise (though it's a busy intersection), no hope (though I'm an incorrigible optimist). I stared into the abyss. I resolved that that wouldn't be our future, that I couldn't lose her because, well, because.

I cherish the photos Tina took of us in
late June, 2010. She kept shooting while
we were chatty and laughing, moving
around. Now I sometimes click through
the set as if it's a flipbook. They captured
our interactions so well, and I treasure
the images of Sandy's common gestures,
including the pointing thing she did for
emphasis, as she's doing in this photo.

Soon we latched on to the idea that maybe it was tuberculosis—scary, dangerous, but curable—while we waited for further tests. It was on Friday that I'd glimpsed the darkness. By Sunday, I was optimistic that it really was TB, helped by Sandy's conviction that "this doesn't feel like cancer." At a brunch gathering with friends, Sandy laughed with everyone about all the phone calls I'd made on Friday. She was grateful I'd had so many people I could call, and I was grateful to believe this could be something else.

It's been hard for me to understand that all of that was just two years ago. Cancer consumed me for the last fourteen months of Sandy's life. We worked diligently to integrate it so that it didn't dominate our lives, especially hers. But that darkness hovered, ready to fill my vision when I was tired or we received any bad news, or when Sandy was in pain or frustrated about anything.

I lived in fear, struggling to have hope. Sometimes superstitiously believing that if I thought about her dying, she would. Other times, thinking just the opposite: preparing for the worst, so it would never happen.

It quickly came to feel like she had always had cancer, that I had always been almost singlemindedly focused on her quality of life and tracking the research to find a cure.

Now it's been almost ten months since she died. I find it difficult to believe she's been gone that long. At the same time, it seems crazy that we learned about this intruder only two years ago. It may seem contradictory, but it all comes down to how little time we had after that phone message: less than 14 and a half months. We should have had more time. We should have had a cure.