I was mad.  Very mad. I didn’t want cancer.  I was told it was just a cyst.  I had it checked out by several doctors.  It was always a cyst.  I wasn’t mad at the doctors, they all said the same thing.  I was a bit mad a myself.  I hadn’t had a mammogram for a while.   We had lost our health insurance and then the cyst had gotten so big I was worried it would rupture having a mammogram. Besides, it was just a cyst.  It didn’t need to be removed.

So I was mad.  I don’t get mad very often but when I am mad, I just need to be mad and get it over and done with.  So I decided I needed to “get my mad on” before meeting with the doctors.  I needed to go into the appointments at SCCA with a clear head and no anger.  I decided I needed to hit someone, and that someone would be Marc.  I told Scott “I need to hit Marc”  Scott said “Poor Marc…..”  Marc is a fellow trainer.  He has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.  He is big and strong and bald (sorry Marc but it is true).  The first day back to work after THE DIAGNOSIS, Marc came into the office and I looked at him and said “I need to hit you”.  He said “Ok.  When?”  That was the only question he asked.  I must have looked pretty scary if he didn’t question me.  I did tell him he could use pads.

We decided to have the hit fest after I had the MRI.  I thought that sounded good, a little imaging, a little hitting.  After a few instructions from Marc, the hitting  and kicking commenced.  If you have never boxed or sparred, it is a crazy aerobic/anaerobic workout.  It was great to have a reason, other than anxiety, to be breathless.  I felt my mad disappearing with each punch and kick.  After 35 minutes I felt like a different person.  My mad was gone, at least for awhile, and I felt ready to meet the team at SCCA.

These photos are my bruised hands (I did wear punching gloves).  I don’t think I have ever hit anything, or anyone, that hard in my life.  It was worth every bruise and drop of sweat.  I will never have the words to thank Marc for his unquestioning support.  I am so lucky to be surrounded by so many great people.

Yup, it’s true.  This is a nightmare that we aren’t going to wake up from.  It is reality.  And it isn’t any fun. I wish Loretta didn’t have to go through this but she does. We both do.

Lots of people have cancer.  My father died from cancer.  My mother-in-law died from cancer.  But, we know lots of people who have had cancer but are still very much alive and doing great.  That’s the thing about cancer: there is no certainty.  You are never certain that you will get it.  If you have it, you are never certain if it will kill you or you will kill it.  If you do prevail, you always have that nagging doubt in the back of your mind that it might come back, that you didn’t get it all.  The only certainty is that when you die, the cancer will, once and for all, die, too.

So, from now on, we are living with cancer.  Even when Loretta is declared “cured”, she will always have that in the back of her mind.  It is a constant.  Learning to live with that is going to be most of the battle.  She has wonderful doctors who are going to “cure” her but she will always have that scar.

Scars are our reminders of things that hurt us once but that we survived.