Part Fifty-Six: Getting It

            For years I didn’t get it.  In fact, I thought all the relays and pink ribbons were, well, over the top.  I sure didn’t have any interest in breast cancer.

            And then I got it.  Triple negative, stage 3b breast cancer, that is.

            Cancer, no matter the type, is a big deal.  It is the disease everyone hopes not to get.  It is scary and dark and all-consuming.  And it is far more common than I ever knew.

            It still boggles my mind every time I drive into the full parking lot at OCSRI.  More mind-boggling is what waits inside.  People sitting as they wait to speak to an insurance expert, standing in line as they wait to check in.  People sitting in the lab waiting room.  People in the radiation waiting room.  And upstairs, the huge chemotherapy treatment room full of people.  This is one cancer care facility in the city of Tulsa.  One.  Multiply the numbers of cancer patients by some unknown factor that represents all cancer treatment facilities—you may choose in the city, in the state, in the United States, or in the world if you wish—and you start to think about how many people have cancer.

            The other parts about cancer I never got before were how hard it is.  How much cancer patients need the loving, practical support of family and friends.  How endless treatment seems.  How it changes lives physically, emotionally, and spiritually. 

            I never imagined, nor would I have chosen, that I would get cancer.  Now I cannot imagine life without it.  Yes, I am nearing the end of my treatments:  only fifteen more to go.  Then I will enter the ranks of cancer survivors who heartily hope they will never be cancer patients again.  Having cancer has been hard on my whole body.  It has caused all kinds of emotions, both positive and negative, to surface at unlikely times.  It has pushed me deeper in my faith.  I am a better person because of it.

             Now I get it.