The Day we Found Out

There was a suggestion today on the LC support board that we share the stories of when we found out about the lung cancer diagnosis. This is what I posted:


I knew Mom had been in for some tests, and I knew the doctor was concerned things were serious. We were thinking Mom was just having really bad arthritis with some wacky blood counts. But, the doctor had mentioned the word, "Leukemia," to Mom and my heart sunk. I can remember during my thinking times in the shower, I just knew something was really wrong. I kept trying to tell myself I was projecting the negative to protect myself, but I knew it was deeper than that.... I just didn’t anticipate the blow that Lung Cancer is.

The day we found out my husband had been promoted. I was all excited about that and playing the proud wife, and I called to tell Dad about the ceremony. Dad was really quiet and wouldn’t tell me how things were going, and Mom didn’t want to talk. Finally, I told him that he was scaring me. He said that he would have to call back when my husband was home, and then I knew it was bad. I explained to him that I would be more frightened if he made me wait until Andy was home and finally, I dragged it out of him.

And... That’s when "Lung Cancer" became a fixture in my vocabulary. I was so scared. My husband had been at work all day due to an early briefing and wasn’t due home until very early the next morning, and I just couldn’t handle that. So... I called him at work just sobbing. His supervisor sent him home immediately long enough to get me ‘under control.’ He held me for a long time, and I cried for what seemed like forever. When he had to go back to work, I just sat there quietly and tried to figure out what I was going to do to get through the night.
I didn’t know what to do, or how to process what I’d just heard. I got on the Internet to do research and I found those stupid statistics and my heart just sank. It stayed sunk for about a week until I finally found LCSC, and started reading about people who had beaten the odds, and people who had hope. And then... Hope became the thing I could cling to.

Because of the small hospital Mom was using we didn’t get the staging information for almost a month. For a month, we prayed that we’d caught things fairly early. Even the doctor was somewhat optimistic... And then we found out that there were Mets in the bones... And it was like another sock in the stomach.

It was so hard being pregnant and finding out. Of course I kept wondering if Mom would know her grand-daughter and how much time they’d have together. I felt so awful because every time I thought about the baby, my thoughts immediately went to Mom, and I felt overwhelming sadness and fear. I wanted to feel happiness and joy about my baby... But it was all masked at that point.

I can so relate to those of you who said you wanted to punch happy people. I sure did. The people I wanted to punch even more were the ones who would see me and my pregnantness and say, "I bet you’re so excited," or, "You must be so happy." I just wanted to slap them and scream... "My Mom has Cancer you idiot.... There is no such thing as happy."

Now though... I’ve found happy again at least some days, and I think what’s more I’ve found joy. My daughter gives me hope and courage and strength. I know time is precious–with everyone in my life–and I don’t want to waste it. Don’t get me wrong, I still get sad, and angry, and scared many days... But this little girl keeps me going. She smiles at me and giggles and I just know her smiles and giggles will be such good medicine for Mom. I still want to hit happy people sometimes, but not nearly as large a percentage of the time. And hope is still such a beautiful word.