I naively thought that once my husband got the “all clear” from his oncologist that we would be wiping our hands clean of the whole ugly mess. Silly girl. No, now I believe that cancer just might be sleeping in our guest room. Don’t get me wrong, the door is firmly closed and we tiptoe past there lest we waken the sleeping giant.
But really, when your husband is on an every three month scan schedule, it’s really hard to escape the stupid creature. His scan is tomorrow and we have been anticipating it for a while now. He has some worrisome symptoms that may or may not be suggestive of cancer’s return, aging, hypochrondria, something else or nothing entirely. It’s all part of that whole Aftershocks thing that I have written about.
Every now and then, I catch a glimpse of a shadow coming down the hall and if I turn fast enough and cast my “mad mommy eye” towards it, it retreats like the petulant boogeyman that it is. And just like defending against the figment of a child’s nightmare, I have to search under the bed, leave a small nightlight on and hope that what I fear most is simply not true.
But we are at the mercy of a machine that will read the tea leaves of our collective fate and on the schedule of the messenger who will deliver the news. In the meantime, I will hope that the tears stay behind my eyes and that the next week goes quickly so that we can exhale and do whatever comes next.
It seems as though I’m not the only one experiencing this as a spouse.
The earthquake has passed, the treatment is over, you’re using the words remission and survivor. Yet, there’s always something that makes you look over your shoulder. A pain, a twinge, a decision…something that makes the ground under your feet shift just a bit. You have to stop right where you are until it passes. Then you move on, until the next time that the earth trembles.
No one tells you about this…they circle the wagons, hand out the poison and make the love of your life well again. Then they let you figure out the living part on your own, And the people around you move on too, as they should. They are far enough from the point of impact that the ground shake doesn’t quite reach them. Unless, of course, they’ve had an earthquake of their own.
And it makes me wonder…what does an aftershock feel like to a child? What will make my son’s ground tremble in the future?
I spoke with Sara Blackmur, ACS PAtient Navigator at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, two weeks ago. She told me that one of the most frequently asked questions she hears from parents is regarding hair loss and how to explain it to their children. Certainly that is one of the most identifiable changes for a cancer patient. It is when the world can see the truth. It is a loss of identity, an image of vulnerability and a cruel consequence of treatment.
It’s also not one of the first things that we discussed with our son during my husband’s treatment. I’m sure that we talked about it…I remember him rubbing his Daddy’s head and saying that it felt fuzzy. I remember the comment that he made about using jelly to glue Daddy’s eyebrows back on. I just don’t recall prepping him for it.
What I remember though about his hair loss was my own emotion. I remember sweeping it off the bathroom floor for weeks before we finally decided to bite the bullet and shave it. I remember excusing myself to go to the bathroom and cry after we finally did. I remember trying to be brave for our son and failing miserably. I remember how dark it looked on the white sheet that we had put down and how I felt as I shook the sheet to send it into the wind.
And you hear of people who have their hair grow back in a different color, texture or curly. My husband’s came back darker and definitely different: tufty, weird and with a mind of its own. But it’s here and so is he and that is all that matters.