I’m not sure how to start this. I’ve never really talked about it. And maybe that’s the weirdest thing about being a cancer caretaker. You feel guilty for having a hard time, because at least you don’t have cancer. Well. Here goes. 
When I met @DGlaucomflecken in college, that was it. I knew I wanted to spend my whole life with him after six months. No rush - we had our whole Iives ahead of us - but I knew that was it for me.
We graduated together. We moved across the country and went to the same school for grad school / med school. We got married. I graduated, he still had a couple of years to go. As good a time as any to start a family, so we did.
We visited my parents for Christmas that year, had a nice time, and came home. At least, I had a nice time. While we were there, he found a lump. He didn’t tell me, because he didn’t want to burden me with it before we could get back to our doctor. That still breaks my heart.
What happened next is a blur. We went to the hospital, where he worked as a med student, for a scan. I knew enough about imaging to know what I was looking at. I knew there shouldn’t be a mass, and there most definitely shouldn’t be blood flow to it. There was.
A doctor came in and said “cancer.” “No shit,” I thought, but I let out an involuntary sob anyway. That’s not a word you’re supposed to hear as a 20-something. We had a baby. I suddenly wondered if I would be left to raise her alone. But I had to pull my shit together. For him.
He caught it early, but they wanted to operate right away. As in, right now. I went into a shocked haze and an eerie calmness. I called some close friends to babysit. I took the baby home. I said “Thank you, I’m not sure when I’ll be back.” I sped back to the hospital.
I called his parents. I called my parents. I sat in a waiting room with some stupid TV show playing, thinking about how fucked up it was that I couldn’t be with him. I stayed as close as I could and tried not think.
He got out of surgery, and I got to go back to see him. He was so drugged up that he was giggly and chatty, which is a 180 from his sober personality. I was so relieved to see him laughing that I wanted to cry. But I didn’t. I thought he’d need me to keep things light.
The prognosis was good. He caught it early, they got it all, it hadn’t spread, and we had every reason to think that was the end of it. He graduated, we moved, he did his intern year, we moved again, he started residency. I got a new job. We had another baby.
He had been tired and kind of grouchy for a while. We both chalked it up to residency, because who isn’t tired and grouchy in residency? Turns out it was cancer.
It hadn’t spread. It was another occurrence entirely, and he was just that lucky. This time, he told me as soon as he found the lump, and we spent a very nerve-wracking few days sitting with that knowledge until he could be seen.
I can’t emphasize enough how horrible those days were. Doctors, please keep that in mind when you’re scheduling. To you, it’s another appointment. To them, it is excruciating agony. I kept wondering how I would explain all this to our girls.
We sat in the waiting room wondering how the hell we were in this group of people. We were the youngest ones there by at least 40 years. He was in his white coat, supposed to be treating, not treated. I wish you could see his eyes here. They were just...flat.
Another scan. Blood flow. Cancer. But this time, it was different. Worse. This time, it meant infertility. It meant a year of tweaking treatment until we got it right. It meant a lifetime of hormone replacement therapy. That’s a long and very scary prospect at 31.
He told his residency director, who was amazing. He told him to take as much time off as he needed, and he gave us “babysitter” money for me to watch the baby and instructed @DGlaucomflecken to watch Mary Poppins with our 4yo.
He knew we needed some happiness and little bit of magic, and it remains one of the most thoughtful things anyone has ever done for us.
Surgery day came, and we sat in the pre-op room together for a long time. @DGlaucomflecken doesn’t like to talk about himself, and I knew typical cancer support activities wouldn’t be a good fit for him. I felt helpless and scared, so I did the only thing I could do. I Googled.
Right there in that pre-op room, I found @FirstDescents. He went back for surgery, and I waited forever. He’d been bumped in line, and then had a minor complication. I didn’t know any of that, and I sat alone in a waiting room wondering why it was taking so much longer this time.
I tried to keep from freaking out by reading the entire @FirstDescents website and mentally planning a trip for him. There was no therapy session, no forced talking, just a fun trip with other young cancer patients and survivors.
He came home to recover, and we were cautiously hopeful. Still, it won’t ever be quite the same. I still worry about a lifetime of HRT. What if we lost insurance? What if he can’t get his medicine bc it’s so controlled and expensive? But I can’t think about it. Life goes on.
One thing that makes @FirstDescents so special is that it gives young adult cancer survivors a chance to find confidence in their bodies again, after it feels like their bodies have failed them so terribly. When he recovered, he went on a trip, and it brought him back.
If you haven’t yet, or if you are able to do so again, please consider contributing to a trip for someone else whose world just got ripped out from under them. Or recommend it to your young adult patients, friends, family, strangers at the grocery store... support.firstdescents.org/fundraiser/123…
And doctors, please remember to see/hear/speak to the caregiver, as well. The cancer patient faces the possibility of pain, disability, death. The caregiver faces the possibility of going through life with only half their heart. They both need you. ❤️
