You can pretend, but you can't hide

I met my oncologist on Halloween. We spent a couple of hours with him asking every question imaginable. He was amazing and patient. We talked about how chemo has become much more personalized to each patient. He basically said they were going to throw the book at me. The number of lymph nodes involved, my young age, the aggressiveness of my tumor made everyone nervous. But with that said he discussed everything we were going to do to kick ass and said if we followed this aggressive treatment plan he believed my chances of recurrence were about 15%. We showed up late to our Halloween get together.  Halloween (if you don’t know me well) is my absolute favorite holiday.   I had made an adorable duck costume for my daughter but I hadn’t even made a costume for myself. This was the first time in years that I wasn’t going to dress up, but I am happy to say I pulled something together at the last minute. (The Halloween that I don’t at least dress up you will know things aren’t going well.) Chemo Started in November. One week before my daughter’s 1^st birthday. My sweet mother had come down to help out. I had planned a dinner party for Makena’s birthday. My mother and I went to Costco to pick up groceries for the party. We were about to check out when my mother realized she had forgotten something. I waited at the front with my daughter in the cart when I started to feel dizzy and nauseous. I started to feel hot and clammy, all the noises around me became distant, and I couldn’t see straight, I felt like my legs were going to buckle beneath me. My mom came back and we went to the checkout line. I could barely hear the checker as I paid my bill. I stood there silent as my mom checked out when I realized this wasn’t getting better and my mom asked me if I was ok. I think I was seconds from passing out when I sat down on Costco’s floor. I started getting my hearing back and began feeling better. But they still made me take a wheel chair out. I was so embarrassed. But it made me realized that all of this crap was real. I had cancer and I was going to have to deal with that.