Happy February Everyone! Last month we celebrated our first spotlight on everyday mothers and how do they do it by honoring a single mother of 3 who was a true inspiration. This month we spotlight another wonderful and beautiful mother who has recently been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. We are spotlighting this mother because of her strength and the journey she is about to take fighting this form of cancer, this journey will make her a true warrior and an inspiration to everyone who has ever been faced with the fear of this battle and all of the "What if" scenarios a cancer scare can create in the mind and heart.
Our featured lady is a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister and a dear friend of mine, one of my best. A couple of years ago this woman told us that she had been going through some tests for thyroid cancer because there was a concern, test came back negative and everything seemed to be ok.
Anyone who has ever gone through a cancer scare knows that regardless of the results, it is just that, a true scare. No one ever wants to have the conversation with their doctor that something might threaten their life, since a threat to a mother's life also becomes a threat to her family who now, regardless of what kind of cancer she has or doesn't have will always have an underlying fear that they will see their loved one suffer and possibly lose the fight.
Having had my own scare a few years back I know that you go through the day seeing things very differently. Small things that once seem so trivial are all of a sudden ....more special. Last week, we all got a message from our girlfriend that said, "Hey guys, just wanted to share some news with you......." and then she disappeared for the day. Just like our girl! drop the bomb and then no where to be found, a quirk of hers we have come to love. Indistinctly I cried, I saw the word, and I held my breath and the tears just came. Selfishly I thought about our girls weekend that we take every year and how that would work this year, then I thought about her little boy who just turned 3, I thought about how she had just started to consider maybe having another baby and now that would be put on hold, I thought about my own children, how terrifying it was to look at them and think "they won't remember me."
With little to no information, I did what any scared stupid person does......I went to Google. You know how in movies when the person who just had sex in a tent decides to walk through a dark foggy forest in the middle of the night to find out what that noise was? You sit yelling at the tv, "Why would you go, idiot don't go" well, that's what the Internet is like when you or someone you love has just told you they have cancer, you are the idiot (minus the sex thing.....or maybe not, hey I'm not judging) and the Internet is the forest and there you go, walking right into a monster called cyberspace that has to much information which ends up being no information, yes the Internet is sometimes an oxymoron. Because our girl went MIA I just looked up Thyroid Cancer and started reading.
Now, according to what I read, if you had to choose a cancer to have, this would be it, if caught early enough before any metastasizing has happened (metastasised is when its spread) it is very treatable and the success rate is very high. Hopefully you just have the thyroid removed, go on hormone replacement medication and consider yourself as winning the cancer lottery.
Personally, I don't care what kind of cancer you have been told you have or may have, cancer is cancer, and regardless of the stats and treatments, it is still a fight no one, I would imagine, wants to go through. When I was facing my own battle, my Dr. told me the news that I had active cancer cells while my 6 year old was in the room with me, ya, great bed side manner. My kid was old enough to know the word cancer, having known her grandmother went through breast cancer, she knew enough that cancer can kill, so just like I stopped listening when I heard the word, my kid only heard that word. As I walked out to the car after receiving that news, feeling very numb, we both got into the car, I looked over, she was fighting back tears, I asked her if she was ok, she asked me, "Mommy? are you going to die, the Dr. said you have cancer"
That conversation was horrible, because no matter what I said to make her feel better, I didn't truly believe, I was so scared, so overwhelmed that I couldn't even think straight. One of my other girlfriends sent me a message and was like, "how can she tell us that and disappear?, do you think she would want to get together this weekend and......." I figured, and this is where the How Does She Do It part comes into play, or maybe the questions should be, "How is she going to do it? I figured, our friend told us the news because the part of her that needed to form a support and comfort said she had too, but she wasn't necessarily ready to face us because she hadn't truly faced it herself. I would imagine that with the news being so fresh, she was probably in that stage of acceptance and now lets do what we gotta do from a technical perspective, but emotionally, had not yet faced it.
Because I know Cynthia, I know that she will fight this thing with all she has, that she will fight it without letting down her employer, without letting down her family and friends, that she will seem tough and ok with it all, which is the best attitude to have, accept for when she is alone at any given point of the day and her mind takes over, but we won't know that, she will ache inside when she looks at her little boy and shiver at the thought of not seeing him grow up, even though she tells herself and I truly believe she will recover 100% Until the cancer is out, she will live with this fear until they tell her its all out. I know that she will share as much information with us as she can, but will still hold back because giving us all the information would be worrisome, not knowing it, she will be trying to protect us, because she loves us...........and taddaah there is the way she does it, just like our inspiration last month, this month's mother also does it through love. Love is an undeniable driving force, when we are surrounded by it and give it, our fears and battles seem to be a little less scary and tough. Love may not be able to cure cancer, and in some cases it may feel the fight is harder when you think of all the love you may one day leave, but I would rather know, give and feel love around me during such a fight, then be alone. No one does it alone, because if we did, lets just say hypothetically do everything alone, would we really be alone? lol I will let you think that one out. In the mean time, I am going to think about summer getaways where me and my girls sing our yearly rendition of GnR's Sweet Child o'Mine, I am going to call in a favour to the bigger power, and beg that he make everything ok, and I am going to help my girl any which way I can, because even though I know she can do it without me, I won't let her, they say it takes a village to raise a child, damn right! damn right!
