Countdown

Saturday ~

Today, I wear an old shirt of my grandfather’s. It is pink, with white stripes, crisp, a bit oversized. I am perfectly disguised. In my head, days are spinning about in an endless game show countdown:

2 more days until the Boston Marathon. I love the marathon. I love the fact that I don’t have to run the marathon. The boys and I are hoping to drive in to watch this year, unless cold rain is forecast, and then we will wimp out and stay home and watch it on the tube.

3 more days, perhaps, until I hear from the oncologist about the Oncotype test results, which will confirm what the pathologists have said all along—that I had the GOOD kind of cancer, that I am NOT a candidate for chemotherapy, that the Tamoxifen will BLAST the remaining cancer cells out of my body without ANY gnarly side effects, that my prognosis for living a full, healthy, LONG life is excellent, that I will truly be OKAY, and maybe even BETTER than that.

4 more days until I can put on some kind of a bra and look like I have two somewhat symmetrical girls again. Not that I’m self-conscious, but…it might make other people uncomfortable, after all. AND I'll be able to do laundry again. This is one thing that could possibly make me say Hallelujah.

5 more days until I head down Route 2, up 495, 95 and into Exeter for my 25th reunion, where I will meet up with beloved old friends and classmates from all over, try to cry, laugh, and dance as unvigorously (and yet as fully) as possible, so my expander does not end up in the middle of my chest, and wrap myself around all the living, breathing Juju that’ll be dancing, laughing, and crying with me.

11 more days until my next expansion. And I thought I was lopsided now!

18 more days until my final expansion. These last two are over-expansions. I already feel over expanded. By then, I’ll be toppling over for sure. But I’ll also be able to do whatever the heck I want to do, because—here’s the irony—this day will also mark six weeks out for me, the day at which I can dispense with the quiet puppy routine and get to it! Of course, by then, I’ll probably have lost most of my muscle mass and will be so pitifully out of shape that I won’t be able to do a damn thing, and simply walking up the length of our driveway, trying to cross Main Road without getting steamrolled by a speeding car, and lifting the morning newspaper out of the mailbox will feel vigorous.

39 more days until I can have my next surgery, the exchange surgery, when I can say good bye to the expander and hello to my new girl. Dr. Pitts’ office is working on scheduling it for early June. This day will also usher in a new era of no lifting/no vigorous activity for another four weeks. Curses.

67 more days until I can return to being my usual self. Of course, that usual self is something different entirely. So, no more usual, since a new normal has begun, and this reconstruction, after all, is only a piece of a larger work in progress.

to be nobody but yourself, in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting ~ e.e. cummings