June 8, 2021

My very dear friend had been officially declared cancer-free, was in the survivor program and was dealing with complications of reconstruction from breast cancer. I felt my job at this point was to be her support, be her friend, her advocate and make her laugh with my usual silliness. If you know Helen Krosky, you know the nicest person that walks this earth and are so lucky to be her friend. You also know that one day, years ago, Eric Danielson made the unfortunate mistake of confusing the two of us, and we (I) have never and will never let him live it down. It works out in my favor because who doesn't want to be mistaken for Helen? Of course, once my mouth opens, you realize your foolish mistake, not to mention the pure fact we look nothing alike in the first place. However, I have half-joked since that day that I want to be Helen's twin.

 

June 8, 2021. That was the day I started my journey as Helen's twin.  I got the call from the nurse with results from the previous week. Yes, I had been stalking the patient portal to see the results just in case they forgot to call me. They didn't. While I remember the call vividly, I mostly remember the words "invasive", "ductal carcinoma in situ", and then the absurd "It's grade 1, the best you can get in cancer", as if it's a fucking prize. I was sitting on the floor in the living room, writing everything down into a notebook on the coffee table, squeezing the pen and pressing down on the paper to steady my hand, looking upstairs to where the kids were in their rooms, looking up and thinking the absurdity of the news I was receiving on a beautiful day while the bright sunlight streamed into the house, looking through to the office and recalling the poignant words of Luke, Helen's husband: "It's strange. It's the saddest news you get, but the rest of the world is still going on around you."

 

I immediately texted Sam, my siblings, my closest friends. I did not want to talk to anyone. I did not want to be around anyone. I did not want to discuss anything. I simply wanted to give the news and crawl into the recesses of my mind, where I had already determined cancer would not kill me, because I am a dandelion, and dandelions do not die. That was and has been my position since this began and steadfastly remains. I wanted to curl up into a ball into the corner of my closet with the lights out, and squeeze my eyes tight and shut everything out, block out all the noise and calm the swirling words in my already frantically busy brain. Sam called me first and asked "Are you kidding me?" A fair question, given my propensity for pranks, but I was not in the mood. And really, neither was he. I retreated further in myself. My siblings texted messages of stunned support. My friend texted me the same question Sam asked, and I was very curt in my replies. I did not want to talk or discuss this. Another friend started sobbing and offered to come sit with me, cry with me, whatever I wanted. Oddly, this snapped me out of whatever state my mind was in. I focused on how to tell my parents and my kids.

 

I started with the kids. I summoned them and reassured them it was not a huge deal, but their lives would be upended in the short term. Ally, a carbon copy of her dad's stoicism and perfection of my snark, took a couple of breaths, teared up, and stomped off back to her room and very clearly stated "I do not want to talk about this." Alrighty then. I looked at Ethan, my sweet boy who has my absurd humor and affection, and asked how he felt? He looked back and asked "What am I supposed to say?" and then he went to his room and quietly closed the door. I was left speechless, a rarity for me. 

 

I mustered the courage to tell my elderly parents, both with varying degrees of dementia, but both with quite a bit of fire remaining in them. My mom is exactly what you would imagine: a very sweet little old lady, loves her grandkids more than life even if she doesn't call every child by the right name, loves her six kids and always tries to offer all of us food and snacks (usually given by one child and offered to another), and she always tells me if she'd had kids in the US, she'd have stopped at 4 (I'm #5 of 6). This last one is shared at random. I think she likes to tell me at sporadic moments to remind me of how lucky I am to be alive.Thanks, Mom. Despite this, she is fiercely protective of her family and will not hesitate to suddenly emerge from her usual quiet self to tell you off if you dare insult any of us. My dad is a little more complicated: a small man with a powerful opinion and personality, shaped by a culture that strictly forbade his desire to openly show affection to his children, and a life of witnessing and experiencing trauma I hope to never see, and really, the details of which I still do not know and do not want to know. Through all that, he is one of the wittiest and funniest people I know, and the one person who can make me laugh and get enraged within seconds. Regarding this last part, I am exactly like him. Both parents have a steely determination that has gotten them through horrific tragedies. As they age and succumb a little more to dementia each day, I am saddened to see that ferocity wane and dim, and I brace myself with the knowledge that someday, it will extinguish forever. These two people who overcame so much, worked harder than I could ever work to raise their family of 6 kids in a foreign country, and finally in a stage of their lives where they should be able to relax and enjoy themselves, had to be told their daughter had breast cancer.

It's been almost a year since that pivotal day that changed my family's lives forever. I would give anything to never have had to travel this journey, but it's a lifelong trip. As much as I never wanted to be defined by this disease, it has inexorably marked our lives.