LJ Idol Week 9: Sucker Punch

[flipflop_diva]

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The eternal question that children are asked, but I have always known.

A mom.

A wife.

A good friend.

A teacher.

•••

I get my dream job right out of college. Third-grade teacher at the little school I once attended years ago.

I meet the boy who becomes my husband the first year of working at the school. He teaches the fifth graders.

We take our family and closest friends to Hawaii, two years after we meet. We marry on one of the sandy white beaches. We eat cake, dance and toast each other. We say our vows with love in our eyes and with smiles that foretell a perfect future.

Two years later, a daughter is born. Two years after that, her sister follows.

I look at my girls every morning, stare down into their sleeping faces. I kiss their father when I walk into the kitchen, and he hands me a cup of coffee. I pick up my phone and answer texts from my friends. Yes, I can meet you for lunch, I type.

My husband and I drop off the girls at daycare, run by my best friend. We head to work and to the smiling faces of our students.

Sometimes I feel like I am living in a dream — the dream I dreamed from long ago.

I go to the doctor on a Friday, just an annual visit for the standard examinations. I had a little cough a few weeks back, I tell the doctor. Sometimes I’m a bit more tired than usual, I tell the doctor. Nothing really out of the ordinary, I tell the doctor.

The blood test results come back on Monday.

“You should come in,” my doctor says over the phone.

“We found something,” my doctor says when I’m sitting before her, and the first punch lands.

It steals my breath, knocks me to the ground.

Cancer.

I have cancer.

•••

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

A mom who sees her kids grow up.

A wife who is always there.

A good friend who doesn’t leave.

A teacher who looks back on years and years of students, long after they’re grown.

•••

Chemo is rough. My hair falls out. I puke more times than I can count. Making dinner for my family is almost more than I can handle.

I push through. Never faltering, never giving in to defeat.

Six months after the doctor tells me the most awful news, a different doctor smiles at me and tells me the best news.

Remission.

We celebrate that night. Pizza and cake. Friends and family. We laugh and cry. I hold my girls extra tight before I put them to bed. I kiss my husband with extra intensity as we lie entangled in our bed.

Life returns to normal. I am everything I want to be.

A mom. A wife. A good friend. A teacher.

I go in for check-ups every six months, wait each time with bated breath until the doctor smiles and relief floods my body.

•••

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Keep being a mom.

Keep being a wife.

Keep being a good friend.

Keep being a teacher.

•••

I watch my children grow up. My littlest turns four, the oldest turns six. We talk about maybe having a third, sharing all the love we have with another mini human.

I go in for my check-up. My husband comes too.

We chat while we wait for the doctor, discussing vacation plans for the summer. Maybe Disney, he says. Or Europe, I say. Without the kids, I add with a smirk.

The doctor comes in. He doesn’t smile.

The second punch lands.

The cancer is back. Worse than before.

I hear him speak through a fog. My mind is spinning.

We beat it once, I hear my husband say, we’ll beat it again.

•••

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Does it matter? I just want to live.

•••

Chemo is stronger this time. Longer this time. Harder this time.

I can barely get out of bed. I lose too much weight. My hair is gone again.

The doctor smiles at us when we go in to get the results, but I see it in his eyes.

I try to duck, but the third punch lands.

Chemo didn’t work. The cancer is still there.

“There’s a trial program I think might be a good fit for you,” the doctor says. “But it’s in Houston.”

I apply for the program, and when the acceptance comes in, we pack up our stuff, take the kids out of school and board a plane.

I’m in the hospital for eight weeks. Drugs and tests and IVs every day.

There are signs of progress. My labs are good. The doctors are optimistic.

I’m optimistic too.

•••

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

A grandmother.

An old wife sitting in a rocking chair on the porch with her husband.

A good friend.

A teacher who retired after fifty years.

•••

We fly back home after the eight weeks are up. I no longer have to be in the hospital every day. But we do have to come back for one week a month until the cancer is gone for good. It’s a small price to pay, but it is a price.

We take out a second mortgage. We sell some stuff we no longer need. We think about selling the house and moving to a smaller one.

I’m still tired, still nauseas, still weak. Friends bring over casseroles and soups. My girls spend their days lying next to me in bed. I tell them stories — of when they were born and of when they were little.

I tell them of the future — of the vacations we will take and the things we will all do together.

I dream of the day when this cancer is gone. And every time we board that plane, I remind myself it will be.

The labs keep coming back good. The test results keep showing improvement.

Until they don’t.

And the next punch lands without warning.

“This isn’t working,” the head of the trial program says. “There is nothing else we can do.”

•••

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

A person who has a future.

I want to live.

I just want to live.

•••

I try not to believe it. I tell my girls that mommy is going to get better.

I spend nights on my laptop trying to find more programs.

I feel better than I have in a while. More energy, less nausea.

For a while anyway.

But it doesn’t last.

It was never going to last.

•••

I go into the hospital on a Tuesday night. I know it will be the last time.

I look at my children’s tear-stained faces as they stand around my bed. I look at my husband trying to be stoic. I look at the doctors, all with that somber expression on their face.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

I want to live.

The last punch is coming. The words I want to say are just on the tip of my tongue.

I close my eyes to gather my thoughts.

The last punch lands.

It’s a knockout.


fiction.
Although, unfortunately, it is based on a true story of a girl I once was really good friends with back in childhood.




Thank you for reading! This was written for Week 9 of the therealljidol. If you would like to vote, or read the other entries, the poll should be up tonight!

Comments

[bsgsix]

This was, essentially, the entry I was going to write this week. It was - expected.

And then Thursday, my psychologist got shitty with me and made me feel like a saint at the same time (it was an odd day), and I was too angry to talk about cancer. My cancer already made me angry, so I took my anger in a different and unexpected direction, making it less about... being resigned to my fate, and more about how much I suck as a human.

When I started to read this, I thought, "Huh. I feel like I've told this story. I've written things like this!"

And I have. Different words, different times, and all true, and painful. So painful to write. So painful to read.

Right now, I have to take a break from work. Recently - tis the season - someone asked me at a holiday party what I did for a living.

"Keep living," I said. "My cancer has returned and spread. There is no cure and I have a 50% survival rate over the next 5 years. My job is now to breathe."

I want to live.

It's a knockout indeed. But it will be worse for my husband and son. They're already watching me grow pale. They see me sleep 12-16 hours a day. I don't pity myself. I feel terribly for what I've done to THEM.

And this entry reminds me of that. I don't mean that in a horrible way - it means you did what you set out to do. You punched me. You gutted me. And that's a compliment, because in my life, it takes a lot to do that. I'm empathetic and I feel for others, but to be gutted? That takes skill.

This absolutely kills me, but it's very well-told. I'm sorry it's based on someone you once knew as well. That makes it even more powerful. <3

[bellatrix_lestrange]

This was very powerfully written. I'm really sorry that it's based on truth though D:

[kehlen.livejournal.com]

Your story made me cry.

It is a wonderful tribute to your friend, which shows how close you were. *hugs*

[bleodswean]

So so so sad. Too many, far too many, of us have lived through this exact experience. You handled the bridge here superbly and it makes the piece flow beautifully, painfully, truthfully.

[tatdatcm]

So emotionally powerful. I think it's somewhat universal to those who have terminal disease and that's part of what makes it so powerful. I definitely teared up, thinking about the people I know and knew who have/had cancer.

[murielle]

Brilliant! Brilliant, writing!

I was lost from the first,"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

I ached as I read. I longed as she longed for a happy ending.

Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!

[static_abyss]

You handled this tough topic well, and I felt each step with you because of the way you wrote it and your descriptions.

[brkfastatholly.livejournal.com]

Heartbreaking but beautifully written! <3