Cancerversary!
Hey All,
It's my cancerversary today! Can you believe my surgery was this day last year? I can't. It feels like just the other day and two lifetimes ago all at once. This time last year many of you were pacing the waiting room at MSKCC, and many of you were elsewhere praying for me. Last night I was remembering the night before my surgery--having my friends and mom over to draw on my leg in permanent marker with messages to the doctors like "Not this leg!" (for my right leg) and "We love Dr. Healey" on my left. And the nice conference/encouragement call with the McManus clan (and Botts!).
One of the first memories I had this morning was waking up after the ten hours I was under for surgery to those confounded tubes in my throat and seeing my mom and Brian--wanting to talk to them, but being told I couldn't get the tubes out until I could stay awake for more 20 minutes straight, and it was SUCH a hard task! I remember my mom staying with me in the hospital that first night (thank god), and Brian running from Brooklyn during the transit strike to come visit me, and Perry bringing me those little pink gloves when my hands were so cold, and Megan having to calm down the nurse when I was about to pass out trying to do PT. The notebook Matt made me, the card Tim gave me, and all the beautiful flowers and cards and balloons and love you all sent me. I still have all the cards that I recieved, and the notes from the flowers, and I should get them out and type them out--but they're all the way downtstairs!
To celebrate today, I went to lunch with Andrea, who I posted about in August or October. She is more than 50 days out of her successful bone marrow transplant and doing well. It turns out she had surgery for her Osteosarcoma in 1999, also on December 15th. We share the same cancerversary! She has an amazingly strong spirit and presence and it was so good to finally meet her.
Also, Brian is having a little gathering of friends over tonight (well, hopefully, he sent out the email last night, so it might just be the two of us!).
I just want to let you--my friends, family, those in the cancer community I've met online--know how thankful I am for your support and love this past year. Thank you, thank you.
posted by Bone-a-fide @ 1:47 PM
2 Comments:
Whoa, Sara, December 15th is my cancerversary too!!! Wow, I would have let the day go by if I hadn't read your post. And it didn't dawn on me until I read about your friend having the same one, December 15. How cool. We made it! I don't remember much from that first day, honestly. I remember the last thing I said before going under was "I don't want to die!" I guess you could say I got a little panicked without any happy drugs in my system. It turns out that was a good moment, because there were a few years in my life when I did want to die. I don't think I'll ever have that problem again.
I also remember waking up a little too early. I was still in the holding room right outside of the OR, and I felt immediately ill, and I picked my head up to gag, but I was like glued to the table or something. The nice man gave me more drugs to knock me out, and I was gone for hours. It took me days to figure out why the back of my head hurt so much. I had pulled out a huge chunk of my hair when I tried to lift my head off that table. Really, do they use glue? LOL
Congrats! What a great day to celebrate life and love. :-) I heard on a history special recently that one of the signs of an actual social culture in historic times is when they find a skeleton of someone who had a completely broken femur that had healed. The idea is that in order for that person's leg to heal, there had to have been a community of people feeding that person and helping their family. What truth! How would we have done it without them?
I can't tell you how often in December thoughts of that time a year ago came flooding into my memory. It seems like yesterday AND like a million years ago at the same time. You coming out of surgery well is the number one thing I am thankful for all the time.
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