The Big C

For a few months now I've hidden a secret from all that I love outside my immediate circle of family and close friends.  This secret kept me from visiting and talking to loved ones.  This secret had a way of eating me up inside because I knew that there was a level of me that had to lie in order to keep the appearance of normalcy.  The main reason I kept this secret that could possibly change how people saw me was because my mother wanted me to.  Some people would say why listen to her, this is your life and people would want to know, people want to help.  I understood all that and as true as that might be people are also judgmental and even though their mouths may say one thing, their demeanors, facial expressions and body language would clearly say another.  I guess you're wondering what I'm referring to.  Well my big secret is 

I was diagnosed with Cancer

Whew! What a relief I said it and no tears.  For weeks I had a harder time explaining my diagnosis than actually living with it.  I'll never forget the day that I found out.  It will forever be ingrained in my being.  It has a place in my life and will forever be a part of it, even when I am cancer-free (which I plan to be).  It will be another obstacle that I've overcome, it will be a season in my life when God proved Himself and His Word, it will be the season of my life when God made a miracle out of me.  

I'll never forget when I got the diagnosis.  It was Friday, December 17th I was doing my hair while preparing to go out.  My BFF and I had made plans to hang with a cousin of mine and make it rain at the strip club.  (I said that like a pro, but I never made it that night or any other night.)  As I felt over the lumps and rolls on my head between straightening sections of my hair I thought to myself "Thank God I'm not bald headed, I don't know what I would do if I suddenly lost my hair."  Whether or not she called me back or I called her back is a blur but the phone call I had with Dr.Crawford is not.  She refused to tell me what was wrong but I urged her to tell me over the phone, I couldn't wait to hear this news.  "Well are you driving Ms. Lopez?"  "No" I said.  " Are you sitting?"  "Yes" I said.  "Well we biopsied the tissue from your procedure the other day (I'll tell you about that another day) and it came back as cancer."  "Cancer, what kind?"  "Uterine Cancer."  "Ok so what do we do now?"  Then she told me that they made me an appointment to see a specialist at the cancer center at the hospital.  I wrote all the information she gave me down and thanked her before getting off of the phone. 

I didn't cry, I couldn't.  It was strange, I've read so many times how people felt instantly hopeless, how their world caved in on them, how they didn't know what to do next, but I didn't feel any of that.  I didn't feel any different of a person than I had the day before.  There was a sense of relief, I had often felt pain or had unusual bloating and now I knew why.  Family had said things and done things that weren't kind and now there were answers.  As I sat there thinking about it I realized there were signs, a lot of which I didn't necessarily ignore but doctors had occasionally.  Abnormal blood work and urine analysis and they insisted that it was everything but the obvious.  I remembered throwing up everyday on my way to work or when I told friends that I could feel pains in my uterus.  I remember when I told doctors that I had unusual weight gain in a short amount of time and that one part of my abdomen seemed larger.  I remembered abnormal pap smears that the doctor insisted was nothing to worry about.  I began to wonder why they hadn't caught it sooner, why no one noticed, why it took me nearly dying before a correct diagnosis could be made.  

The first person I told was my father, he thought I was teasing at first until I began to cry.  When my brother who was in the next room heard he ran over and began comforting me.  I know this sounds weird but it wasn't the diagnosis that filled me with such emotion but rather the having to tell my father, the associating it with myself.  After all any diagnosis of cancer comes with a stigma, people automatically think the worse even if they never say it; you hear it in their voice, see it on their face and in their body language.  

My odd calm behavior has some perplexed about the severity of my condition but how would crying and being depressed help me.  At times I'm angry but not with God, and thats what angers me the most I have no one to blame.  Even with that I won't let myself stay angry it won't help but I will change my life.  I want to be an example of endurance and strength.  I want to prove that we should not fear cancer because thats how we give it strength but we don't have to embrace it either.

CANCER is not my death sentence,

it is not my life sentence either

it is merely a season in a life full of seasons 

and I will walk through it!!!