If You Give Me A Diagnosis

I used to joke with Nathan that trying to get pregnant combined some of my favorite things, the greatest of which is making schedules. 

This summer I was thrown a major curveball, making it difficult to make schedules or decisions. Back in late July, I went for an annual exam, and then a precautionary mammogram, and then a biopsy, and then a breast cancer diagnosis at thirty-four years-old. All of a sudden, my love of making schedules was turned on its head, forcing me to a state of surrender which doesn’t come easily for me.

My normal concerns like what to cook for dinner and how to wear out the boys after school turned into questions like whether to get a lumpectomy or a mastectomy and whether I should bother tweezing my eyebrows if I’m just going to lose them in a few months from chemo. My typical love of making plans turned into writing down every order my doctors give me. My normal color-coded planner turned into a giant shoulder shrug, My answer for what’s going to happen has become: “I think, probably, but I don’t really know.” 

This was fresh on my mind this week when we read Laura Numeroff’s classic If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. Numeroff’s serial book tells the tale of a boy that gives a mouse a cookie, which kicks off an unpredictable, chaotic odyssey in which the mouse then wants milk, and then a napkin, and then, and then, and then. The reader gets a silly sequence of events in which this little boy follows a mouse who is just making a series of in-the-moment decisions on life’s terms.

I wish my cancer diagnosis had brought me to a state of enlightenment, where I didn’t worry about things like my eyebrows or losing my boobs. It hasn’t. I'm sure I’ll get through surgery next week, and then following treatment, and then jump right back to fretting over just how organic my broccoli actually is and whether my freshly-grown-back-hair cooperates in the beach humidity. I hope one thing sticks, that when this daunting treatment plan is over I choose to show my kids that, like Mouse, we just make decisions on life’s terms. I’ll enjoy my metaphorical cookie today and be comfortable not knowing what will happen next.

#lauranumeroff

#breastcancer