Family...the ones you live with, laugh with, and love

Family...the ones you live with, laugh with, and love
Summer 2009

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The day my life changed

It has only been 1 day since my biopsy. The results are supposed to take 48 hours. However since my sister works at the hospital, she was able to intercept my results a little faster. And so I received the dreaded phone call. I was taking Maddie to dance at the time. I should not have been driving my car while receiving such news. I only remember hearing..."Dani it is cancer!" What!! No way can this be. I am too young, too healthy to have this happen. I was crying so hard. I don't even know how I got us to dance without crashing. My head was spinning. I was in shock! Then I heard this sweet little voice in the back of the car say "Mommy you have cancer?" No...oh my gosh, my sweet little daughter was in the car. She was wondering why mommy was hysterical, wondering what is cancer?. Oh how can this happen to her, to any of my kids. I just remember saying, "No sweetie it is o.k." and then dropping her off at dance class.
I just sat in my car for a while in shock and then I called my husband Steve. How could I tell him? I don't even know how I dialed the number. I just remember saying, "Steve it's cancer". He was in shock as well. We had by then decided it was nothing, that it was just a fatty tissue deposit. That things would be all right But now our lives would be so different, so much harder!

I had to drive back to the school to get my other 2 kids. By then it hit me again and I was hysterical. Now they thought mommy had gone crazy. I just remember leaving my classroom in a mess, thinking I just don't care. We drove back to dance class, again I don't know how I got us there without crashing. We just sat and waited for Maddie to finish. I think it was good to sit for a while. I had a minute to start processing what was happening. How my life was going to be different. And then to wonder how I was ever going to do this? But also wondering how bad it really was? What the course of treatment was going to be? Still the question most on my mind is how am I ever going to do this?

By the time we got home it was evident that Steve was upset, he had been crying as well. The boys kept asking us what was going on. Mommy is crying, daddy is crying, they were probably very scared and confused. We promised them that we would tell them everything, but to give us a few minutes. Steve and I took a few minutes to ourselves and we just sat and cried!

After having sometime to process everything, we decided to tell the kids. We sat them down and told them we had some bad news. My little Ethan so kind hearted said, "We already know." Steve and I looked at each other wondering how they had figured it out. Had they overheard us talking? We asked, "What do you know?" And his response was shocking, one I never thought he would think, "You are getting divorced"..."What? oh NO!" Steve and I shouldn't have but we laughed and said, "No...it isn't that bad, mommy has cancer!" I remember laughing. That is probably a first, telling your kids you have cancer and laughing about it. But it hit me that compared to losing my family, cancer isn't that bad. I am so lucky to have a wonderful husband and wonderful kids to support me through this long road.

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