The End of Vanity The Beginning of the Battle
May 2, 2008 by dmnewman
The End of Vanity
Somewhere deep down, I’d known for months that I had cancer. So the ENT’s diagnosis came as no surprise. Dr Hutchinson narrated my options, including surgery with the risk of losing my voice (I’m too old to learn sign language, other than what I need for driving), radiation, and/or chemotherapy. As if the cancer diagnosis weren’t enough to absorb, Dr Hutchinson told me he was referring me to an expert in Dallas, another ENT with the experience and connections to get me the best treatment. Dr Lance Oxford.
I felt as if I’d been tumbling into a deep pit and was caught mid-fall by the hands of angels. Two ex-students treating me? It seemed impossible. But there was no doubt. Dr. Lance Oxford, also a Texas High graduate and a victim of my fascist approach to public education.
Not only was I blessed to have this outstanding young doctor looking after me, but I was doubly blessed because my husband was still working in Dallas. This provided a base to travel to Baylor Medical Center on a daily basis.
My family wouldn’t honor my desire to let the cancer run its course. My thinking was I’d had a good life, and because I come from a family tree w cancer in every branch, there’s no point in wasting time and money fighting the inevitable. That was my thinking, but not theirs. So to silence them I promised I’d fight supra glottal cancer once, and that was it.
I had no concept of what I was promising.
The first step to treating head and neck cancer for my ENT, radiologist, and oncologist was to have all my teeth pulled. I used to beg dentists to pull my teeth so I could buy a mouthful of beautiful dentures and a gorgeous smile. After years of refusals, I bit the bullet with my hillbilly teeth (they weren’t really that bad, but certainly not attractive) and laid out a bundle of cash to have them straightened and capped. I’d ride to the nursing home with these teeth. Straight, uniform in color, sparkling. I was proud to smile at anyone and anything.
Now I could hear them clinking into the trash can one by one as the oral surgeon extracted them. So much for vanity. I was now a toothless geezer with a T3 to T4 cancer in my throat and lymph glands and empty gums in my mouth.
Damn Straight I made her promise to try to fight it at least once! My opinion is that no one lays down and dies at the first sign of a fight. I simply could not spend the rest of my life knowing that someone that I loved and have always admired for being so strong and determined to succeed in everything they tried had given up without a fight! If, after trying to beat this thing, I was given bad news, at least I could be at peace knowing that the good fight had been fought.
I still have no real concept of what she’s been through–only a survivor of this
can understand–but I know that anyone connected to someone going through this worries, curses, hopes, cries, prays, and waits. It’s all we can do. That and staying connected. You can’t let the idea that you can’t stand the pain of possibly loosing them keep you from staying connected to them. After all, if you’re not there for those you love when they need you, you don’t really love them in the first place.
Sometimes this means that you have to convince them that they can be such a nasty bitch that no cancer could take them on and hope to win–even if you know you might be lying.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no cancer. For I am the meanest bitch in the valley.
She is my mentor, my role model, my big sister, and my best friend. How could I let that go without convincing her to fight?