Happy Cancerversary
MollyHasCancer officially turns 1 today! That means we’re exactly one year out from my diagnosis. 1 year since I heard those words nobody wants to hear. 1 year since my whole world changed. 1 year living with the fear of death. 1 year full of personal growth and proving my strength. 1 year of sorting out my priorities and discovering it’s okay to put myself first. I’m not the same person I was a year ago. I’m better, healthier, happier, more grateful, more humble, more vulnerable, and a lot more empowered. I value my life and my relationships more now. I know I’m capable of doing hard things. I know my worth and I’m not willing to settle for anything less or let anyone tell me otherwise. I can’t believe it’s been a whole year. In some ways it feels like forever and in some ways it’s flown by. I guess I’m grateful the chemo brain has caused me to forget most of the horrible moments. Luckily, I wrote them all down here so I can always look back and reflect on how far I’ve come and all the shit I went through. 1 year ago I was prepared to hear the C word. I was really convinced I had cancer (even though everyone around me tried to tell me they were sure it wasn’t cancer). I remember when I got the call 2 days after retuning home from spending a week at the hospital getting tests and scans and biopsies. She didn’t even say something as definitive as, “You have cancer”. I kind of wish she had, because I was left with a sense of uncertainty as to the severity of my situation. She said, “the results show that you have high grade lymphoma”, to which I asked, “isn’t that cancer?”, and she said, “yes”. I remember googling it while on the phone with her to have her verify again just so there was no question. “Is that the same as Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma?”, I asked, and again she confirmed, “yes”. I was at home with the kids, Eric was still going into the office every day, and I remember I sat at my desk frozen not able to speak or think straight. I felt an immediate sense of panic like I needed to do something about it right that second. Then I was told I would be meeting with my oncologist on the 14th so there was nothing for me to do till then… except freak out and cry and google everything. I think back to those first few days after my diagnosis before I met with my team and how different I thought my treatment plan would be from what I was actually faced with. It was so much more intense than I had anticipated - partly due to the severity of my particular mutated cancer and partly due to COVID concerns. I never thought I would have had to spend 6 weeks in the hospital all alone, 9 rounds of chemo some while bringing the poison home with me, 17 rounds of radiation, and endless needle pricks and procedures. It was really a one day at a time situation - one round at a time, one appointment at a time. I wanted to be able to see the end of the road, but with all the setbacks and side-effects it really made it difficult to determine when I would be finally done with all of it. And now here we are - 1 year later - with 8 months of hair regrown, 6 months since ending chemo, and 2 months since ending radiation. I’m alive and thankful and traumatized.
Okay enough of that.
So, things have been busy since I finished radiation! Most importantly, we moved. This house is a dream come true and I feel like I’m finally able to take a deep breath for the first time in a year. We had all been crammed into our home in Westminster for far too long with all of us on top of each other through quarantine and home school and remote work and poison treatments and now finally we have space. We are about a mile from the beach now and I can’t explain how good it feels to open the windows and let the ocean air in and sit back and relax. It’s such a calming and peaceful home and I’m beyond grateful to Cabot and Gretchen and everyone else who helped us get here. I received so many donated pieces of furniture from our dining room table from Aunt Robin, to the beautiful vintage hutch from Mike and Darlene, and the patio furniture and gorgeous rugs from Gretchen - it’s really all coming together. We have an amazing backyard with a fig tree, avocado tree, dragonfruit, and a fire pit where we’ve been enjoying roasting marshmallows several times a week. For the first time in my kids lives, they’re able to have their own bedrooms (plus a play room) and we’re within walking distance to the elementary and middle schools. That really is the dream. I only lived within walking distance to school once in my life for maybe 2 years and it was my favorite home (First Neighborhood in Westlake Village in case you were curious). I was so sad to leave our beloved Ocean View School District and make the kids switch schools, but we really felt this was a good time since they hadn’t even been on campus in 16 months. Maggie had been at the same school since Kindergarten and we had gotten to know so many amazing teachers and parents, but I know this was the right decision. They’re finally be able to make friends in the neighborhood since there are so many families with little kids here. Plus everyone has dogs and all the neighbors have been so nice. We can’t wait to see how the community celebrates for 4th of July, and summer block parties, and trick-or-treating and Christmas - it’s just the perfect family neighborhood.
Our first time having people over was for Father’s Day - which also happened to be the day after Eric’s birthday. We certainly had a lot to celebrate. It was so fun to be able to host everyone with plenty of room for everyone. I look forward to a lot more get togethers here in our new home. We also got to see my nephew Owen when he came down from San Francisco for a basketball tournament. I was a little anxious to be in such a public place now that the mask mandate has been lifted, but it was really fun - oh and his team went on to win the whole tournament too!
Some news on the hair front - the mullet was getting out of control so it had to be cut. I resisted as long as I could, knowing that I want it to grow long again, but it was all stringy and weird in the back and short and curly on top. I also got the gray covered up so I’m hoping I look less like a midwestern mom (sorry to all you midwestern moms out there). I’m embracing the curls as much as I can, but will be needing lots of headbands until I figure out how to tame it. Even the hairdresser said, “you know they make cute headbands now, maybe that would help.” Nice way of saying she did as good as she could given the situation. It does look better and I’m just going with it - anything is better than nothing when hair is concerned. I still have the recurring nightmare of my hair falling out all over again - I think that’s part of the post-cancer trauma I’ll be living with for the rest of my life.
The kids finished up virtual academy too! They got to finally meet their teachers on the last day of school - how weird is that? Man, was that a long and often painful year for quarantined families. Who knew it was going to be such a challenge for parents of young kids trying to work from home and manage more online lessons that seemed necessary? Oh, that’s right - everyone! I’m glad we made it through and can finally resign our homeschooling duties. I’m looking forward to an awesome summer in our new home, hanging out with friends, taking vacations, spending a lot of time with family I’ve missed, and getting back out in the world in the most important way - CONCERTS. Oh that’s right - we have several on the books already. Oh and we’re going to Yosemite in August for a do-over from last year’s cancelled trip. All is well in the Patten house. No we just need to keep moving forward, past cancer, focusing on the good.
