Unspoken shadow

Cancer.

It's amazing the myriad of emotions one little word creates. Fear. Anguish. Horror. Sorrow. Devastation. Anger.

It even sounds ugly.

I think everyone has been touched by cancer, in some way. Family, friends, co-workers, themselves.

One of my good friends found at last week that she had a softball-sized mass on her liver. Cancer whispered in the background as she was telling me.

But you don't speak it. Not yet.

They found the mass on Thursday. By Friday morning, she had a biopsy scheduled.

When doctors hurry, you know it's not good. Cancer hovers like a shadow.

But you still don't speak it.

Blood work and biopsies and waiting.

Upbeat telephone conversation on Saturday. You focus on the positive, you talk about your faith, you try to look on the bright side. Meanwhile, cancer is laughing in the background.

But you can't say it. Saying the word makes it true.

Waiting. No news on Monday. Maybe it's not that bad. Maybe we dodged a bullet. Maybe it's just a mass. Maybe cancer lost this one.

Tuesday... still waiting. Preliminary blood work came back that the pancreas and kidneys are clear. No biopsy results, but maybe it's a good sign. No news is good news, right?

Wednesday morning. Suddenly the word is spoken. And cancer becomes a horrifying reality.

I'm reeling, to say the least. My friend is only in her early 40's. This can't be real. And if I'm reeling, I can't imagine what she's going through. Cancer has been the unspoken word haunting me since she told me about the tumor.... but I'm just the friend. I'm not the one who's got it raging through her insides. A Malignant tumor that's on her liver and spread to her gallbladder.

I didn't know what else to do, so I went to Google. I don't know alot about liver cancer, but I figured I'd better look into the worst case scenario. I'm the type of person that wants to know the worst. I can handle pretty much anything, as long as I know what to expect. Hence the disaster that my life and sanity has been this past year with Emily. Grief is anything but predictable. I turned to Google, hoping to find a measure of hope. Hoping that it's one of those types that is easily curable.

I wish I hadn't. I wish I didn't know.

Liver cancer is fast-growing, and often not detected because it's relatively symptom-less. Until the tumor gets so large that it begins to cause gastrological discomfort. And by then... well let's just say that the prognosis isn't good.

I sat staring at my computer screen trying to process the words I was seeing.

life expectancy often less than a year after diagnosis.

I couldn't put that sentence and my friend's face together. I just can't.

We talked on Saturday. My friend is one of those people that is always upbeat. She's the perfect Pollyanna. Truthfully, sometimes so much that a little of her goes a long way. But she has a heart of gold, and she put up with alot of my crap over the last year. And even though she can sometimes be... a little much at times... she's one of the truest friends I have. So all through the conversation, I'm trying not to let the worry creep into my voice, and she's the same laughing, carefree.. well, Pollyanna... that she always is. I told her that we didn't have a thing to worry about. I'd already had a loooong conversation with God that I had a whole list of people He couldn't do anything to for the next 10 years, because I simply couldn't deal with it. I laughingly told her that it was in fact all about me, and that she was going to be fine... that she had to be because I simply couldn't handle it.

We both laughed.... even though cancer hung in the air, unspoken, between us.

She'd be the first person to tell me that Google was the last place I should be turning to for a measure of hope. I know where my hope lies, and I know Who it lies with. And unfortunately, He doesn't always give the answers so that I can hear them. My knees hit the floor Thursday and I haven't gotten up yet. But it doesn't always end the way we want it to. The Relay for Life over this past weekend is evidence enough of that.

cancer

It. Is. Not. Fair.