In the beginning…

In the beginning…I found it!
The lump on my wife’s breast that is… We were shocked and a little anxious. We wasted no time booking a medical appointment. We started scanning the Internet for information. We sat down with the surgeon who led us through the patient decision tree. But at that point nothing had been confirmed.

The call came while on summer holidays. It’s cancer! “We can fit you in for surgery next week (because of a cancelation) or we can do it in two months.” Kim decided on now. You can’t really put yourself in someone else’s shoes, at least not while they are still in them. So I didn’t try.
What could I do?

Demonstrate courage and support, but allow yourself to be sad. We certainly cried together at the beginning, but it helped us deal with…well the cards being dealt I guess.
Surgery went well, but there were lymph nodes involved so radiation and chemotherapy were necessary. More Internet searching… more information sessions… more sadness…
So what could I do?

I went to every appointment. I took notes (Kim did as well). We drew up a list of questions. We asked them all. We consulted friends. We talked to nurses. I cooked up some nice meals (more later on what not to do). We did all the normal activities we could. We just worked around the appointments and the treatments and the side effects and the stops at the pharmacy and the fatigue. Those were realities now, and we didn’t deny them, we just didn’t focus on them unduly. There were too many other parts of life to focus on — friends, fresh air, a warm bed, you name it!