So I’ve been a little less than myself in addressing things related to myself, my health, my choices. Perhaps many women who are pregnant for the first (or every) tine kind of feel the same way- avoiding the conversation without actually avoiding the conversation.
Because it’s a much more drawn out situation, involving personal choices and proactive ones, I think it often bears much explaination to those who want to know. And for as much of a planner I am in very sense of the word- I am wholly and completely unprepared for that which will be happening to me 10 days from now.
Straightforward and practical are what I would use to describe my indelicate choices in being an honest and open person, but making the choice (and as much as I see it not really as a choice, that is what it is), definitely carries with it the necessary explaination and detailed, FACTUAL understanding of what it means.
Just about 13 months ago, on w whim, I clicked on a ‘sale’ in a website called color.com and ordered their dna health analysis for $99- half of its normal price. I used my FSA card, charged it, and didn’t look back. But I think what I didn’t grasp as I was quickly spitting into a vial, sealing it up, and mailing it in, was that the reality of what the test would provide wasn’t one I was entirely prepared for.
I know or thought I knew Cancer. Cancer was the black sheep of the maternal side of my family. While an always present entity, woven into my mother’s, my aunts(more than one), my grandmother and my uncles’ lives, I always presumed that I would have a relationship with Cancer- whether indirectly or directly- I knew Cancer wasn’t exactly letting go of this relationship with the Kozak family lightly.
At 3-or 4- I barely remember, Cancer consumed my grandmother, Baba, along with perhaps the happiest parts of my mother’s 30s, and the earliest memories of my toddlerhood. As Cancer surely squeezed the last breath from Baba, with Cancer’s conquest went my mother’s stability, and my parents’ marriage, leaving my mother alone, confused and struggling to manage two babies.
While it may have been traumatic, my memory of Cancer’s relationship with us faded as Baba’s memory did. So by the time Cancer re-entered our lives, some 9-10 years later, we were all in denial. My recollection is limited to that of a wholly self-absorbed 12/13 year old, entering the height of adolescent self-malaise, and struggling to accept an identity that was unfamiliar at best My mother didn’t say much about the whys so I thought little of being sent to my godmother’s- to Aunt Ginny and Uncle Dennis for a number of weeks, up in a suburb of Chicago- where I was still a fat and awkward tween- but at least there I had Aunt Ginny to indulge a newfound interest in fashion- or at least clothing. It was 1987- so Guess and crimping and leg warmers were the height of the then- acceptable identity.
So finding myself in a flurry of insolent instability, my mother was being given the diagnosis that she would be lucky to live to see another year- diagnosed with a cancerous breast tumor that had likely metastaticized to her lymph nodes. But Cancer’s dance this time would be different- my mom wasn’t going down without a fight. So Cancer endured an aggressive radical mastectomy and lymph node removal- followed by rounds and rounds of chemo- and while my mother had to deal with a new body, new hair and new hormonal situation, Cancer once again had left the party- for now.
So by 13, I knew Cancer was a ‘regular’ in our family; a landmine of the landmines, hidden somewhere so we’d never be exactly sure where to look for I. But I hadn’t thought about Cancer showing up in my friends lives too- and when they were young and otherwise healthy.
Almost 20 years later, in early 2009 I distinctly remember visiting DC to go to a friend’s bachelorette weekend, and meeting up with a good friend, and learning how her never ending period was more than just an annoyance, but a foreshadowing of the end of her time with her uterus, ovaries and whatever other mayhem Cancer had ravaged throughout her system. By 33, she was cancer free, but still given an unknown status as to Cancer’s ultimate reckoning in her life. Jennie’s openness and honesty was an enlightening to all of us that Cancer was stronger and more daunting than we might be able to overcome. It was a reality check that we were not young, fanciful and carefree and Cancer didn’t really care what it would do to anyonre’s life. But she also educated us on all the progressive diagnostics and research & development that was out there about her Cancer, and the forensics used to nail down Cancer’s identity and origin. CSI: Cancer edition. Now doctors, geneticists and patients had ways to find Cancer even earlier, and to take preventive measures to knock out Cancer’s foray into certain families and cells. They had some DNA that had Cancer’s prints all over it.- and for those who had the DNA, diagnosis and predictability was greater than ever.
Because it’s a much more drawn out situation, involving personal choices and proactive ones, I think it often bears much explaination to those who want to know. And for as much of a planner I am in very sense of the word- I am wholly and completely unprepared for that which will be happening to me 10 days from now.
Straightforward and practical are what I would use to describe my indelicate choices in being an honest and open person, but making the choice (and as much as I see it not really as a choice, that is what it is), definitely carries with it the necessary explaination and detailed, FACTUAL understanding of what it means.
Just about 13 months ago, on w whim, I clicked on a ‘sale’ in a website called color.com and ordered their dna health analysis for $99- half of its normal price. I used my FSA card, charged it, and didn’t look back. But I think what I didn’t grasp as I was quickly spitting into a vial, sealing it up, and mailing it in, was that the reality of what the test would provide wasn’t one I was entirely prepared for.
I know or thought I knew Cancer. Cancer was the black sheep of the maternal side of my family. While an always present entity, woven into my mother’s, my aunts(more than one), my grandmother and my uncles’ lives, I always presumed that I would have a relationship with Cancer- whether indirectly or directly- I knew Cancer wasn’t exactly letting go of this relationship with the Kozak family lightly.
At 3-or 4- I barely remember, Cancer consumed my grandmother, Baba, along with perhaps the happiest parts of my mother’s 30s, and the earliest memories of my toddlerhood. As Cancer surely squeezed the last breath from Baba, with Cancer’s conquest went my mother’s stability, and my parents’ marriage, leaving my mother alone, confused and struggling to manage two babies.
While it may have been traumatic, my memory of Cancer’s relationship with us faded as Baba’s memory did. So by the time Cancer re-entered our lives, some 9-10 years later, we were all in denial. My recollection is limited to that of a wholly self-absorbed 12/13 year old, entering the height of adolescent self-malaise, and struggling to accept an identity that was unfamiliar at best My mother didn’t say much about the whys so I thought little of being sent to my godmother’s- to Aunt Ginny and Uncle Dennis for a number of weeks, up in a suburb of Chicago- where I was still a fat and awkward tween- but at least there I had Aunt Ginny to indulge a newfound interest in fashion- or at least clothing. It was 1987- so Guess and crimping and leg warmers were the height of the then- acceptable identity.
So finding myself in a flurry of insolent instability, my mother was being given the diagnosis that she would be lucky to live to see another year- diagnosed with a cancerous breast tumor that had likely metastaticized to her lymph nodes. But Cancer’s dance this time would be different- my mom wasn’t going down without a fight. So Cancer endured an aggressive radical mastectomy and lymph node removal- followed by rounds and rounds of chemo- and while my mother had to deal with a new body, new hair and new hormonal situation, Cancer once again had left the party- for now.
So by 13, I knew Cancer was a ‘regular’ in our family; a landmine of the landmines, hidden somewhere so we’d never be exactly sure where to look for I. But I hadn’t thought about Cancer showing up in my friends lives too- and when they were young and otherwise healthy.
Almost 20 years later, in early 2009 I distinctly remember visiting DC to go to a friend’s bachelorette weekend, and meeting up with a good friend, and learning how her never ending period was more than just an annoyance, but a foreshadowing of the end of her time with her uterus, ovaries and whatever other mayhem Cancer had ravaged throughout her system. By 33, she was cancer free, but still given an unknown status as to Cancer’s ultimate reckoning in her life. Jennie’s openness and honesty was an enlightening to all of us that Cancer was stronger and more daunting than we might be able to overcome. It was a reality check that we were not young, fanciful and carefree and Cancer didn’t really care what it would do to anyonre’s life. But she also educated us on all the progressive diagnostics and research & development that was out there about her Cancer, and the forensics used to nail down Cancer’s identity and origin. CSI: Cancer edition. Now doctors, geneticists and patients had ways to find Cancer even earlier, and to take preventive measures to knock out Cancer’s foray into certain families and cells. They had some DNA that had Cancer’s prints all over it.- and for those who had the DNA, diagnosis and predictability was greater than ever.
