I’m trying to piece together what happened those first hours after I found out. I’m going through my outbox, and saw this email to
Feb 22, 2008
i think i’m okay, but i kinda dont want to be alone tonight.
i haven’t cried, but feel it coming on.
i have a stupid alumni interview at 6pm. i’ll keep it short. i’ve held it together so far, and will prob keep it up through the interview.
when is the yoga class tonight? the 8pm one? i might like to do that, to distract me and beat the shit out of me.
m
Needless to say, I didn’t make it to yoga. I didn’t make it to the alumni interview. I ended up walking down 21st st calling my brother in tears asking him to find the phone number for the coffee shop I was going to meet this young college applicant for this alumni interview. I remember calling and begging the too-cool-for-school barrista to just look for a yound woman arriving at 6pm like she was there for an interview. I think I said “I have had an emergency.” I hadn’t graduated to “medical emergency” yet, nor from there to “I just found out I have cancer.”
K was the first to call in response to my emails out. She was doing a good job of remaining calm, though the layers of meaning were huge for her.
- I had just learned that her mother died of cancer when she was 7 or 8 (I forget)
- she had just gotten off the phone with the director of the melanoma foundation of New England; she was writing an article on Melanoma for one of the womens’ magazines she freelances for. She quickly quoted to me the stats that Melanoma is actually the most common cancer for ages 25-40. So it was for naught that I had been feeling my balls at my dr’s behest for all these years.
- She has lost people/partners before, and has a real thing about it.
But she remained calm, and told me to leave the studio. Leave the studio. I was at the point where I could not make any decisions. So I listened. I left the studio. And went to S&E’s apartment. I don’t remember what happened there, but I probably cried a lot. I really can’t remember.
