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Abstract

fb1d">Watching my parents decline was horrible. Even worse for my sister who cared for them in her home. The chemo. The endless array of meds and more meds. The emotional toll of fighting a hopeless battle, yet “hoping,” nonetheless.</p><p id="0204">They hung on for nine months. I remember that when I was diagnosed, after their initial shock, my father took my face in his hands and said, “You’re going to be just fine.” He said it with determination, with commitment. <i>As if he knew.</i></p><p id="8620">Even though we had our rough patches, I am missing them terribly right now. I wish I could pick up the phone and hear my dad tell me once again, that I’m going to be “just fine.”</p><p id="702f">Life can be a nasty bitch, can it not? You go along, day after day, worrying about the mundane, sleepwalking much of the time, “wishing it were Friday” or the weekend, or some other crap that makes a mockery out of “living in the moment.” Or, “being present.” How can we be so wasteful?</p><p id="0c72">Until of course, there comes that moment that trumps all others. The one where everything changes and you know…<i>you just get</i>…that you’ll never be the same. That from here on in, you’re going to look at your life with new eyes. You’re going to truly see it. Maybe for the first time.</p><p id="fa6e">Sometimes that’s not so terrible.</p><p id="8b0e">So you take a deep breath, and you get through it. Hopefully, not by yourself. I had my husband and family by my side. Along with some good people at my former place of employ.</p><p id="9492">I’m writing this to help myself and others who may be feeling like I am. Living with fear is no way to live. It’s a kind of death in an of itself. We have to fight it. Shove it down when it bubbles up and threatens to strangle us. Hug our partners. Snuggle with our pets. Write stories like these.</p><p id="9328">Everything will be “just fine,” as my dad said. I won’t let fear win. I can’t.</p><p id="1d2c">I want to live.</p><p id="edeb"><i>Sherry McGuinn is a longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s manager is currently pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.</i></p><p id="4480">I hope you enjoyed this. If so, you may also like the following:</p><div id="0fac" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/death-1620ca6fc130"> <div> <div> <h2>The Mortal Coil</h2> <

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My Five-Year Marker is Coming Up

Even so, the fear of breast cancer coming back never goes away.

I am blessed. I know this. As one of the “lucky ones,” my breast cancer was caught early on. Almost five years ago.

When I say “early,” I mean it. I saw the damned lump in my right breast. I felt like John Hurt in Alien, just waiting for it to bust out and scrabble across the floor leaving a trail of bloody clots in its wake.

A seventy-pound weight loss had rendered me so lean and mean, that the lump was visible beneath my skin. Menopause had packed on the pounds, but I took them off, and then some.

I nearly died from fright that day. When I think back on it now, the surreality of it all is hard to grasp. Even harder as both my parents had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer less than two years prior.

Cancer. Cancer. Cancer. All the freakin’ time. Three people, two ways. What are the odds?

My yearly mammogram comes up next month. I try not to obsess over it, but a lifelong struggle with OCD makes this challenge particularly hard.

I envision my breasts squeezed between the glass plates, the technician turning my body this way and that…so as to get an accurate look at the cells and nodes and the tissue that is determined to be “dense” even though I am small-breasted.

I imagine sitting in the waiting room with the other women, hands clenched, pretending to read as I wait for the radiologist to look at my scans. Where I go, there’s no waiting. You get the results immediately which is a wonderful thing, because, as every woman knows, after a mammogram, when you leave the hospital or clinic, that’s all you can think about. ALL. Until you get the letter, or the call letting you know that you’re either alright, or not.

I think about that moment when I am called into the radiologist’s office to hear the verdict. My mouth goes dry at the thought, but I keep telling myself that, once again, everything will be okay. It has to be.

Will the day come when I no longer think about this? Will these memories recede to the deepest recesses of my mind? I hope so. Every year, it gets a little better, but cancer is evil. Even when you beat it, it hangs around, taunting you.

Watching my parents decline was horrible. Even worse for my sister who cared for them in her home. The chemo. The endless array of meds and more meds. The emotional toll of fighting a hopeless battle, yet “hoping,” nonetheless.

They hung on for nine months. I remember that when I was diagnosed, after their initial shock, my father took my face in his hands and said, “You’re going to be just fine.” He said it with determination, with commitment. As if he knew.

Even though we had our rough patches, I am missing them terribly right now. I wish I could pick up the phone and hear my dad tell me once again, that I’m going to be “just fine.”

Life can be a nasty bitch, can it not? You go along, day after day, worrying about the mundane, sleepwalking much of the time, “wishing it were Friday” or the weekend, or some other crap that makes a mockery out of “living in the moment.” Or, “being present.” How can we be so wasteful?

Until of course, there comes that moment that trumps all others. The one where everything changes and you know…you just get…that you’ll never be the same. That from here on in, you’re going to look at your life with new eyes. You’re going to truly see it. Maybe for the first time.

Sometimes that’s not so terrible.

So you take a deep breath, and you get through it. Hopefully, not by yourself. I had my husband and family by my side. Along with some good people at my former place of employ.

I’m writing this to help myself and others who may be feeling like I am. Living with fear is no way to live. It’s a kind of death in an of itself. We have to fight it. Shove it down when it bubbles up and threatens to strangle us. Hug our partners. Snuggle with our pets. Write stories like these.

Everything will be “just fine,” as my dad said. I won’t let fear win. I can’t.

I want to live.

Sherry McGuinn is a longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s manager is currently pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.