It’s been three weeks since I found out I have brain cancer

To Divide

It’s been three weeks since I found out I have brain cancer. I’d gone to the doctor with nausea and dizziness; I thought I was pregnant. A urine test, two CT scans and an MRI later, the neurologist identified it. Craniopharyngioma. Slow-growing, benign, inoperable, and impossible to spell. Outwardly, I was detached at best. Inwardly,I was impressed by my indifference. I had even surprised the doc with my minimal response. She searched for a reaction as she told me what I had to look forward to - visual impairment, loss of balance, alteration of personality and consciousness, and a year, if I was lucky.

I haven’t told anyone. I’ve had the conversation with myself hundreds of times; saying the words won’t be difficult anymore. It’s not that my world will be turned upside-down if I finally say the words out loud; my cat has heard them tons of times. My world is already upside-down. I haven’t told anyone because I don’t want to be the one comforting them. I haven’t seen a lot of death, but I’ve seen enough to know that the dying one is expected to stay strong while everyone else falls apart. Death is harder for the ones that have to live through it. I just don’t want to deal with that. I could call it an “alteration of personality” if I wanted to cop-out, but the truth is that I think I have every right in the world to be selfish.

I already know how everyone will react. Mom will be reminded of the death of her mother and sister and will fall apart; it’s unlikely she'll recover at all. Dad will be working so hard to be strong for her that he won’t be for me. My sister will retreat retreat retreat hoping that it will ease the inevitable pain of losing the one person in the world that understands her. Because I understand her, I know that it won’t ease anything; she’ll spend the rest of her long life regretting it. You are the only wild card in this picture. No matter how I think you’ll react, it’s likely you’ll do the opposite. You’re just as likely to be my savior as you are to leave me and neither sound like an ending I want.

During my year if I’m lucky, I’ll try so hard not to wonder where things could have gone or how things could have ended up. But I’ll wonder anyway. I don’t know or care about any picket fences, but maybe we would have bought a dog together and fought over what to name it. Maybe we finally would have gotten those season tickets we talked about. And I’ll wonder what would have happened had I actually been pregnant.

I don’t think I'm going to tell anyone. I don’t want to spend my last months feeling like the girl with cancer. I want to be the same fucked up girl I am now - the one who can’t commit, the one who can’t offer more than an obscene collection of Hanson albums and a knack for sewing buttons, the one who, despite all that, you still seem to want.