2004 was my tunnel. The year started with the news my company was shutting down and we all were being laid off by March 1. I left that day not really concerned. I had already secured a job at a national bank. Two days later I went to a friends wedding. Due to her small budget only people who were married could bring a guest. So I went to the wedding and my then boyfriend of 7 years spent the Sunday with his two older children. Driving home on the highway a reckless driver going at least 80 MPH swerved in my lane, causing me to lose control of my car, bounced off the left hand concrete divider go across three lanes and hit a metal guardrail head on. The airbags deployed and I walked away completely unharmed (something the two men who stopped to help were astonished by). My car, however, did not fair as well. The front was so badly damaged the engine fell out of the car. First step into the tunnel.
A few months went by. I was able to get a new car and started my new job. My boyfriend and I were fighting alot by now. I wanted more time with him and he had so many other more important commitments. The summer came and my cousin got married. Boyfriend decided to sit this one out. (Houston we have a problem) Another small step into the tunnel.
A few weeks later, my mom tells me she had some vaginal bleeding. Not normal for a woman 15 years into menopause. She calls her regular doctor who gives her the name of an OB/GYN. My mom had not been to Gynecologist is 30 years. Larger step into the tunnel. Now it's getting a little scary.
As the days past until her much dreaded appointment, my mom would call and cry. What I couldn't tell her was everything I read pointed to this being Uterine cancer. I would only break down with my boyfriend. I would cry and sob until I couldn't breathe. He would hold me and just let me get it out. I vowed never to cry at work or in front of my Mom.
The Sunday before her appointment my Mom looks at me with this face that breaks my heart and says "The bleeding stopped. No need for this stupid gyno appointment". I knew she wanted for me to agree. If I had said "sure it's probably nothing", she would have canceled the appointment faster than I could get the words out. But I knew. I knew she had to go. As much as it killed me to say it, my reply was "Nah, you need to go. Besides, I aleady took the day off. Come on suck it up and let's just get it over with" (trying to be a little funny). She dropped her head and nodded. It was like someone punched me in the stomach AND clocked me in the head at the same moment. But somewhere deep down inside I knew I was doing the right thing.
The first doctors appointment turned into a one day procedure where they collect the cells on the Uterine wall and test them for cancer. When the doctor came out to tell my dad and I that everything was fine she told us (really him) that the worse case would be cancer. As we walked to the elevator my dad kept muttering "cancer..cancer? cancer". For some reason by the time we reached the lobby. I broke down. I started crying and shouting "Why do you think I have been so friggin scared and on total edge, goddammit!" Total and complete meltdown. My dad grabbed me and pulled me into his chest. Like my boyfriend, he let me just sob. What I have since found is that even in hospitals where you would THINK this kind of scene could happen, people still look at you like a crazy person.
The doctor had us come to her office a few days later. She walked in and said those three awful words, "You have cancer". Mom sobbed, Dad looked like a deer in the headlights and I had my game face on, armed with tons of research. "What's our next move" I said. "Complete hysterectomy" she answered. More steps into the tunnel.
We found a gynecological oncologist. Same diagnosis, same recommendation. Surgery was scheduled for the following week. Lots of crying in that week. She to me and me to anyone who wasn't my mother. She came through perfectly. The doctor said since it was caught so early the cancer was Stage 0 and she would not require any kind of chemo or radiation. I'm seeing the light at the end of this tunnel.
But hang on..as they say "you plan and God laughs". December finally came and we were headed down the home stretch of a very long year. Mom was doing so much better and I was finally back in my own house full time. On the day my boyfriend was to come over and help bring the Christmas decorations up from the basement he sent a friend to my work to tell me it was over between him and I. Done. Finished. See Ya. He sent a friggin messenger? Seven years...that's all I get..At work no less. This was a 43 year old man acting like we were in junior high. I just shook my head with that dear in the headlights look. I couldn't even cry. I didn't cry until about a month later. I think I was afraid at the time if I started I wouldn't stop. The light at the end of the tunnel just vanished. I was in total darkness.
I didn't want to burden my parents with this news. I just kept walking through the days, head up and never stopping. We got through Christmas and I explained my boyfriends absence with really bad excuses. Looking back on it now once we found out my mom was going to make a full recovery the fighting started again. The fights became meaner and more frequent. He just couldn't deal with me wanting his time and I couldn't deal with always being the last item on his "to do" list. I just wish we could have come to a mutual decision AFTER Christmas.
Once I was over the shock of it all and saw life went on I started seeing that light at the end of the tunnel again. Friends and family were a huge help. I remember saying to a good friend in the beginning of the new year "Really? In one year...My job, the car, my mom and now my boyfriend....." She stopped me and said "Hang on. You got another job, another car, Mom's fine and well, the boyfriend..7 years or 70 years together he's a big dick." I laughed and she was right.
2004 taught me that God never gives us more than we can handle. If you keep walking with your head up and eyes ahead, eventually you find yourself out of the tunnel and into the sunlight. There will be people along the way who hold your hand when you get scared. And you will be that much stronger and less afraid of the next tunnel.
