day one

jane has cancer.

it's a funny thing, being a 'grown up'. particularly in our case. friends, many, who have been afflicted with cancer in just the past year. we're not that old - mid forties, all of us, yet there appears to be an epidemic of this disease, in it's many incarnations.

so, when jane comes home at noon today, typical for a friday, instead of having a latté, bathed in sunlight in the living room, she heads straight to our home office to pick up a fax (never get those anymore!). she trudges into the kitchen where i'm preparing shabbat dinner, and as i turn to ask her if she has the results back from her needle biopsy (earlier in the week), i see it on her face.

we sit on the naugahyde sofa, and there it is. "it's cancer". you often hear how those words define life - sort of the 'before' and 'after' - yet here we are, two adults sitting in the home we've built to live our life, raise our family, do our work. jane cries. i sigh. another blow ... another 'thing' to deal with ...

it seems as if we've been talking about cancer constantly for the last year or so. as noted, so many friends have heard these same words - not that there's any solace in numbers - but this is no longer strange or foreign. so now, cancer is here. is it real? of course. no time for self-pity or questioning - we already know that there's no rhyme or reason.

the benefit of having had tragedy in our lives - the loss of my sister ina, for example - is that it bursts the bubble - we're not invicible. we've witnessed really sad, bad moments. and we often note, with much eye-rolling and a dose of sarcasm, how crappy life can be. to be sure, you can only truly recognize that if you understand the flip side (how fantastic a latté in the sunlight can be). so, this is definitely crappy. scary. unwelcome. bad timing. but we'll deal with it.

i go back to prepping for dinner - guests are coming (jane will have no part of canceling the evening), and we move in silence. jane is on the computer, researching dcis low grade multi-focal breast cancer. i'm finishing off desserts and finally getting the lattés ready for us - we need to have those before the kids descend. jane has already spoken with her trusted doctor, and she's set up appointments for an mri early next week, and a surgeon too. within an hour, she has resolved to have a double mastectomy by this time next week. we drink our coffees, jane in utter shock, me much less so.

i'm not getting ahead of myself. although i'm not in jane's skin, i need to make sure we go slow and steady. no freaking out, no mass hysteria. we have nothing to hide, but until we see the surgeon on wednesday, not a word to the kids, our parents, friends (who we know will be infinitely helpful). slow and steady. jane researches on the computer all afternoon, i cook, the kids come home, and life is changed and back to normal at the same time. a single hour can rock your world.

jane is really nervous, even frantic ... it's plain to see. she's a smart woman though, and we'll get through this somehow.

we have a lovely time friday night, a relaxed and casual evening with friends - an oscar winning performance or are we really that jaded, or is it the wine? maybe a combination, but we manage to laugh, smile, eat, and enjoy. post-guest cleanup brings a bit of a drop in our levels - it's been a long day. more to follow.

h