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Diagnosed at 39 with Stage IV IDC breast cancer, grade 2, metastatic to the liver, and ER/PR+ and Her2-negative.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

"Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes,
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets,
In midnights, in cups of coffee.
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes,
How do you measure, a year in the life?"

Tuesday afternoon, November nineteenth, 2013. I found out that the biopsy results came back positive for invasive ductal carcinoma breast cancer.

A year ago today.

I went from being completely pinkwashed (as my twitter handle VictoryOverBC proves) to having arrangements to pay for my funeral expenses underway. 

I'm also further from death now than I was a year ago, with the tumors either quite tiny or gone altogether. There's still microscopic metastatic sites that don't show on scans, have been battered into submission by chemo, and are being suffocated by hormonal therapy.

I retired, I finished a novel, I had my best month ever with NaNo, I've made new friends, and lost some of them. I've helped people, I've moved to a new house, I've gotten married. I've discovered I like potato salad when it's made with sweet potatoes, I've met an oncologist I'm glad to have on my side in this.

I'm re-evaluating my language when it comes to cancer. I grew up, as so many do, thinking of cancer in terms of battle language. I grew up on Tour of Duty and Platoon and Aliens, I'm a fan of the military group in Fullmetal Alchemist, it was as natural as breathing to adopt the battle allegories as my own in the beginning.

But I'm starting to understand how busted that language is, the way so many aspects of our language are busted in terms of women's rights and rape culture and racism. Just because it's how things were always said or done is not a valid reason to continue them.

I'm not sure what language I want to adopt to replace the war mentality. Because on one hand, it is a fight. But when you have metastatic breast cancer, by that terminology, you're fighting a losing battle, or winning a Pyrrhic victory, with NED coming with CHF and neuropathy. And many times you don't even get NED.

It's a fight, and it is a battle. If that language is busted, I'm not in a place where I can divorce that from my life in cancerland yet. But I can see that dying is not losing the battle. Living each day is winning. Each day that I have won since my cancer diagnosis is a victory.

Each minute is a victory.

I have five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred victories against breast cancer under my belt, and I intend on getting far more than that. I don't lose. I don't quit. Dying isn't losing the battle. There has to be another bridge here, for the metastatic crowd. It's not a win-lose dichotomy. Like how gender is not as binary as male-female, victory isn't either. 

The system is busted. The language is busted. And neither embracing nor avoiding the battle language is quite the answer. But when you're used to looking at either black or white, it's hard to pick out the shade of gray that falls between. I'm trying to see it, and I'm trying to describe it, and not quite managing it.

I'm fighting for my life, and every day, I win. When I go, I still win, because it will still be on my terms. The only way I could "lose" is if something else happened, like an automobile accident. That's not on my terms. I can't fight that. If I can fight, I win. Victory is measured in light. In love. Not in the calendar location of a funeral.

"In five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes,
How do you figure
A last year on earth?
Figure in love.
Figure in love.
Figure in love.
Measure in love."

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