Barlines

In music when you come to the end you hit something called a double bar line.  It's a thick double black line that the music seems to crash right into.  When you get there you have to go on.  The song or piece is over.  Sometimes it's just the movement that is over.  Sometimes. . . it's time to applaud and go home.

What most people don't know is that before that barline is something called a cadence.  It's a resolution -  a series of sounds that combine to tell your ear, "its about to end."  Some music theorists would argue that the entire piece of music from beginning to bar line is all about setting up that cadence.  In general they have a point.  The cadence, or the "closing sounds" let's call them, don't just happen.  They are built up and built up and when the barline finally comes, you're all ready for it. 

Sometimes life is like music.  A wedding for example is a big old cadence; months of courtship and engagement and then a ceremony tell everyone that one stage of life is now over, and another is about to begin.

Sometimes life is not like music.  Sometimes, you're going along happy as a clam, three month old beautiful baby girl, happily married and dreams for the future when someone sits you down and says four little words  like "You have breast cancer" and you realize you've just slammed into the double bar line with the velocity of a 747 hitting a brick wall.

And there is no going back.  The last movement, the one I knew so well, the one I was so comfortable and happy in, is over.  There is no repeat sign or stop and rewind button.  No matter how hard I try I can't undo those stupid four little words that seem to have cast a dark shadow over every aspect of my life.  Everything is changed now.

At first when I heard the news I thought "okay no big deal - I can beat this."  Then, as the week progressed and all the doctors appointments and needle prickings began I got news after news. The words "You have breast cancer" are really just a summary it seems of the horror you're about to endure.
Pricks, pokes and probes.
Lots of meds.
They're going to put you in that tube.
Surgery is coming
Radiation is coming
Chemo is coming.
You're going to have to be on drugs - best case scenario for the next five years.
Stop nursing your baby right away.
You're going to get very very sick.
You probably won't be able to care for your baby.
Your hair is going to fall out.
You will never be completely free from cancer.
You will be testing and checking and worrying for the rest of your life.
And then the hardest one of them all-
Chemo burns up your eggs - you will probably never have another child.
Oh - and you might die. . .

I don't know exactly what the future holds for me and cancer.  But I know that I'm not in the same place I was a week ago.  What I wouldn't give to go back!  To make that doctor take back those four stupid words so I could go back to learning how to be a mommy, taking care of my house and teaching my students.  But I can't go back.  The barline has come and gone, and I am already reluctantly immersed in a new movement, the opening bars of which seem to be horror, terror, fear and doubt. 

I know no one wants to read that.  And believe me I wish I could put a better spin on it than that, but I intended this blog for an honest expression of my experiences and that is where cancer has begun.  Otherwise would just be to lie so everyone feels better.  I don't know if there are even more movements in this piece of music I call my life, or perhaps this is the last one and it will be time to go home at the end.  But for now, the ensuing darkenss has forced me to ask if there is a home to go to and question every dot and line I have lived in this symphony for the last 38 years.  I would say I hope, but perhaps that comes later. . .