Laura Jeppesen
Making Connections
Our maps of France blanketed the kitchen table, prompting myriad decisions. Should we rent a car in Grenoble and drive to Lyon, or take a bullet train and rent a car in Brive? The July heat was oppressive in 1996. My sticky fingers were attached to points on the map as though afraid our destinations might move a hundred miles east or west if I let go. Is a week in the Dordogne going to be enough?
We were waiting for the call from the travel agent when the phone rang. I wasn't expecting the voice at the other end. "Can you come in right away? Dr. Carter has the results of your biopsy and would like to see you." Although I had recently had a breast biopsy, I had simply put it out of my mind, assuming the results would be fine. "You'd better come with me," I said to my husband, as I reached for my car keys.
At the surgeon's office, the words flew by. "Invasive carcinoma ... axillary sampling ... re-excision ... unclear margins." I strained to grab hold of them. "But I'm going to Europe," I told her. She didn't seem to understand.
My husband asked about a second opinion. She gave us numbers to call. Our choices were no longer about hotels in the Marais. They were about removal of lymph nodes, mastectomy vs. lumpectomy, and reconstructive surgery. The only reservation we were making now was with the surgical specialties department to book the operation room. When I could tear myself away from that essential instrument, the telephone, I was at the library trading the Michelin Guide and Frommer's France for books about radiation and chemotherapy. "Can you hold?" I asked my life, "I'm on another line."
I made appointments with specialists and expected to be told what I needed to do. Instead, I was given statistics with probabilities and told to make my decisions. Opinions assaulted me. In my confusion, I discovered that I was a member of a new club — a support group of women with breast cancer. When we met, we used the words of our new vocabulary. We made appointments with breast surgeons and plastic surgeons. We compared our teams of "ists" — acupuncturists, psychiatrists, herbalists, radiologists, oncologists, dermatologists, nutritionists. And we read the obituaries.
It was my nature to be brave, but now I felt vulnerable. My sense of calm could be shattered in a moment. Sometimes I could talk about it, but other times I just couldn't. At the moment I was safe, but what would the future bring? What new horrors might the very "cure" be inflicting? "Radiation," "chemotherapy" — the words terrified me.
A few weeks later, as I waited in a hospital johnny to be wheeled into the operating room, I paged automatically through magazines. The roller-coaster ride of the past month, where emotions turned on a dime, was over. Fear, gratitude, despair, compassion — fluctuating feelings had shaken me with an intensity I had never felt before. Now I was empty without affect. Staring at my horoscope, I was startled by the words, "July Cancer, auspicious time to travel."
"I'm sorry to see you again," the anesthesiologist said sympathetically. He spoke like an old friend, in spite of the fact that we had just met over a month ago, before my surgical biopsy. I began to remember our previous conversation.
"Did you enjoy your vacation?" I asked, recalling our former contact. He had told me about his passion for scuba diving, that he was about to take another course in deep-sea diving in the Caribbean. I had suspected, at the time, the he was engaging me in conversation the way he did all his patients, so he could tell at what point the anesthesia had taken effect. As I made a fist and his needle found a vein, he was saying, "The most beautiful coral is hidden deep in the reefs. If you can suspend your fear and breath deeply ... relax ... you can reach the depths ... rarest tropical life ... fragile beauty ... revelatory ... brilliant kaleidoscope ... explore."
His words were leading me to an inner sanctum. I knew I had become an exile with no hope of returning to my former consciousness, but I sensed the discovery of a new landscape, richly hued with colors previously unknown. I didn't yet know that the journey I had begun a month ago had forced me to leave behind a complacency that wouldn't be missed. Taking its place would be a passionate involvement in life, whatever it might bring. A dull throb reminded me of consciousness. Opening my eyes, I saw a large bouquet of purple dahlias and then my husband standing before me with a tray. I was hungry. My gaze eagerly scanned his presentation: a bowl of chicken soup, Jell-O, Earl Grey tea. And a map of France.