Another Loss

Today I am struggling. A fellow physician, a lobular cancer patient, a fellow LBCA board member, died from metastatic lobular cancer. 

I sent her smoothies 2 weeks ago when she was DIAGNOSED as metastatic. We were previously chatting about meeting up at a breast cancer conference, or a women in medicine retreat. She was only diagnosed a year ago, stage 2. And now she is gone. 

This is a fast series of events, even for a disease as cruel as breast cancer. I am struggling to comprehend how this could happen so quickly. I long ago gave up trying to comprehend why - the biological why still interests me, but the rest of it - there's no answer. Why this particular badass woman surgeon, wife, mother? There is no answer. Cancer, and biology, do not care one little bit about whether you are good or bad, young or old, whom you might leave behind. 

But since there is no answer to the why, there is only the immediate grief and sadness for her loved ones - and then the overwhelming, gut punching fear: what if that's my fate, too? Just when you manage to put cancer in a corner and move on with your life, it has a way of smashing back into consciousness, ready or not. 

I don't know how to process this loss. A woman with whom I had so much in common beyond breast cancer, and whose life was taken by the disease that stalks my every waking moment. I hate cancer so much. I hate that medicine has so very little to offer for recurrence prevention, and that lobular breast cancer in particular is sinister in its occult spread. I hate that I have to be afraid of this every single fucking day of my life. 

I tried hard to enjoy the sun on my face and a swim in the pool today. I felt grateful to be alive and with my human and canine families. But it was such a bittersweet gratitude - overwhelmed by sadness for another loss, and another family's grieving. And I am still struggling. 

(graphic courtesy of FC Cancer Foundation)