Time’s moving at a different pace now that I’ve been home for almost two weeks. I dove right back in to the end-of-school-year hustle, graduation parties, goat wrangling, 4-H preparations, laundry, softball practice, office work and what’s for dinner. I have been feeling fine, with just a little less stamina for it all and a few reminders in my body and mind of the toll the past few months has taken on me. The girls are officially out of school, reminding me how fun it was to be eight and ten under the heat of the summer sun and that’s good medicine.

Below is last week’s column, a little repeat from what you heard from me last week, and a bit of a reflection on my treatment process and what it meant to ring that bell.

Here’s to less cancer talk in the future and more commentary on the wildflowers and cows.

Ring the Bell

I’m sitting at my kitchen counter after braiding hair and reminders to brush teeth and find shoes and get backpacks and hurry up now. The floors aren’t swept and I’ve cleared a space for myself among the crumbs, water bottles and art supplies to tell you I’m no longer counting my life in weeks, because I’m home now. 

After 33 proton radiation treatments and 6 chemo treatments over the course of 6 1/2 weeks, I rang the bell in the radiation department at Mayo Clinic on May 13^th. This bell is the bell of hope, not necessarily indicating that one is cancer free, but a declaration that a course of treatment has been completed or endured with every confidence, prayer and medical advancement in the works for that outcome.

Every weekday for those six weeks I lay on the table in the radiation room and they put a  mask on me that went over my face and shoulders and strapped my head and upper body down nice and tight so I couldn’t move while I waited for the proton beam to be available to zap me and the tumors in three different places. The mask in radiation treatment is treated as a big thing, for lack of a better way to say it. It’s created as a cast over your face to fit perfectly and the care team worries about claustrophobia and takes comfort level seriously. Every day of the week they put that thing on me, and I lay still for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, closing my eyes, listening to music and waiting for the “we have the beam,” voice to come over the speakers in that big room. In the three adjacent, identical rooms, there were three other people at the same time doing the same thing—strapped to a table, waiting on a beam. And then dozens of others in the waiting room, or on their way there, or making plans for their first or last visit. There are only 48 active proton radiation therapy centers in the US, so the machine at Mayo Clinic runs from 8 am to 11 pm every weekday, like clockwork.

As I entered the radiation room for the final time a tech asked me if I wanted to take my mask home with me, which some people do, as a reminder of what they conquered or for a Halloween costume or something. I said no, you keep it.  Burn it. It’s over. But as I lay there getting my final zaps, I changed my mind, a little because I wanted to explain the process to my curious family and a lot because I wanted to burn it myself.

When I walked into the treatment room for the first time back in late March, I was about as annoyed as a person can get with my circumstances. Which was better than scared and better than angry. But I was sick of talking about how the process was going to make me feel, both physically and mentally. I was sick of the waiting and the explanations and all the tests and pre-appointments and answering the question, “Where are you from?” and “Where are you staying?” and “How are you today?” Me, the Queen of Small Talk and Chatter and Banter, didn’t find myself filling any awkward silence with my voice. I stepped in each elevator and just stood there, quietly, like a normal person. And when someone cracked a joke about sardines in a can or close quarters, I just wished they wouldn’t.  I sat to get my blood drawn,or followed a staff member out of the waiting room and I didn’t do the work I typically feel so compelled to do in trying to make people comfortable with conversation.  I just didn’t have it in me.

And when I read the long pamphlet laying out the schedule and expectations on how the treatment plan was going to go, complete with annoying side-effects and annoying appointments, finished off with a ringing of a bell, I couldn’t see myself participating in that ceremonious action. I wasn’t going to do it.

I know now I felt that way then because ringing the bell meant that this was happening, and at that time I was trying to hang on to every shred of normal I could hang on to like every strand of hair that has fallen out of my head since then. But as the weeks went on and I trudged down those hallways and stood in those elevators and sat in those waiting rooms and became a seasoned visitor to the radiation room, I softened to the experience.

Was it perspective, seeing those around me who are sick and fighting harder? Was it that I got more comfortable with my circumstance? Was it that I realized staying annoyed wasn’t going to make it easier?  Was it the routine of it all bringing me closer and closer to the finish line?  I’m not sure, but I became more myself in the process eventually, opening up, picking my favorite front desk lady and radiation therapist and giving people directions and smiling and sometimes even laughing in the elevator. When my husband joined me on my last trip through the parking garage and down the elevator and through the long hallways, I felt like grabbing his hand and skipping all the way.

So yeah, I changed my mind about that bell. There’s a reason it’s there.

Because this time has taken me away from my family for longer than anyone wants to be away, but I get to go home with shrinking tumors and bring with me what this time has given me:

Four new songs

Time to slow down and understand who I am in the quiet

An interest in watercolor painting

The Cher autobiography

Visits with my cousins, aunt and uncle and my far away friends

A little stress fracture in my foot from wandering to all the nearby pretty places and consequently, a better pair of walking shoes

An unreasonable annoyance with parking garages and construction

An appreciation for Kwik Trip Gas stations

More adoration for my husband and all he is

Appreciation for the messy and noisy parts of my life propelled by my daughters
A heart and body full of gratitude for my village

Heartburn and hair loss

Faith in the process

Hope

Thank you for all the love, notes, emails, calls, prayers and gifts along the way. If you need me, I’ll be making the preparations for the ‘burning of the mask’ celebration.