by Linda Zercoe
We were homeless for about a week, roughing it in a posh suite of rooms on Nob Hill in the city by the bay, all on Doug’s company’s dime while we awaited close of escrow on our new house and the subsequent arrival of our belongings. The day of my birthday was spent interviewing at what was to be my next job, at BofA. After returning to the hotel and trying to change my clothes while Kim and Brad waited impatiently to go for ice cream, Doug informed me that we were not getting our mortgage since I didn’t have a job. So much for guarantees, I thought. I told Doug I expected him to handle this latest problem and left the room with the kids, exhausted, thinking, What the hell am I doing? After some phone calls and his company’s involvement, it did all work out. We got financing, moved in, I had second and third interviews, and got the job offer. Things so far were working out in the Golden State.
It was summertime in Northern California. In Danville, nestled in the San Ramon Valley, the nights were cool and clear, without humidity, completely star-filled. There were no mosquitoes. The days were always sunny, so bright and clear. Every day while driving the kids around, doing our errands, setting up house, going to swim lessons, I would say, “Hey, kids, it’s another beautiful day in California!”
Kim was miserable. She asked, “How could you have done this to me? Because of you, now I have no friends!” It quickly got to the point that she would tell me “Shut up!” as soon as I said, “Hey, kids, it’s ….” I enjoyed the weather anyway and tried to stay positive.
While Doug hit the ground running, totally consumed in his new office and job responsibilities, I had a few weeks to hire a live-in nanny, set up nursery school arrangements, and finalize everything before I started my job. I knew that Kim would make new friends as soon as school started, and I understood her anger. I had to believe that things would be all right. Meanwhile, Brad was happy riding his tricycle all over the house, helping deliver unpacked items using the attached wagon, when he wasn’t heading out the back door to try to drown in the pool if I didn’t watch him like a hawk.
I started working again, which I enjoyed, even if it was mostly a way to escape everything else. At home, I met and really liked my new neighbor Lyn, who invited me to join the neighborhood book group. She and her husband hosted a get-to-know-you barbeque and invited some other couples from the neighborhood. I became a little concerned when the barbeque was served with complete china and silver service in the dining room. Our entertaining was done more spontaneously on a wing and a prayer and paper plates.
One unusually warm summer evening Lyn and I were sitting in my yard talking and we heard an owl hooting. I wasn’t used to owls hooting in New Jersey. “When you hear an owl hooting, it means someone is going to die,” Lyn said.
Interesting, I thought. Her comment reminded me of Girl Scout campfire stories.
Unfortunately, Kim’s misery escalated after school started, and she thought everyone was stupid. I came home after twelve hours out of the house commuting and working in a state of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. But at home, my refuge, I had to face an angry, hormonal preteen, a middle-aged Swedish nanny making eyes at my husband while glaring at me judgmentally, and a husband who complained about everything. The complaining was the worst. No topic was safe—the abysmal commute, the cost of everything, how long it took to get to a grocery store, the traffic lights, the illogical planning of one-way traffic. It never ended. By this time, I had to respond with the question, again, “Why did we move here?”
Thank God, being with Brad gave me such joy. He was the sunshine of my life. In the evenings, I couldn’t call and talk to anyone on the East Coast for support, comfort, or just plain commiseration, because they were all already in bed. So I escaped into the world of children’s fantasy, dinosaurs, and Dr. Seuss, reading Brad bedtime stories until I nodded off and he had to wake me to finish. Of necessity, he also learned to read to himself at a very young age.
By the end of September, during the best of the Northern California weather, clouds were appearing over just our house. I was worried that Brad hadn’t warmed up to the nanny. I didn’t know if he was just missing me or the old house or if there was something weird about the nanny. Kim was having problems in her new school, and I was meeting regularly with the principal to get her schedule changed to ensure that she was in the proper classes for her abilities. She had been a straight A student in New Jersey, but within one month in California she needed a tutor. She went from a class size of nineteen in New Jersey to thirty-five plus at her new school. All the classes were lecture-based, and questions were discouraged. The school culture seemed militaristic. All these things contributed to a huge adjustment for her.
In October, not knowing what else to do, I started looking into private schools. It did not help that she hated us, hated school, and hated her classmates. I thought, oh my God, we have ruined her life. By then I began to realize that maybe the name Golden State had nothing to do with the gold that was discovered in the foothills—maybe it was named for all the grass that turns a golden color and then dies completely from the lack of rain.
When the going got tough, the tough headed for Yosemite. In October, Nancy came out for a visit and joined us for the trip. Some highlights of the trip, which was supposed to allow us to relax and connect with nature, included making a clothing rope to rescue Kim from sliding off a cliff after she ventured out onto mossy slime from a waterfall’s overspray, to watching Doug hiking up the steep rail-less stone stairs to Vernal Falls carrying Brad on his shoulders while he slipped repeatedly and laughed at me for screaming in desperate anxiety. Still, despite the near-fatal mishaps, I did enjoy the beauty of it all.
Doug began making legal arrangements to adopt Kim. I thought this showed a real commitment to us as a family and hoped it would be good for Kim. She was now 12, with long brown hair, and was slightly taller than I, tipping into full-blown adolescence and the illusion of independence faster than a high-category typhoon.
When I wasn’t working at my job, there were Kim’s orthodontist appointments, dermatology appointments, tutors, religion classes, school activities, and private school open houses to attend. Brad was still young enough not to be overscheduled; he was going to nursery school only three times a week. Doug spent a lot of his free time with him. I spent what spare time I had painting walls, unpacking and decorating. I was always totally exhausted and got two speeding tickets in one week. The message I took away from this was slow down.
By November it had been three months since I joined the bank. A position called Technical Accounting Manager had been created for me. I interpreted accounting pronouncements and wrote about how they would impact the capital markets area of the bank. Most of my time was spent on special projects and getting to know my boss, Jacqui. Jacqui was a self-made woman almost a decade my senior, originally French Canadian, but she had spent most of her time in California. She had one son and was in the process of getting a divorce. She and I seemed to get along well from the beginning. She seemed to take me under her wing from day one, which helped me to transition from the fast and furious energy of working in New York.
In November Jacqui informed me that she wanted me to replace the current controller of the bank’s retail broker-dealer. She asked me to accompany her to a business conference in New York City at the end of the month for a few days. I jumped at the chance to escape bedlam. I fantasized about the ability to sleep or just to be able to read on the plane. Four days of no whining, complaining, or driving was very appealing. We were going to stay at the Marriott Marquis in Midtown. On the night we arrived, I was elated to be back on my own turf. The real-time experience of the noise, the people, the garbage—all were exhilarating.
At bedtime I noticed that my right arm and armpit were tingling and really bothering me. I thought that maybe the cause of this discomfort was the fact that I had just schlepped through the airport carrying my heavy garment bag packed for every uncertainty. Naturally, Jacqui had a small two-wheeled suitcase. I started massaging
my arm, feeling around my armpit and landed on my right breast, where right below my nipple was a big lump.
The date was December 2. I thought to myself, you have got to be kidding. I waited a bit but the lump was still there after rechecking several times. I had a horrible sinking feeling, and then a sense of dread. Then panic crept into my mind. I knew something bad was going on. I called Doug. He told me it was probably nothing and to stop worrying. He told me that if it was still there and I was still worried, I could see a doctor when I returned to California. I didn’t know if he wasn’t concerned or if this was his way of comforting me. What I did know was that he really didn’t help at all. I could never tell what he was thinking. It had truly never entered my mind that I might be a hypochondriac.
The next day Nancy came to the city, and I met her for cocktails in the hotel lobby and shared my discovery. We were both worried. We even cried in between sips of wine. A few more glasses was all it took to assure each other that since I was only thirty-six, maybe it was only a cyst. Besides which, we rationalized, hadn’t I just had a perfectly normal mammogram one year before? I remembered reading somewhere that approximately 80 percent of all lumps found in the breast are benign. After seeing Nancy, I felt a little better, and I was off to see Kiss of the Spider Woman on Broadway.
That night, while I tossed and turned, I recalled that I had felt this lump about six months earlier, before we had moved, but I could not remember if that was real or if I’d dreamt it. After all, I thought, it had been such a crazy time. How scary to think about the implications of whether you can’t remember what is real and what’s not. Aren’t most working mothers this busy? As it turned out, in New York, I escaped bedlam only to be volleying between feelings of horror and trying to assure myself that everything was fine. It’s funny how ordinary bedlam can suddenly become appealing, even preferable.
Chapter 9
Reality Check
December 1993–March 1994
When I wasn’t working, all I could think about was the lump. I felt like I was becoming the lump. Within a few days of returning home I saw a doctor, and he immediately scheduled me for a mammography appointment. On December 8 I went by myself to radiology. They put a metal bead on the lump with adhesive, did the mammogram, and told me to wait in the dressing room. I waited for what seemed like forever in that little curtained cubicle. When the technician returned, she said that the radiologist wanted to take magnified views, which she explained were more detailed.
I knew deep inside that the inevitable was just around the corner. I wasn’t a negative person—I just knew. After they were done with the magnified view, they wanted to do an ultrasound. I am sure I appeared calm and reasonable on the outside. Inside, I was terrified and started praying harder for this to be OK, a fluke, and for strength no matter what.
I was brought into the doctor’s office/reading room where the radiologist, the MD, met with me and told me it was not a cyst. He pointed out on the films where it showed microcalcifications (translated to little points of light, like stars in the night sky) in the area of the lump, a galaxy contained within my breast, the Milky Way without the milk. He suggested that I should follow up immediately with my doctor to schedule a biopsy. I called Doug from the radiologist’s office. He sounded very upset. I could tell this time.
Doug and I met with the surgeon, and two days later I was scheduled for a breast biopsy. I hoped that I would have enough time to recover and be back at work by Monday. The surgeon explained that she would do a peri-alveolar incision for the biopsy and possible lumpectomy so that there would be no visible scar. The whole process seemed like driving fast in a well-cushioned bus around hairpin turns with no idea where you were going to end up or if you would just crash. I just had to believe I was going to be all right.
By this point, I had told my boss, a few of my friends, and my two sisters. Talking about possibly having cancer wasn’t that prevalent in 1993, certainly not at all in my mid-30s age group. I was afraid to tell my parents. I knew they’d be upset. And for some strange reason I was embarrassed, thinking on some level that I was letting them down, giving them something to worry about. They were not usually the ones who did the comforting. I was.
I went to bed the night before the biopsy thinking that the next day we would either celebrate or my life would never be the same, and I didn’t have any idea what that would mean. I didn’t sleep. What allowed me to face the fear of that day was a leap of faith. I just had to trust in God and believe that I’d be all right. Even though I was a control freak, I still had faith.
I woke up in the recovery room still drugged and fading in and out of consciousness. Doug was there, leaning over the bedrails holding my hand, the look of helpless love in his eyes. I smiled inside, thinking that at last we were a team. Then the surgeon came in wearing her scrubs and hair-covering cap. I was still a little groggy. After asking how I was doing, she told us that the final pathology was not back yet but she was certain that it was cancer, possibly ductal carcinoma in situ, or DCIS, a noninvasive cancer. She’d done the lumpectomy but doubted she’d removed it all because all the tissue of my right breast felt “gritty.” She said the tissue she removed was gray and had tentacles.
It sounded ugly.
She said I would probably need a mastectomy but we would know more later in the week when the final pathology came back. I thought, then hoped, and then prayed that I was having a horrible nightmare from the anesthesia. I wasn’t. I was crying, sobbing even. But then, I noticed, so was Doug. I had never seen him this upset. This scared me as well.
I stopped crying. In fact, after that I wouldn’t let myself cry again for a long time. I figured both of us couldn’t lose it; I needed to be strong. What were we going to do? Months later, the surgeon told us that the anesthesiologist had said putting me under for this procedure was like trying to put down a racehorse. I even talked while I was knocked out. I couldn’t let go of control even during anesthesia.
That night I was emotionally numb. I had a tight, white elastic dressing on my right breast and was having horrible pain—so much so that I called the doctor (she had given me her home number). She said to make sure to take more painkillers; she would be away on vacation and Dr. So-and-So could follow up.
We didn’t tell Kim anything at that time, although I think she knew something was going on. She was very self-absorbed during this period and quite nasty. Brad was too young to understand. I was scared and sad but well-practiced in putting up the “I’m just fine” front. I told my parents and siblings what was going on, but at that point, I still didn’t know what any of it meant going forward.
The next week I went with Doug to the on-call surgeon and she removed the dressing. Not only did we find out that I was allergic to the adhesive of the bandage so my skin was all blistered, but also that my incision was split open from the pressure of a large “liver” clot that had formed under the incision. It was visible in the hole like a purple alien eye and was bleeding, slowly weeping clear, deep red tears. A new dressing was applied with different tape and I was given wound care instructions and a box of supplies. We went home to await the pathology results that would start the ball rolling on how to deal with the liver clot and the rest of the breast.
In the meantime, I returned to work at my new location, in my new position, though I wasn’t that excited about it anymore. I couldn’t focus and didn’t feel on top of my game. My boss knew what was going on in my personal life, but work was still work. I didn’t want this setback to affect my career. So I became an actor, going to work and putting on my game face. I was still glad to be working since it gave me a break from obsessing about everything else.
Doug was also back at work at his demanding job and somewhat emotionally absent, as usual. The stress with Anki, the Swedish nanny, was escalating. She didn’t understand or agree with my firmness with my daughter, which she demonstrated with eye rolling and tsking sounds. Then we found out that she was locking Brad in his room. There were dri
ed puddles of urine on the carpet just inside his bedroom door. I kept praying to God for the strength to deal with all of this. Meanwhile, I just wanted to run away, scream until I had no voice, hide just to be let alone.
I soon learned that the final pathology report indicated that the tissue they removed was the noninvasive form of breast cancer, DCIS. Unfortunately, there weren’t clear margins on the specimen. This meant that they would have to go back in and surgically remove more tissue. It was now the time to meet with all the specialists to determine how to treat the remaining breast.
Doug accompanied me to meet with the radiation oncologist. When an older man in a lab coat entered the examination room, we rose. He extended his hand and introduced himself to my husband but not to me, the patient. He said the bottom line was that I could have “breast-sparing” surgery to remove the rest of the affected tissue and then radiation therapy. But since I would have what was referred to in medical parlance as an “acquired breast defect” from the missing tissue and the blood clot, he suggested that I might want to consider a mastectomy, with or without reconstruction. Then he continued on with a spate of scenarios and statistics that seemed to me like a canned presentation. He lost me at hello. I was depressed. I felt like I became the woman with the acquired breast defect, or was now just plain defective.
Doug and I next met with the recommended oncologist. He told us that breast cancer was a relatively slow-growing cancer and that this tumor had probably started ten years earlier. I remember thinking that ten years ago was exactly how long it had been since Dave died. Interesting, I thought, vacillating between horror and detached objectivity. He recommended a mastectomy but said I would not require chemotherapy.
