Chapter 6: Telling the Kids

I don't remember exactly the words I used back in September when I told my sons I had cancer, but I was dreading the conversation. Finally, after worrying for a week, I simply told them that I had breast cancer, that I was having surgery to remove the breast, that I'd have some other treatment after the surgery, and that I'd be fine.

Then I waited for their questions. Did I mind losing the breast, they both asked. No, I said, it's necessary. Akira, my 14-year-old, wanted to know what it was about cancer that hurt you. So what if those cells were growing, where was the harm in that, he asked. I couldn't answer that one.

They were worried, but they believed me when I told then everything would be OK. I've also tried to SHOW them everything is OK, which is why we went to Hawaii for a week's vacation after my surgery and before my chemo started. We had fun--the boys learned to snorkel and boogie-board, we ate at McDonald's and soaked up the 85-degree sunshine.

Things got tougher for them when the chemo started. I usually get my chemo on Friday in order to have the worst of the after-effects on the weekend so I can go back to work on Monday. When I'm tired after a chemo treatment, 8-year-old Robin's typical reaction is to cry over small things, like the wrong kind of breakfast cereal in his bowl. He takes his stuffed bunny everywhere.

Akira is irritable and rude, and nasty to his brother. I quickly learned that I needed to ask friends to take the kids out on the weekends to have some fun.

"Did You Lose the Breast?"
Robin has been much more involved in my treatment than Akira. Robin walked into my hospital room after my mastectomy and asked straight-out, "So, did you lose the breast?" He asked to see my incision, and then wanted to play with the controls on my hospital bed. Akira came in for a quick hug and a hello, then shot back to the waiting room.

Robin went with me to Nordstrom to buy a prosthesis and tagged along to one of my chemo treatments to see what that was all about. Akira is curious, but shy. He went to a friend's house the day I shopped for the prosthesis, and when we got home he didn't mention it. So I did. I showed him how the prosthesis looks with a bra on, and he peeked over the top of the bra at the pink thing that has replaced my breast. That was enough for him.

About three weeks into my chemo, I started to wonder if Akira was depressed. He'd take his lunch to school but he wouldn't eat it; I'd find the lunches crammed back in the fridge. When I asked, he said he felt okay, but wanted white bread, creamy peanut butter, and seedless strawberry jam instead of the whole-wheat bread and chunky peanut butter I normally buy. After the switch he seems to be eating better.

Then, a couple of weeks later, Akira left school in the middle of the day and walked home. He said he'd had an argument with a teacher and was upset, so he just decided to leave.

I lost a night of sleep worrying about what to say at my 8 a.m. meeting with the principal, who drove around looking for Akira after he disappeared from school. But I worried for nothing: The principal was very understanding, and now Akira seems calmer.

He's still irritable, but he's also very protective: He answers the phone and screens calls, he always asks where I'll be after school, and he asks several times a day if I need anything, and how I feel.

A Frightening Week
It's week six of chemo, and I've hit the wall: physically, mentally, emotionally--everything is going wrong. The vein where I take my chemo treatment is bruised and burning. I lose my confidence and start thinking, "Why bother?" I'm depressed for the first time in the four months since I found out I have breast cancer.

Coincidentally, or maybe not, it is Christmas.

Christmas Eve, the day of my sixth chemo, I was too tired to open my gifts. I lay on the couch and watched the kids open theirs and left mine till morning.

I'd overdone it that day: I'd gone out to brunch, had my chemo, gone to a matinee of "A Christmas Carol," and had friends back to our place for eggnog, cookies, and sushi--all before tackling the gifts. I feel like the world's worst mother, snapping at my kids on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day, with only a dinner with friends on the agenda, is much easier. But the next day, two days after my sixth chemo treatment, I feel seriously crazy. I'm panicked, wired, my head is crowded with frightening stuff--fantasies, delusions--that I can't explain. My friend Dana drives me to the emergency room, where I wait three hours to meet with a doctor who seems unsure of what to do for me.

The emergency room is crowded: two men with broken legs, a woman with chest pains, an old woman telling her life story, and the screams of a patient hidden behind double doors. Every time an ambulance pulls up the wait gets longer.

The doctor says he thinks I'm having a reaction to the Compazine I take for nausea, a drug that is also used as an anti-psychotic medication. He gives me two other drugs to take instead, but warns it will take a while to clear the Compazine out of my system. He gives me a printed sheet explaining the drugs, and I sign, signifying that I understand what I've been told. But when I get home I can't explain, either to myself or to my friends, why I should take these other drugs.

How bad was the effect of the Compazine? I lie on my bed Saturday after returning from the hospital, exhausted, but too terrified to sleep. I ask Dana to sit by me and wake me if I fall asleep. I am certain if I sleep, I will not wake up. This is crazy. This drug--or something--is making me crazy.

An Inevitable Crash
On Monday, I gather up six pill bottles and go see my oncologist to make sure he agrees with the drug switch, and to get some reassurance. He says he's not sure my problems were a reaction to Compazine, but he pockets the Compazine anyway, and gives me back the substitute, Phenergan, prescribed by the emergency-room doctor. But he suggests that I hold off on taking it.

Instead, he suggests that we change two of my anti-nausea drugs when I get this week's chemo. He tells me I'll be fine. I know it's my job to believe that, but I can't.

Two days later, I'm back. "I'm not better," I tell my doctor, "I'm worse." We talk for quite a while, and the word "depression" comes up. Also the word "anxiety." I'm jumpy and fidgety and keep repeating that I don't want to be home alone with the kids, but there's no one to stay with us. "I'm scared," I say. "Of what?" my doctor asks. But I have no clear answer. He calls for a social worker, who smiles constantly while gently leading me upstairs to see a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist and I talk until I am exhausted. When we are done, what he has to add makes sense: I am depressed. I am very anxious. The Compazine, and a double-tall mocha I had on an empty stomach Saturday morning, may have triggered the whole thing, but the Compazine alone was probably not responsible. And, he adds--the biggest irony--the fact that I was coping so well for so many months made this crash almost inevitable.

I go home with some little white pills for anxiety and some little pink ones for depression. I also have the promise that I won't have to take my chemo tomorrow. I'm not ready for it.

The next morning, having taken only a couple of pills, I'm working at the keyboard with a clear head and feeling worlds better.

@ Jeanne Sather 2006