It's Been a Minute

It has been two years and two months, to be more precise. We are in that interim phase, Christmas done, Hanukkah underway, anticipating a turn of the page. Winter is here, Trump is coming, again, and I’m finding space in the gaps of activity, New York and Brooklyn quiet, the Lord of the Rings on, again, for company, sat in between my dog and one of my cats.

I had cancer. I stopped writing when I was diagnosed, or rather, when I was in the process of being diagnosed. The conventional wisdom in cancer circles is that the time between finding the problem and having a clear diagnosis and treatment plan is the worst you will experience because your mind is not your friend. The dates stay with me still— on September 17th, I went to the beach with my mom, took a 1 mile jog, since I was trying to get back to running. When I was done running, my chest felt sore. After I got home, out of an abundance of anxiety I did a self exam on my breasts and found a small lump. That was a Saturday, so I had to wait until Monday to call my OB/GYN who ordered a mammogram (my first) and ultrasound. I had to wait three weeks for the imaging on October 12th. I had to wait.

For most of my life I’ve used writing to untangle my thoughts, render mess into some kind of clarity. During that first bit of waiting, writing, speculation, reviewing my feelings in a journal, felt useless. I talked to my therapist and a close circle of friends. I’d learned from *sweeps hand* an entire life of health anxiety, that I never much found emotional comfort in my parents for things like these. The problem is twofold— they wouldn’t say what I wanted to hear, which is an impossible thing to want from people. I’ve learned that. I surrounded myself with friend plans. I signed up with a personal trainer. In spite of everything, I wanted to feel strong.

I went alone to the imaging appointment. There are entire volumes which can be said about what it feels like in doctor’s waiting rooms, sharing waiting and nervousness with other women facing existential unknowns, as daytime TV goes on ridiculously on in the background. Waiting in hospital gowns, paper or cloth, open to the back or front, or those new ones they have which are like ponchos. Waiting after a technician has run their scans and they need the doctor to review before deciding that more angles are needed in the mammogram. That day, the radiologist came into the dark ultrasound room to tell me directly that the results were “concerning.” I asked her if there was any possibility that the mass could be benign and she shook her head no, it was most likely cancer.

Biopsy Thursday, October 20th, 2022, my 38th birthday with an ultrasound guided needle and I brought my mom, along with a book of J.R.R. Tolkien’s illustrations, which my friend Laura had sent. The day before I saw George Saunders and Brandon Taylor speak in Park Slope with my friends, Mo and Ramsey. A day before that, we went to see Jonathan Richman perform, my first time. After my biopsy, only a little bit sore, I saw two of my favorite comedians with those same friends as a small birthday celebration. I went for a walk with my friend Vance on Saturday and talked about the biopsy, the whole process. He said he hoped it was nothing, but to keep him posted. I somehow managed to avoid my MyChart, my patient portal, for five days after the biopsy. I melted down at least once, Sunday Scaries compounded by everything I didn’t know, the most scared I’d ever felt.

Tuesday, October 25th, 2022, I met my surgeon for the first time. I brought my mom and the Tolkien again. My surgeon came into the room, direct and self-assured and said, “Ms. Workoff, before I say anything else, you are going to be fine.” He went on to say that I had likely Stage 1 invasive ductal carcinoma, both estrogen and progesterone positive, HER2Neu status not yet available, that my cancer was slow moving and very easy to treat, and there was a tremendous chance of cure. My mom seemed shocked, for once, speechless. Considering all I had googled, I was relieved. I brought a notebook with me and wrote down the facts of my disease and treatment. I also wrote down the good things, transcribed directly anything favorable about my outcome that he could see. I did this for every single doctor visit and appointment during this early phase of treatment. Words did help in a way— I needed an artifact, a capture in a notebook, to help me understand that I might be okay.

I got the sense that my surgeon was quick and clever, so when he asked me what I was doing November 10th and I said “I think I might be getting surgery then.” Ten days after diagnosis, I got a lumpectomy and a sentinel node biopsy, only two lymph nodes removed. A little less than a week after that, surgery results. I still have the voicemail when my surgeon called and said, “Ms. Workoff, I have good news.” The pathology showed they’d gotten clear margins and my lymph nodes nodes were cancer free as well. I had more labs to wait for— genetic testing, the HER2, and finally my oncotype score, the last of which came in on December 16th, 2022, and all of which came back as favorably as they could, pointing me away from chemo and towards a month of radiation in January 2023 and hormonal therapy, a daily pill for the next 5-10 years. And here I am, still, seeing more doctors than I ever thought I would (I counted my 2024 appointments— 26 doctor visits total), two rounds of clean imaging since that first mammogram and ultrasound.

I realize what I’m relating might not be great writing. This also might be why it’s taken me so long to want to write. My cancer narrative is burned into my brain, one event following the other, a kid going “and then, and then.” It’s not that I haven’t found meaning from the experience— everything is different now. At minimum, I don’t know how to be the writer that I wanted to be before. I don’t know that I want to be a writer at all. I still love writing and what it does. I still love figuring out how it works. I find my ego a little less desperate, a little less in need of the validation I’d been questing after before I got cancer. This is has nothing to do with why anyone else writes or wants to find success in writing— to borrow a corny armchair psych term we use a lot in distance running, I just don’t know what my “why” is any more. At least, I’ve gotten rid of the superficial “whys” I’d toted along for a really long time, young dreaming, adolescence, 20s confusion, through MFA confusion and post-MFA confusion. I used to dream about being interviewed, about being a WRITER, having that identity I suppose. Having a small bit of fame and some status in the world for being this one thing. I never would have admitted that before, seeming so precious as never to be uttered. But I don’t care.

I remember I used to tell people that I wanted to get certain feelings and experiences on the page which I hadn’t seen expressed before, and if I could capture something I’d felt, that others felt, I could perhaps help people feel less alone. But I’ve had to be selfish in the last two years, so afraid of my own death because the cells in my body did something I didn’t plan for. I’m still scared of cancer, of the fast-moving, big, bad kinds. I feel lucky for the kind of cancer I had. But it was still cancer. I was angry for a while that I had to deal with this thing that most of my peers did not, that at every waiting room I was the youngest by 20 or 30 years at least. But now I have cancer friends, people to whom I’m bonded because we all faced the same, terrible thing. I feel terrible for anyone diagnosed with cancer, for those who have lost loved ones to it. I have become more open, I think, better equipped to talk to people about shitty things, whether it’s losing family or facing a diagnosis yourself. I like feeling useful in this way. I also used to write a lot about characters who felt as though they couldn’t say what they thought, as though their desires were trapped inside of their bodies. I’m still shy, but I talk a lot more now. My medical oncologist prescribed Lexapro to help manage recurrence anxiety and as much as I was afraid of taking pills, this little drug has brought me to baseline. I always wanted to connect with people, but now I can and do.

At any rate, all of this cancer has been so much that even though I’ve found ways to exist with it in my daily life and to be relatively okay mentally, I don’t know how to tell its story, not in a straightforward sense by any means.

I can’t capture it at all, because cancer, by its nature, will do what it wants to do.

So, I don’t know what this will be, but there’s some pull back towards having a conversation here, with all of you.

And another thing, for this year, something of which I’m extremely proud. I turned 40 and I ran my first marathon, New York of course. I found myself telling people that it was hard, harder than I’d imagined. I did not tell them though, that it was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Losing Luke, getting cancer, will always be so much harder. Life doing what life does, only promises loss and pain. But gosh, there is so much beauty, joy, and love, that I want to be around for all of it, and all of my best people, as long as I possibly can.