Two Years

It’s been two years now since I had my thyroid removed.  I can still vividly remember where I was and how I felt when I first felt the tumor. 

I was driving south on I-405, just past exit 5, in the right hand lane.  It was sunny with clouds that day.  I put my right hand to my neck and swept my fingers down in a smooth, slow stroke.  It wasn't soft and even like I expected it to be.  There was a lump. 

My breath left my lungs immediately, giving no heed to the tingly black spots it created in my vision.  I couldn't breathe.  I felt sick, like I could throw up or faint.  I forgot how to drive and swerved dangerously close to the roadside barrier.  When I put the car back in the lines, the tears came, hot and pricking.

That was a day that changed my life.  I’ve only had a few of those days in my short existence.  The dreadful ones where you just know nothing will ever be the same.  Or the exhilarating ones when you hope nothing will ever be the same.  Or the eerie ones where you know you just know nothing at all. 

Those days have a way of visiting again and again.  Teaching us a lesson we never knew we needed to learn.  Or revisiting a lesson we have to learn again.  More often than not, I find it’s the latter.  A lesson we've already been taught knocks on our door again because we've forgotten the importance, or grown complacent in our newfound knowledge.  We have to learn the lesson over again, this time, perhaps focusing on a different facet, reaching another level, or simply flipping on a light bulb of realization. 

Those days change you.  It’s unavoidable, inevitable and irreparable.  It shapes who you are no matter how you fight the net of the universe as it drags you where it wants you to be.   You never know when they are coming or which kind they’ll be.

The day I heard the word “cancer”, the day my grandpa died, the day I had a miscarriage, the day I lost my job – those were the days that slammed me to the floor and hovered over, taunting, daring me to get up.  Nothing in life would ever be the same.

But it’s not always for the worse, even though my gut and every logical thought would disagree.  The days that change you can be uplifting and magically joyful.  The day I told Ben I loved him, the day my son was born, the day I heard “No evidence of disease” – those exhilarating days were wrapped in quickened heartbeats and this resounding feeling of monumental, breathless change.  Nothing in life would ever be the same. 

Those wretched, heartbreaking, agony-filled days that changed my life were truly the ones that saved my life.  And those goose bump-inducing, blissful, deep breath, closed eyes days made it a life worth saving.