the news is sinking in

Sooo....its been about 3 weeks since I was officially diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma.  I'm getting used to saying the sentence 'i have cancer' but it still feels surreal.  I use it both as a shield of protection, being gentle with myself and pretend it's my 'free ticket' card....I'll get more help, I can order out more, I can have a messy house with no excuses, no holiday cards this year....but really, it's quite scary.  I joke a lot, and I hope it makes other people feel more at ease and able to not look at me or talk to me like I'm not going to be OK.  Because I will be.  I know I'll be fine.  What bothers me the most is that my family may not be.  How will they get through difficult days when they need their mama b/c their feelings were hurt?  Who will brush the snarls out of my sweet girl's ever tangled hair?  How will my husband  handle the pressure of work, dinners, laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping........heck how will he find the peanut butter if he doesn't move the cans in front of it?  

I have come to think they cannot function without me.  Picking up the toys that have slowly trickled from top to bottom, quietly reorganizing their backpacks and clothes, etc. so that when they go to look for it, it is back where it should be.  I envision a home filled with chaos and lost items.  Children crying for their mommy and homework unfinished, dishes unattended, bodies not bathed, teeth not brushed.In reality, I know they will survive.  Just as I will.  But I worry that the daily absence of my help will be something we can't come back from.....not the same anyway.  They won't need me the same  and maybe that's more my loss and something I'm grieving.  They will be forced into responsibilities that they haven't known.  The privilege of  always having me there, as they breezily meander through life, stolen from them.

The truth is since I've been diagnosed my husband has stepped up to the plate above and beyond what I could have imagined.  He's loved me harder and more attentively, yet remotely, knowing I am secretly suffering and that presents in a defensive & bitchy way.  He is my one constant, and has always believed in me more than I do myself.  No matter how big or small I've disappointed him, he has managed to put his pain aside and heal us both.  He has shown me that true love is selfless, not something that comes from our own needs...he is patient, and whatever my mistakes, he keeps holding me up, looking for nothing in return.  He has loved me when I haven't loved myself, and in truth if it werent for him, I would be broken.  I will return the many favors of his love, and fight the hardest fight I have in me.....for and because of him.  F*ck off cancer.  Ain't nothin come b/w me and my man.  Except of course some nice new, well deserved boobs ;o)