I was in the car, in the same supermarket parking lot when I called my husband. Thinking it was going to be our typical quick check in “how’s your day going” call he said “hey…what’s up?”
There was silence on the phone…and all of a sudden it hit me. Our life was about to change the moment I shared the news I had just received.
I very nonchalantly said “I just got off the phone with Kristin you are not going to believe this…I have a flipping brain tumor. A BRAIN TUMOR! Can you even believe it?”. We sat on the phone dumbfounded…and both headed home so we could talk in person.
We talked logistics first – where was it, how big was it, do I have a surgeon ready to go. How do we tell the kids. When do we tell the kids? When do we tell our family.
I was set to leave for Palm Springs the next morning to go to the BNP Paribas Tennis Tournament in Indian Wells with a handful of my girlfriends from our kids school. Will was planning on heading to Whistler with another family and our kids.
Will thought we should cancel our plans. NO WAY I said. On Monday we are going to meet with a neurosurgeon and I am just telling you right now – I am NOT going to live with a tumor inside my head…I don’t care what it is or where it is…it needs to come out. I can not live with a tumor in my head”.
My husband,who is rather deliberate and likes to weigh pros and cons before making a decision said “lets just wait to hear what the doctor says on Monday” to which I agreed…and started to pack my bag for Palm Springs.
There was a knock on our door that evening around 9:15pm. I opened the front door and there stood Kristin. She had just worked well over a 12 hour shift. I looked at her and said “I can not thank you enough for taking a look at my scan…but what are you doing here…you must be exhausted”.
Kristin, being Kristin just said “ya know, when you make a call to tell a friend she has a brain tumor…you just feel like checking in and giving her a hug and make sure she is doing okay”…at which point I started to get choked up. It was actually real now. I hadn’t cried, I hadn’t weeped…but when I saw Kristin…it hit me. And I was so grateful for her friendship and her thoughtfulness at that very moment. She is extraordinary.
I arrived early morning to Palm Springs on Friday, March 16th…just a few hours before my girlfriends arrived. I headed straight to Indian Wells to see my mom. I needed to tell her in person. THAT was hard. My mom has been through so much. She herself is a cancer survivor – Stage 4 Bladder cancer. And for four years she was the 24/7 caregiver to my dad, the love of her life. Watching the person you love in pain, scared, but so strong and brave at the same time, would be almost impossible to bare. Yet millions of people around the world do it. Somehow they find their inner strength, a strength most people can not fathom they actually possess…and get into war mode…and start taking charge of something you have no control over.
Why Not Me 