Do ALL the Things

I grew up with a father who didn’t like, or trust, doctors. He did not get annual physicals. He did not do anything healthcare related. No care, no tests, no preventative anything. Unless an ambulance we needed, He. Was. Not. Going.

To some degree, I understand. He grew up in a household where his younger brother needed constant care and tests, and still, it didn’t save his life. My uncle died at the age of 19 from kidney disease. I am sure that was difficult for the entire family, to say the least. It sounded like a difficult way to live – for all of them – and an immeasurable amount of grief and loss after his death.

I didn’t understand this as a child, however. I remember my father injuring his thumb. I’m not really sure, but it was something like accidentally driving a nail into his thumb in or near his nail. He refused to do more than put a band-aid on it. It didn’t take long…days? A week? And his thumb was clearly infected. But he was NOT going to the doctor. And was certainly NOT going to the hospital. Being 10 or 11 and having just read Gone with the Wind and so clearly the household expert on Civil War Era medicine, I convinced my father that he was developing gang green and that if he didn’t go to the hospital NOW, they might have to amputate. And if he didn’t go at all he’d die.

I have no idea if the situation was anywhere near that dire. But somehow my very detailed description of the colors and smells of flesh-eating bacteria got my father to beg my mother to a) make me stop talking!! And b) get him to the hospital.

I learned two things that day:

1)        I am a force to be reckoned with, with crazy powers of persuasion.

2)        When it comes to your health and well-being, go do all the things!

Go to all the check-ups, take all the tests, do all the preventative care, have everything checked and double-checked. Knowledge is absolutely powerful. Find the answers, weigh the options, make the best decisions you can, have the surgery, take the medicine. Do. All. The. Things.

When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, I was immediately annoyed with how many doctors appointments I had. With how much of my time they wanted. Like, what? I don’t have a life? Or a job? But I came to the decision that the life and the work wouldn’t matter if I wasn’t alive to have them. So I did all the things.

But then they wanted me to take this pill. For five years. It could prevent breast cancer from returning. Or it could cause me to develop uterine cancer. Of course, those two chances aren’t equal but, in my head, without clear numbers, they are. To top it off, everyone I’ve spoken to who was prescribed the same drug reported so many side effects that they stopped taking the pill in year one.

I told my cousin that the vial of pills was on my vanity counter, but I just couldn’t bring myself to take them. Would it help? Would it hurt? Would I gain weight, lose brain power, become sluggish and cloudy and all the other things people told me happened to them? She told me she knew several people who had taken it all five years with no issues and reminded me that every body handles things differently. And there’s no way for me to know how my body will handle it until I try.

So I put my big girl panties on and swallowed the pill. In fact, I’ve been taking it for a week now. The only side effect I’ve experienced – and I have no idea if it’s the drug or not – is a lot of crying. But that’s a blog for another day.

The truth is I’ve always believed in self-fulfilling prophecies. Unfortunately, you only hear that phrase used when someone thinks negatively, and then negative things happen to them. So, I’m about to blow all the Negative Nelly minds out there out of the water and turn it around.

My self-fulfilling prophecy is that I’m going to take this damn drug for five damn years and it’s going to make me lose weight, be smarter, more clear-headed, and give me more energy! It’s going to keep breast cancer, and all the cancers, away.

Tamoxifen, you are my bitch…let’s go!