It was never really the shoe.
When my surgeon called to tell me my pathology report showed cancer cells in one of the lymph nodes they removed I didn’t cry. I’ve cried every other time we’ve gotten not great news. But this time I didn’t, I guess I felt more prepared in a way. When the oncologist called to confirm I would indeed need chemo I forgot to ask any questions, literally none. I hung up the phone and realized other than knowing my start date I knew nothing about what treatment would look like. Reflecting on it more I think I didn’t ask questions because most of this experience still feels very surreal and out of my control. I am committed to fighting this with everything I’ve got there’s no questions there so when the doctors tell me something needs to happen I don’t feel like it’s a choice, it just has to happen. My wonderful oncologist called the very next day, a day she wasn’t in the office, to give me the rundown on what my chemo would look like. 8 treatments over 16 weeks, 4 doses of two drugs which I have come to find out are commonly known as AC chemo, one drug terrifyingly referred to as “the red devil”. Then 4 doses of another drug called Taxol. The first 4 doses my oncologist told me “will be hard, it won’t be the hardest thing you do in your life, but it will be close and we will get you through it”. I will lose my hair, have nausea, no appetite, foods will taste different, etc etc. I didn’t even really cry when I got off the phone after hearing all this! Instead I joked with Greg that this seems like a very extreme way to lose the last 10lbs of baby weight!
I’ve spent the last two weeks soaking in as much normalcy as I can and staying busy! Which is easy to do when your 11 month old twins who have the attention span of a goldfish and are literally running in opposite directions 90 percent of the day! So after an evening walk as we were bringing the girls into the house I realized 1 shoe was missing! Ok so we all know the annoyance of one missing sock, or one missing something in a pair but let me tell you the bane of my existence as a twin mom is “where in the hell is the 4th shoe?”. Usually the 4th shoe is somewhere in the house but this time I knew it had been lost out in the wild and it sent me into a tailspin. As soon as the babies were in bed I ripped the house apart knowing it wasn’t there! Greg even drove along our walk route looking for the shoe while I sat on the couch at home sobbing...about a shoe. When it dawned on me. It wasn’t the shoe. While annoying to be missing one shoe, it was the fact that I felt like I should be able to keep track of a shoe! It should be a situation I could control. My whole world feels like it’s out of my control right now. That this next year of my life is defined by this cancer and that so many decisions are being made for me. So it was never really about the shoe! It felt good to be able to verbalize that when Greg got home from looking for the shoe, which he did not find. It felt good to cry about the fact that I don’t want to do this, this is not the journey I want to be on! And it felt hard but ok to feel all the feels. So in a way losing the shoe was pretty cathartic and allowed me to process some things I wasn’t allowing myself to feel.
A few days later I took the girls for a walk and low and behold you can imagine my excitement when there wedged between two posts was our missing 4th shoe! I actually think I squealed with joy and might have even jumped! This silly little shoe that had caused so much turmoil was safely placed just waiting for us to find it. And in a weird way it just felt like everything would be ok. That I needed to lose the shoe to feel the feels. I’m sure I’m putting far too much emphasis on a baby shoe but some part of me just felt like it was a sign that while frustrating all will be ok.
Thank you Emily for encouraging me to write about the missing shoe! While some days the feelings are harder to process than other days I know I will get through this. As always thank you to my community for reaffirming constantly that I am not in this alone!