just like any other tuesday...

this morning, i forgot how to get to the hospital. having been here more times than i care to count in the last ten months, i could probably find my way here in my sleep, but this morning i got in the car, closed the door, buckled my seat belt, turned the engine on...and had absolutely no clue where i was going. funny how your brain shuts down in the moments that you need it the most.

my sister is having a mastectomy today. it's her second one since being diagnosed with breast cancer ten months ago, and although this one is more for preventative reasons, i still find myself sitting here in the eerily quiet hospital waiting room thinking that there is just no way my sister has cancer. i remember the day last year when she called me in a panic, claiming to have found a lump in her breast - i was dismissive and told her it was nothing because niki tends to be a little dramatic and of course it was nothing. it had to be nothing. had it been me, i would have ignored it, or not had time to deal with it, but niki went to the doctor the next day. they wanted to do some more tests but she was scheduled to go on a three week work trip to kenya, so the testing had to wait. she emailed me while she was gone and asked me to help her set up her appointments, which i did with an eye roll because a) leave it to niki to need me to take care of something when she is 7,500 miles away and b) of course it was nothing.

when she was back home, she followed up with the doctor, but even when i accompanied her to the biopsy they had ordered for her, i wasn't worried. they were just being extra careful. nothing is wrong with my sister. this is all just standard procedure. right? a few days later i got a phone call while i was at work. it was niki's number, but her boss' voice on the other end of the line, and she didn't need to say it, because i already knew.  it wasn't nothing.  "you need to come get your sister. the doctor just called. it's cancer. she's a wreck." at some point during the cab ride over to her office from mine, my brain decided it wasn't emotionally equipped to handle this news, and so, it stepped out of my body. i'm pretty sure that is the only way i managed to stand in the lobby of my sister's building, hold her in my arms, and assure her that everything was going to be fine. it's the only way i was able to take the phone from her when she got too choked up to call my parents to tell them the diagnosis. and i know it's the only way i could have possibly kept it together after hearing my mother's reaction. because my brain still stubbornly insisted, nothing is wrong with my sister.  oh, the power of denial.

in the months since that first phone call, a lot has changed for my family. but a lot more has changed for niki. i will never understand how she's been able to deal with all of this without the least bit of bitterness or anger. sure, she's had bad days here and there, but she's never dwelt on it or lingered on the question why did this have to happen to me?  if anything, her reaction has been more like, let's get this over with because i am really busy and all these appointments are eating into the time i want to spend letting my dog lick me in the face.  after we hung up the phone from telling my parents that day, niki told me she'd asked her doctor if she was going to die.  we didn't know yet what stage the cancer was in, how aggressive it may or may not be, or what kind of treatment she'd be looking at, but once she heard the news that no, she was not going to die, i think she made up her mind then and there that she was just not going to let this be that big of a deal.  even sitting in chemo class with her, i'm raising my hand and asking questions and taking notes and writing down things to research, and niki is busy being worried about the girl across the table from us, who looks like she is about 6 months pregnant.  so many people have it worse than me, she says.  and that is just like her, to think about everyone else.

there are days when my brain still refuses to acknowledge all of this.  looking back at the last year, and how niki has faced it all with humor and grace (yes, i just used the word grace to describe my sister.  it probably won't ever happen again.), it makes me wonder how she's done it all.  i've been there as much as i can - gone to appointments, held her hand during not-so-pleasant medical procedures, bathed her stupid hedgehog because her doctor told her not to touch it during chemo - but i can't go through this with her.  i can't understand how she feels or what's going on in her head (not that i could do that on a normal day), and i've struggled with that.  but niki being niki, she doesn't really give me much of a chance to worry about that.  she's busy getting on with her life, and with this surgery down and only her reconstruction left to go, she's well on her way to proving me right - nothing is wrong with my sister.  only it's not denial anymore.  it's just the way things are.