13th
When you don't expect it
In total it took a little over a year to gather up all the information we needed to officially sit my little sister down and tell her it was cancer.
It wasn’t the surgery that had been so hard. But this is coming from the observer. I’m sure if this were my sister writing it, you would hear a different story. Sitting in the hospital waiting room for hours seemed routine at this point since our father had gone through a testicular cancer surgery one year and one month earlier. And my yiyia (grandmother) had her breast removed because of cancer a month before my father’s surgery. We would just sit around with coffee and laugh as inappropriate conversations propelled the tiny living room in our house into a whirlwind of laughter. “They’re going for the family goods!” My dad always jokes about it. He would always joke about it, and how it is so much more comfortable to ride his bike around now. As that year aged on, Katherine (who was diagnosed with Graves disease earlier on) kept complaining about her acne. When we put her through a blood test to see if she could go on a strong medication to take care of her skin (she was only 18 at the time) the doctor informed us that her blood work came back… irregular. This is when it stopped being funny. Katherine was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease. They told us they needed to take the thyroid out, but it doesn’t look too serious.
Then they told us there were some irregularities with the disease and they found cells that look similar to cancer cells, but not to worry.
Then they told us we would need to operate as soon as we can get a bed, and it’s probably cancer.
And it was.
It wasn’t real until she came out of surgery. Walking in and looking at my baby sister just staring back at me with those grayish brown dead eyes, not smiling and sitting straight up was the moment I realized the hell that is cancer. She came out of surgery just fine, so to say, but they had told us that they left half the thyroid in.
Why, I’ll never know.
That first week out of surgery was the hardest. My mother and father were the true champions, working night and day, sleeping on the couch so we could put Katherine in the big room of the house. Before and after I went to work we would sit together and try to smile or sign with our hands what she wanted. Her vocal cords were extremely sensitive and it would take a week to get her voice back. I wanted to make her laugh, and did, but not without a sharp look from her, reminding me how painful it was to chuckle. I forget these things.
Her medication was not right and she was reacting poorly to the dosages. She started to throw up a lot and mutely scream in pain from the stitches ripping open with every upchuck.
It was a Thursday afternoon that she was able to start whispering again. That’s when we got the first call from the doctors saying that the cancer cells had metastasized and were spreading quickly. They needed to go back in as soon as possible and take the rest of the Thyroid out as well as a couple lymphoids.
My mother, a very strong but direct person, walked in, told Katherine the news, and walked out. Katherine and I were sitting on the bed and just looked at the ground. We all knew this was going to happen but I don’t think she ever believed she would have to go through this again. And so soon, she just got her voice back.
And then something happened, something that I will never forget until the day I die.
She, with her eyes still holding that grayish brown stare started to fill with tears and she hunched over herself and started to sob in squeals and shakes. You must remember her voice was not back yet and this was painful and nauseating for her.
We are not a very affectionate family so moments like this are scarier than anything because we don’t always know how to show the other one how much we love them. How can you?
She looked at me and whispered, ” This isn’t fair. I don’t think I can do this again. Like, I don’t know if I am strong enough. What if I don’t make it this time out?”
We sat there very quietly for the longest minute I have ever experienced.
“Katherine, this is almost over. You’ll be great.”
What a stupid thing to say. I said that same thing to her before the first surgery. There was no sense of relief on her face, but what was I supposed to say. I had no idea what she was going through and would do anything to go through it for her. I drank, I had smoked, I stress, sometimes work out, and do not eat healthy. She is a yoga fanatic that never drinks or smokes. She eats and lives her life healthier than the rest of us and yet, I have to look at this child with all of my own vices and tell her, “Trust me. You’ll be ok” not knowing if I was telling her the biggest lie of them all.
Nerves were high that Tuesday she went into surgery. My dad, mom, sisters and I crammed into a small room they were holding her before surgery, in tears with laughter. We kept bumping into medical equipment, turning off machines, laughing at all the times we had been in this dumb hospital and wondering if they would give us a discount stamp card, like you do at coffee shops, for frequent visitors. Maybe?
You couldn’t get enough of us in there for her, but still, when it was time to wheel her away, I felt like we should have done more. Knowing she was laughing her head off going through those hospital doors was pretty cool though.
The surgery was successful and they kept her in the hospital for much longer this time.
Then the second she got better it was time for the Iodine radiation.
Another week.
Three days in isolation. More problems. But in the end, she was still standing.
Today Katherine Kosearas is Cancer free.
It has not been a full year yet, but I have never seen her more beautiful.
Mary Kosearas is SeventyK advocate. She has been involved with SeventyK and works as a freelance journalist.
