New care team
After receiving my new diagnosis, I decided to change where I received treatment. No disrespect to my first oncologist, but it seemed my cancer scoffed at her aggressive treatment plan and therefore, I needed to take things up a notch. My cancer and I needed to go to where cancer goes to die. And since I am lucky (? is it luck at this point or stupidity to not abandon NYC in March 2020 like so many others?) to be living in NYC, that means being treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering. I’m hoping that each time I say “MSK,” one of my cancer cells chokes on its own rapid growth and dies.
MSK is the kind of speciality hospital where there are care coordinators and people apologize when you as a patient have to do any sort of administrative heavy lifting. I first went to MSK in 2019 and did not hit it off with my assigned doctor. This time, I was better versed in the MSK universe and gave the scheduling coordinator, a delightful woman named Dion, a list of providers which she patiently plugged into the scheduling system. My new doctor is about my age, whip smart, and does not look at me like I’m about to die. She explains the specifics of my treatment plan and tolerated my boyfriend’s questions. She works alongside an experienced nurse practitioner and a nurse who met me and then proceeded to give me two shots in the booty — her words, not mine and I loved her for it.
My treatment plan is comprehensive, targeted, and hopefully going to show my BC who is boss. Me. Or science. Either one. When I found out I had two cancerous lesions on my leg, I joked to my therapist that I should name them. That way, I could target my rage more effectively. Also, continuing to say “two spots of cancer” was getting depressing. I decided to name my spots, Monique and Nicole. M&N were two identical twin girls I went to grammar school with. I struggled a fair amount in middle school and I’m wise enough to know now that some of my problems were a bit of my own making. I wanted so desperately to be liked and popular that I often took other people down in my quest. M&N knew this about me and boy, did they exploit it. Since they were identical, they would often pretend to be the other. Monique, posing as Nicole, would sidle up to me and open by commenting on how awful Monique was and seek my agreement. A people pleaser at heart, I’d join in, only to find a few minutes into the conversation that I had been duped yet again. The fact that M&N got away with this multiple times is a real testament to my naïveté but that’s the subject of another post. They did this not only about the other, but would encourage me to bash other girls in our class, often in notes that would somehow end up in the hands of the person I had bashed alongside a twin. But everyone else was always in on the scheme. So when it came to naming the two spots of cancer that seem to be ganging up on my otherwise healthy body, the twins from my past immediately came to mind. I may not have been able to vanquish them as a middle schooler but I’m wiser, stronger, and care way less what people think of me.
