Fuck cancer.

That’s the last thing I remember thinking to myself before the medication knocked me out cold. 

And the first thing I remember after waking up.

And the only thing that's been on my mind for the past 10 years. Way before the surgery preparations, the biopsies and the MRIs, way before the pain had started, and way before that even, when mom’s boobs had decided to end her life prematurely. At 29, I had already done genetic testing for breast cancer. Twice. Negative both times. I thought I was out of the woods. Well I was wrong. I just didn’t expect it to show up in my leg instead.

I was on a run with Nikita when it first started. It was raining, but we didn’t really care. On the second to last stretch through the woods behind our apartment, I tripped on an overgrown root I had learned to jump over. Scraped my knee pretty badly, limped back home with Nikita’s help. 

But the pain never went away. The wound itself had healed, but there was this mechanical resistance to my movements, like a rusty hinge you need to force open. Cue in A525, anti-inflammatory ointments, physical therapy, Tylenol in dosages that would make a hepatologist squirm. My GP doctor and I thought about a possible ACL tear and she ordered an MRI. 

Bone cancer. And not the good kind.

Limb sparing surgeries were quickly put aside. The tumor had infiltrated arteries, veins, nerves, anything it could’ve put its tendrils around. It had started creeping up my thigh, contaminating every layer of tissues it touched. Without that fall in the rain, we might’ve taken longer to investigate and missed it before it was too late. Doctors said I was lucky.

Lucky.

I laughed at the word. I laughed at it back then and I laughed at it back in my room, still high on Propofol and Fentanyl. People probably thought I was tripping balls. I stared out the window to avoid looking at the bandages on my leg. I was lucky to have the outside view and not the corridor one.

Lucky.

The night nurses were the best, if being the best at taking care of cancer-stricken patients is worth anything. They would show up in my room to feed me a Dilaudid or two, a mouthful of Red Bull still traveling down their throat. I would stare back at the dark circles under their eyes wondering when was the last time they had a proper night’s sleep. Even they had bad days, and some more than others. I think working in healthcare does that to you. Working with sick people sucks the soul of your body one drop at a time until you can’t handle losing another patient to a cruel and random disease. Then you go on sick leave and try to convince yourself that you got better after doing some self-care therapy and exercise. Then you come back and do it all over again. Bullshit.

I also laughed at the first physiotherapist who came into my room with a walker. Poor fucker stood no chance. He stared at my left arm in disbelief for an entire minute before he started moving again. He mumbled a half-assed apology and went back to read the rest of my file properly. It's called amniotic band syndrome, sir, and it wasn't gonna help you help me, trust me. It had never been of much help, anyway. 

I think chemo was the worst of it all. Worst than the trauma, worst than the tangible and phantom pains, worst than the looks I was getting. Who am I kidding, I've been getting looks all my life. But nothing is worse than feeling sick. And I mean sick. Being nauseous for months on end, unable to eat or drink without gagging until I puked my stomach inside and out. Having a feeding tube up my nose and even then still getting nauseous from the smell of the gavage. Having a suppository shoved up my ass so often that I started shitting bricks. Needing help to wipe my ass because I no longer had any sense of balance. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.

I shaved my head the week after my amputation. Cutting off  3 feet of hair should be considered a federal crime. But it was either that or losing it in bunches. Rip off the band-aid, they said. Donating it did nothing to help me grieve. I cried for days. 

But don't worry, the best is yet to come. 

On my last day of chemo, Eric came and wheeled me out of the oncology ward for a quick dinner out. He had rented a reception room all for us two, to reduce the risk of annihilating what little immune system I had left. I didn't have much appetite yet, but it's the gesture that counts, right? 

It was on the ride back to the hospital that the truck hit us.

An old man, drunk as a sailor in broad daylight. Ran a red light on its way to buy another 24 packs of beer. His rusted bumper broke my femur and tore the rest of my leg off when it passed through my door, because of course it did. 

Nobody knows how I'm still alive. The blood that pooled on the floor of the car was frightening, to use the EMTs own words. I'll let you guess what they called me.

They couldn't save my leg, because of course they couldn't. Tens of fractures, most of them open, and a wound so irregular I needed an emergency transfer hundreds of miles away to get it sewn back on. It was no use, they said. They closed the stump at about the same length as my other leg because of course they did.

I cried for years.