A New Tattoo: A Colon Cancer Journey | After The Colonoscopy

He doesn’t remember the ride home, though he reminded me of the directions the entire way.

“Babe you should get over, you’re going to have to turn soon." Even coming off anesthesia his directions are correct.

I put him to bed. The best thing possible is sleep. Sleep to heal. Sleep to rest. Sleep to forget the news of the day.

My daughter’s face.

She’s smart that one. She’s intuitive. She knows us. She knows the sounds of our voices, the slight changes in pitch and tone that signify something is askew. She knows the shape of our bodies, how they change when life feels heavy.

Even though we hadn’t told her yet. She knew.

My mother’s face.

Keeping strong for my girl.

From the small room she texted me, “I’m holding you now. I should have come with you. What can I do?”

I responded, “Nothing. Be normal. I have to tell him.”

A few minutes later she sent a picture of her and Issa sitting outside at the table Issa, Bill and I had spent all weekend laying slate under, digging in the dirt together, getting muddy and struggling to carry huge stones together across the yard, watching our girl get distracted by every worm and doodle bug, even though she’s nearly 13 because she is who she is and she’s forever distracted by nature in the best possible way.

“Enjoying your table. Trying to act normal.”

My mother’s face. Keeping strong for me, for her girl.

We’d just done this, her and I, in the hospital, her body telling us something was wrong, doctors trying to figure it out. I’d prepared for her procedure only four weeks earlier. I packed an overnight bag, I’d prepared my mind for possibilities of immediate surgery. I had two friends there for support. I wrestled with the worst possible outcomes.

The doctor called us back after her heart catheter procedure.

“She has the arteries of a 20 year old. Her heart is great.”

It wasn’t answers to what was wrong, the answers we’d hoped for, but it was good news.

I did none of this emotional or physical prep for Bill’s appointment. I was confident. I was sure it was something simple. I’d only mentioned the possibility of it being something worse three times, once to my best friend, once to my mom, and once to my sister in law.

I was not prepared.

My mom and I hugged in the shadows of the house, away from our girl. I cried quietly in empty places.

I knew we had to tell her, but I knew Bill needed to be there, but today he needed to rest.

Mom stayed with us most of the day.

Bill slept.

At 6:43pm he texted me from the bedroom, “I love you. And am sorry I am putting you through this.”

“I love you. Please do not apologize, you have nothing to apologize for. I’m here for this. Thick or thin. Sickness and health. Absolutely all of it. I chose you 17 years ago and I will continue to choose you every. Single. Day. 

Together we’ve got this.

I love you. For always. Through anything.

I love you. Thank you for choosing me.”

At some point I walked into the bathroom where he was.

“Are you ok?” he asked.

“I’m not.”

And then it was my time to break.

My time to cry quiet, but unconsolable tears.

We laid in bed, holding each other, both crying. We had done this the night of the fire and for so many nights after. We had done this for those three days where I was certain I had lost him in that fire and my brain was imagining him there. I was so sure he was gone. I was so sure I was just seeing him because my mind could not handle the truth.

But the fire did not take him.

And while I saw the fire as it breathed in my house that day, not knowing where he was, if he’d made it out, ready and willing to run into our burning home to find him, I couldn’t see this. I couldn’t see the cancer.

The doctor had handed me a print out of photos, each one about 1.5”x1.5”, they just looked like photos of someone’s insides. Nothing as menacing as fire breathing through the brick of our home or the black smoke that could be seen from blocks away. I’d done medical illustration work, I’d had surgeon clients and sat in on multiple surgeries, saw photos, but this did not register as anything to me.

Then I remembered what the nurse told me. 

“That dark spot right there, that’s not the mass, that’s the tattoo.”

“I’m sorry, the tattoo?!” I asked her, incredibly confused.

“Yes we tattoo the mass so it’s easy for the surgeon to find.”

While I held Bill, while we held each other with tear stained faces, eyes puffy, I leaned into him and said, “William, you have a tattoo in your butt.”