The Life I Could Have Lived

I blocked my middle school crush on Facebook. My high school crush came out of the closet. My college crush became Lady Gaga's dog walker and got shot. My crush from my twenties died recently. Small Town Guy got married. And the Model repeatedly made a fool of himself in front of the entire country. 

One of my favorite movies is Sliding Doors, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, which shows how one brief moment can have a controlling effect on your life. In one reality, Gwyneth's character, Helen, misses a train and thus misses seeing her cheating boyfriend with his ex-girlfriend. In another reality, Helen catches the train and also catches her boyfriend in bed with his ex. The movie shows the aftermath of both scenarios. 

I've also read several books recently about how one moment or choice can lead to a chain reaction of events. The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig, shows a woman named Nora several alternate versions of what her life could have been like, such as if she'd become a successful musician, an Olympic swimmer, the wife of her ex-boyfriend, and so on. In This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub, middle-aged Alice relives her sixteenth birthday and makes different choices that affect her future. In Maybe in Another Life, by Taylor Jenkins Reid, the author shows what happens if Hannah chooses to be with her high school boyfriend, and what happens if she doesn't. 

It made me think about what would have happened if the guys I'd crushed on in the past had liked me back. My life would be very different. In middle school, I had a crush on a farmer's son. I watched him exchange Christmas gifts with his girlfriend, and my twelve-year-old heart shattered. Many years later, I ended up blocking him on Facebook because we got into an argument about transgender soldiers. He kept asserting that Trump's ban on transgender people in the military was right because they were mentally ill. I said that I'd taught several transgender students, some of whom confided in me, and that I admired their courage. If I'd ended up with that bigot, we'd be living on a farm in the country, driving around in a pickup truck with the bumper sticker "Lock her up", and arguing about whether or not to attend Trump rallies. I also probably would have tried to figure out a way to train the cows and/or the horses to kick some sense into him. 

When I was in New York a few years ago, my high school homecoming date contacted me on Facebook because he'd seen my posts about the city. He was in the city on vacation too, and he invited me out for a drink with his partner. I accepted, and he introduced me to his longtime boyfriend. If I'd ended up with him, we would have broken up once he realized he was gay. And I might have reacted like Joan Cusack's character did in the movie In & Out, when she ran outside in her wedding dress, shrieking, "Is everybody gay?"

In college, I had a crush on a guy who lived in my dorm. I only spoke to him a few times because I was shy. Years later, he became Lady Gaga's dog walker, the one who got shot by thieves who stole her dogs (fortunately, he recovered and the dogs were later returned to her). He also reportedly came out as queer, so again, if I had ended up with that guy, I might have run around shrieking in a wedding dress. 

When I was in my twenties, I joined a youth group at my church for people close to my age. There was a guy there that I had a huge crush on, and unlike several of the other crushes I'd had over the years, he stood out because I actually tried to do something about it. I joined a committee that planned events for the group just because he was part of it. I spent a lot of time with him, and I liked him a lot. He was friendly, good-looking, smart, and kind to everyone. 

But one day, he mentioned talking on the phone with another young woman on the committee. He didn't say anything about dating her, but I thought it was significant that they had exchanged numbers whereas the rest of us had only exchanged email addresses. I think they dated for a while, but then his job transferred him to Hong Kong and he didn't take her with him. He followed me on Twitter a couple years later, not knowing who I was because I went by my online screen name Neurotic Workaholic, and I sent him a DM to say hi. He didn't remember who I was at first, which crushed me. Years later, I found his obituary online. He had died at the age of forty (although the obituary didn't say how). He was still living in Hong Kong and was engaged to a woman there. If I had dated him, he might have left me behind in the U.S. to pursue his career overseas. Or maybe I would have become the grieving fiancee. 

Small Town Guy got married last year to his girlfriend, the same woman who had once referred to my classes as "throwaway classes that no one cares about". When I saw their wedding pictures on Facebook, I must admit that I felt a pang in my heart as I wondered what my life would have been like with him. On paper, he was perfect for me: he liked to read, so we could talk about the same books; we both worked in academia, so we could talk about our jobs and relate to each other; he was the extrovert to my introvert, and he introduced me to his friends in Small Town; he also loved coffee as much as I did and I often ran into him at one of the only coffee shops in town. We still keep in touch on Facebook and the occasional text; out of all my friends in Small Town, he was one of the only ones who actually reached out to talk after I posted about my cancer diagnosis. I think I could have been happy with him, if he had felt the same way about me.

The Model has become obsessed with getting attention for himself. I've had to go to the hospital so many times for doctors' appointments, medical procedures, and chemo, and so I've spent a lot of time waiting around and reading random stuff on my phone. I like reading celebrity tabloids, and his name kept popping up in them. At first, he was faking one relationship after the next with minor celebrities and influencers. And I know they were fake because as he gave interviews declaring his "love" for these women, he was literally posting pictures of himself in the apartment he shared with his girlfriend in Chicago. He would "date" these women long enough to get articles written about him in tabloids, and then he would dump them. Some of these women posted about their confusion and hurt feelings over his callousness, and I felt guilty, wondering if I should tell them what he was really like and that he was actually dating someone else. But I didn't think they'd believe me, and I was also afraid of his retaliation if I exposed him.

A lot of people weren't fooled by his so-called relationships, and people who knew him in real life called him out online for having a girlfriend that he hid from the press. I looked at his girlfriend's Instagram page, and she made her page private right after those people called him out about her. She covered up all the pictures of the two of them together that proved that she was his real girlfriend the whole time he pretended to be in love with those celebrities. She was scamming and lying to people just as much as he was.

Last year, he came out right before Pride Month as bisexual. I remembered that we'd once talked about how his Instagram followers kept asking him about his sexuality. I asked him, "So what is your sexuality? You don't have to tell me, but are you bi?" 

"Hell no," the Model answered. "But I can't say that because more than half of my followers are gay or bisexual men."

During Pride Month that year, he claimed to be married to a guy but refused to identify him. He posted pictures of the two of them together, yet he covered the guy's face up with a heart emoji. In one picture, they were both shirtless, and I suddenly realized who his "husband" was. It made me think of a time I'd been at the Model's apartment years before, and I'd picked up a framed picture of him standing next to another young man. "That's my brother," the Model said. "He lives in Chicago." His brother had a tattoo, the exact same tattoo in the exact same place that his "husband" had. He literally faked a marriage to his own brother! 

At the end of Pride Month, the Model claimed that he and his "husband" had split up because the latter couldn't deal with his online fame. I thought that faking a marriage was the worst thing he could have done. I was wrong. A few weeks ago, I was getting my hair done when my stylist asked me, "Did you hear about the Model?" (He is originally from College Town, and has a notorious reputation here. He is also a regular client of the same salon I go to, although I've never run into him there.)

"No, why?" I asked.

"He's claiming to be transgender. He now identifies as female." My stylist pulled out her phone and showed me an article, complete with pictures, of the Model posing in his girlfriend's bikini (I recognized it from her Instagram pictures) and a full face of makeup in the apartment they shared in Chicago. "But when he came to the salon," my stylist continued, "he wasn't dressed as a woman. He kept talking about bulking up his muscles and his workouts at the gym."

"Oh dear God," I said. I read the article, and the Model claimed that he'd received a lot of hate from people who didn't believe that he was actually transitioning; the doubters insisted that the Model was just seeking attention again. I read through some of the comments, and I've included a few of them here:

"I really used to look up to you. But right now you are just out of control; I really hope you get the help you need. Straight, bi, confused, political, depressed, anxiety...now trans?? I just can't."

"I understand why people are upset. It reads total mockery and abuse of your platform, all for likes."

"Everything you do is fake and for attention."

"Here you are, transitioning in a way that looks forced and even when I would like to be mistaken, seems that you are just using the trans community for your HUGE need for the spotlight."

The Model responded by accusing them of being transphobic bigots and claimed that they were just jealous of the Model for being a more attractive woman than they were. But in the bikini pictures that the Model had posted, he still had a full beard and chest hair, although he claimed he was undergoing hormone treatments soon. 

Any lingering attraction I might have felt for the Model quickly evaporated as soon as I saw a video of him in the bikini and talking in a high-pitched, feminine voice that was different from his regular voice. I thought, I can't believe I wasted so much time on you. The Model had a crazed look in his eyes, and I started to wonder if he was mentally ill. Don't get me wrong: I do not believe transgender people are mentally ill. I believe that they have the right to transition if they want to, and I also believe that they deserve to be treated with respect. My transgender students taught me that.

But I'm not buying for one second that the Model is actually trans. I think this is another desperate attempt to gain publicity, and I think that as soon as Pride Month is over, he'll announce that he changed his mind or that this was just a "project" to expose people's "transphobia". And then he'll be on to the next publicity stunt. I wouldn't be surprised if he claims that he has cancer next.

If I had ended up with the Model, I would have had to feed his addiction to attention. He thinks that attention validates him. Like any addict, he keeps resorting to more and more extreme behavior to get it. Every new follower, comment on Instagram (even if it is negative, because according to the Model, even negative attention is still attention), tabloid article, and interview were another way for him to get their "fix". I read through one of the Model's Instagram posts, and I found his girlfriend had posted a comment that stated, "Yaasss, queen! Get it, girl! You look pretty." 

If the Model had chosen me, I would have had to be like his girlfriend. I would have had to do what she does: let the Model walk all over me and cheer him on while he does it. My stylist said, "He says they're in an open relationship, but his girlfriend doesn't date anyone else. She doesn't really like that he hooks up with other people, but she loves to brag about the expensive vacations he pays for." 

I used to wonder why the Model had chosen her and not me. Now I think I know why. She is his biggest enabler. She remains faithful to him while the Model dates and hooks up with whomever he wants. She remained in the shadows while the Model publicly proclaimed his "love" for other women. She continued dating him while the Model posed for sexy pictures with his brother and passed him off as his husband. She helped the Model scam the media and lie to millions of people. And now she lets him borrow her clothes while he claims to be a woman. He knows that no matter what he does, she will never leave him. She will never stand up to him or disagree with him to his face. It's the ultimate ego boost for the Model, and for him it's all about his ego. 

I called the Model out for the crappy way he treated me, and I did stand up to him, which enraged him and caused him to threaten me and cut contact with me. I finally feel glad that he didn't choose me. I could never live like his girlfriend in the long term, constantly suppressing my feelings and desires in order to please the Model. I tried to live like that, but I couldn't tolerate his selfishness anymore. And with the Model, I finally understood that it's quite possible to still feel lonely even if you're with someone. 

None of these guys was right for me, but it is interesting to think about what my life could have been like if they had chosen me. What about you? Do you know about how your former crushes ended up? What do you think your life would be like if you had ended up with one of them?

What It's Been Like

I remember that when I first got diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer, I worried that I would lose my hair. "That's such a little thing," my mother scolded me. "The hair will grow back." But one of the first times I visited the cancer ward for a round of chemotherapy, I saw a young, extremely thin man coughing into a handkerchief. He was not only bald but also had no eyebrows or eyelashes. I felt sorry for him, but I also tried not to cry, thinking that I would soon lose my hair too. 

I didn't. "You have enough hair for three people," more than one hairstylist told me. My hair is long and thick, and even after multiple rounds of chemo, I still have all of it. Or I may have lost some hair, but since it's so thick, I didn't really notice. 

I remember that my doctors told me, "You're younger than most of the other cancer patients. That could prove to be an advantage in your recovery." When I went to the cancer ward for chemo every three weeks, as well as to receive fluids through an IV twice a week for three hours each time (the chemo was bad for my kidneys, which is why I had to receive fluids), I noticed that most of the patients were decades older than me. One old man sat next to his wife as she received chemo, and he held her hand for hours as she slept. All the patients looked so sad and scared, and I dreaded going to the cancer ward each time. 

What I dreaded most was the lobectomy, a surgery where they would remove part of my right lung and the lymph nodes, the area where the cancer was. It was scheduled much sooner than I expected. I was in the hospital for five days. I remember being in the operating room on the day I had surgery, with the nurses and doctors moving around briskly. And then I remember waking up several hours later, being told that the surgery was over. "On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?" the nurses asked me. 

"Twelve," I said, as I struggled to sit up in bed. Every time I sat up or even moved, it hurt like hell. A physical therapist had to help me walk for the first time after surgery; I could barely stand up, and when I did, I felt dizzy and tired. I had to use a walker the first time, and I kept wobbling as I walked. 

I remember that it was difficult to sleep in the hospital. The nurses woke me up several times a night to give me medication and to take my vitals. During the day, doctors and nurses kept coming in and out, and the woman I shared a room with, who also had a lobectomy, kept complaining the whole time.

The lobectomy was successful. They removed the tumor. A few weeks after the surgery, my oncologist had me start taking Tagrisso, which is a targeted therapy for cancer patients; he described it as "oral chemo". It's a pill that I have to take every day for three years. 

I took the spring semester off from teaching; fortunately, I had accumulated a lot of paid sick leave since I'd never taken a sick day since I first started teaching in College Town. I didn't want to take time off from my job because it was the only thing that made me feel normal when everything else in my life had turned upside down. But it was difficult to teach during my cancer treatment last semester. I started chemo last fall, and I felt nauseated after each round of chemo. I usually don't sit down while I'm teaching because I'm often writing on the chalkboard, and I move around the room as I talk. But because I felt tired and sick, I stayed seated most of the time. My students were understanding; they felt sorry for me, and one of them told me that they were praying for me. Another student gave me a card after the semester was over, and their classmate gave me a coffee mug and a card.

It was the right decision not to teach for the spring semester. I was in a lot of pain after the surgery; the surgeon said the pain would last for months, which it has. I ended up with a large scar on my body from where they operated on me.

The bad cough that lasted for months, which was what drove me to seek treatment in the first place and proved to be the first symptom of my lung cancer, went away after I started getting chemo. But after the lobectomy, I started coughing again. It's now been almost two months since the surgery, and I'm still coughing constantly. It's worse than before because due to the surgery, I still have pain on my right side from where they operated on me, so every time I cough, it aggravates the pain. My surgeon said the cough could last at least two more months and that it's a common side effect of a lobectomy because my body is adjusting to the fact that I am now missing part of my right lung. I often wake up coughing in the middle of the night. My oncologist prescribed me some cough medicine, but it doesn't help much. 

I get winded more easily now; shortness of breath is another common side effect of having part of your lung removed. I used to be able to work out for hours at the gym at a time, and now I am out of breath just from climbing the stairs of my apartment building (there is no elevator). I feel tired almost all the time, even after getting a full night's sleep. I've lost weight because I struggle to finish meals; I just don't feel hungry most of the time. Food and drinks that I used to love, such as chicken tenders, Frappuccinos, and chocolates, now make me feel sick. My oncologist said that cancer affects your appetite and even your taste buds.

I remember that my oncologist ordered tests to be done on me once a month, to monitor my kidney function among other things because I have kidney disease. The most recent test showed that my kidney function has gone way down since last month. It was always expected that my kidney function would decline because that's a consequence of having polycystic kidney disease. But it's gone down quickly and significantly since I first started cancer treatment. 

My nephrologist, who I met with recently, said it's most likely due to the cancer treatment, especially because the type of chemo they put me on was bad for the kidneys. But as I stated in my last post, he reiterated that I had to prioritize the cancer over my kidneys at the moment, which is why I had to take the risk with the chemo. He said that they would continue to monitor me. He thinks that my declining kidney function might be due to the Tagrisso pill that I have to take, and if it is, I'll have to stop taking it and take a different medicine. But Tagrisso has a high success rate of enabling cancer patients to become cancer free.

I'm scared that I'll be on dialysis years earlier than expected. It's bad enough that I have cancer, but to have to deal with this on top of that is almost more than I can bear. When I saw the results of my most recent tests, I cried in my car in the Walgreens' parking lot; I go to Walgreens often now to pick up yet another medication I have to take or to buy another bag of cough drops. 

I honestly never thought that this would happen to me. You hear stories of people with cancer, but unless it runs in your family, you don't think it could happen to you. And I never expected lung cancer, especially because I never smoked or did drugs and none of my blood relatives have it. 

Whenever people hear that I have cancer, they say, "I'm sorry," with a worried look on their faces, because they all seem to know someone who suffers from it or someone who died from it. There is no cure for cancer, and there's always the fear in the back of my mind that even after going through all of this, it could come back. And if it does, I'll be stage 4, and there won't be half as much they can do for me.

I try to have hope. I was raised Catholic, and they taught us to have faith. But sometimes, it feels like I'm losing mine. 

What about you? How do you hold onto hope when bad things happen?

I Have Cancer

It started with a cough. 

At first, I thought it was allergies. Then I thought it was a cold; I often get sick when the weather changes. But the cough started in June, and by July, it had gotten worse; I couldn't go five minutes without coughing. It was difficult to work out because I couldn't stop coughing, and people moved away from me in public because they thought I had the coronavirus. But I tested negative for the virus, and I'd already received two doses of the vaccine and the booster shot. 

There aren't that many specialists in College Town, so I wasn't able to get a doctor's appointment until August. My general care provider prescribed me some cough medicine and listened to my lungs, which he  said sounded clear. He also recommended that I stop taking one of my blood pressure medications (I take two because I have high blood pressure due to my polycystic kidney disease) because he said it might be causing the cough, although I'd been taking both meds without any problems for more than two years. His supervisor dismissed my concerns when I got upset that he didn't call for any tests and made it seem like I was the one with the problem (I wish that witch nothing but the worst, including a lifetime of stepping on Legos and being stuck behind tall people with big hair at every movie and concert they ever attend.) But my cardiologist, who I also met with in August (I regularly have appointments with my cardiologist and nephrologist to monitor my health due to my kidney disease), also recommended that I stop taking that blood pressure medication. "I don't think it's anything serious," my cardiologist said.

They were wrong. Two weeks later, I went to urgent care. I literally fell to my knees in the shower one day because I couldn't stop coughing. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and cough for several minutes straight. The nurse practitioner prescribed me an inhaler and a week's worth of prednisone and amoxycillin, which helped slightly. 

I went to another doctor, who ordered a chest X-ray. It showed a dark mass on my right lung, so then he ordered a CT lung scan. It showed that the mass was either an infection...or cancer. So he ordered a bronchoscopy, which meant they took pieces of my lung and examined it. 

If it had been an infection, I would have only had to take some pills and go to the pulmonologist a few times. But it wasn't an infection. The bronchoscopy confirmed that I have stage 3 lung cancer. 

I got the test results right before I had to go to work. My voice broke while I was teaching, and I swallowed hard so that I wouldn't cry in front of my students. I didn't understand how this happened. I had never smoked or done drugs. I didn't hang out with people who did. None of my blood relatives have lung cancer.

They did genetic testing, which confirmed that I have EGFR, a mutated gene that causes cancer. They said it was from an "acquired event", which means that something happened to me that caused me to get cancer. But they don't know what it was. 

After that, things happened really fast. I had to get a port surgically implanted into my chest for chemotherapy. I started chemo a week later, and the doctor said I would need at least 3-4 rounds. I also started taking cancer medication for nausea because the chemo made me feel sick and tired all the time. I've been going to bed earlier, but I still wake up tired. I went shopping, and I felt tired just walking around the store. 

Through it all, I struggled to keep up with my work. I was back in the classroom two days after the bronchoscopy. I also had the port placed into my chest on a day I wasn't teaching, and I was back in the classroom less than a week later. I only cancelled two classes because of my cancer treatment. When I got ready for work in the morning, I kept having to lie down because I felt so sick.

Even though I didn't feel good, I kept teaching. My work has always been very important to me, and it frustrated me that I couldn't put in a hundred percent like I normally did. It also frustrated me when I got emails that said stuff like, "Sorry I missed the last three classes, but I have a cold, so could you email me everything I missed?" I wanted to say, "I have freaking CANCER, and I'm still getting all my work done, so DON'T EVEN, okay?" But I didn't.

The chemotherapy they put me on is harmful to the kidneys, and it made my kidney function go down significantly in just three weeks. But my nephrologist told my oncologist, "What good is it to protect her kidneys if she doesn't survive cancer?" He also told me to do what my oncologist said. Because of the effects of the chemo, my oncologist kept me on the same type of chemo but reduced the dosage. He also required me to come to the hospital twice a week, every week, and be hooked up to an IV for two hours in order to receive fluids. It did help my kidney function recover, somewhat. 

I met with my oncologist recently, who told me that I have to do a fourth round of chemo. Then they'll do another chest scan to see how much the tumor has shrunk, and about a month after my fourth round of chemo, I'll have a lobectomy and a lymph node dissection. Basically, they're going to remove part of my lung and the lymph nodes where the cancer is; the surgery will be done at a hospital several hours away because there's no thoracic surgeon in College Town. 

The doctors told me that I'll have to stay in the hospital for at least 4-5 days after the surgery. I won't be able to drive for at least a month. I'll be in pain for weeks, possibly months. Because the surgery and the recovery from it will take up so much time, I made the very difficult decision to take a leave of absence from my teaching job. I will not be teaching for the Spring 2024 semester. Fortunately, I have a lot of paid sick leave because although I have been teaching in College Town for more than six years, I've never taken any sick days until now. It's harder for teachers to take sick days because if we're not there, there is no class. It's not always possible to find a substitute at the last minute, and even if one is found, they won't necessarily teach the class the way I want. 

My mother is angry at me because I won't let her be there for the surgery or the recovery. It's one thing when she's ranting/screaming/crying on the phone or when I visit (I visit my parents for a few days twice a year, although this Christmas I didn't because my doctors say I can't travel; the cancer has severely weakened my immune system). The phone call or visit will eventually end. But when I'm recovering from the surgery, I won't be able to escape her. She hasn't been any help anyway. The other day I was at the hospital, and she called me crying; she was upset because some distant relatives had found out that I have cancer and demanded to know if I'd told them, which I hadn't. She conveniently forgot that she was the one who broadcasted my diagnosis on Facebook. I told her that I was receiving chemo, but she just kept crying and ranting. 

My father got mad at me because although he'll be there for the surgery, I won't let him come with me to meet with the thoracic surgeon beforehand (my sibling will accompany me). He has given me some money to help pay my mounting medical bills, but he said that if I wasn't going to accept his help, he might as well not help pay the bills either. I told him fine and to keep his money. 

My last blog post made me wonder who would be there if I ever ended up in the hospital. All I know now is who I don't want to be there. My oncologist told me, "You have just one shot at beating cancer. If it comes back after all of this, there won't be much we can do." So now, I'm doing everything my doctors tell me to do. After surgery, I'll have to take Tagrisso, which is a chemotherapy pill, for three years. 

I don't want to die. There are so many things that I never got to do. I want to live a better life than the one I've had. And I hope that cancer won't prevent me from experiencing that.

What about you? Do you know anyone who's had cancer? Do you know anyone who's had a lobectomy and what their experience was like?