The Fat Girl Running – Kristann Monaghan

Words have an impact sometimes on your life that you had no idea they would have.  When you first hear I love you from the person you desperately want to hear it from.  When you hear that someone you love has died.  When you hear that you are pregnant.  When you hear you got a job.  When you hear you lost a job.  All these words have the ability to change your life in a way that is either good or bad.  Sometimes you have no idea how those words are going to affect you until you hear them.  Six weeks ago I heard three words that changed my life forever.  You have cancer.

When my doc spoke those words to me six weeks ago, I had no idea the impact they would have.  I went in for a routine follow-up from having a polyp removed from my uterus and did not expect those words to come out of her mouth.  I am pretty sure I heard nothing after those words were said.  In fact, not expecting her to say that, I think I might have sat there dumbfounded in my short little gown, sheet over my va-jay-jay, feeling completely shocked.  My doc even had to stop and ask me if I heard anything she said.  I looked at her and squeaked “I have cancer.”  That was all I could manage.  It felt so surreal then for her to go about doing a lady exam like she had not just told me that I had cancer and had to have surgery to remove the offending organ.  But let’s just stick our fingers up there to feel said offending organ and talk about my options like nothing had just occurred.  I felt like I was in someone else’s dream and expected to wake up at any point or to have a zebra run by in slow motion like in a dream sequence in a movie.  I walked out of there with an appointment to have surgery and disbelief on my face.  I immediately got into my car and called BFF because I knew she would understand about my uterus being inhospitable.  Yup.  It seems my uterus is an inhospitable place.  Well, according to BFF, it is hospitable to one thing…cancer.  Hey…it is not like I was using it or planning on using it anyways.  So out it comes…cancer and all.

I am not gonna lie and say I wasn’t upset about being told that I have cells that decided to mutate negatively.  I mean I was upset but then I got to thinking about the inhospitable environment my uterus has become and wondered how the hell those cells got there in the first place.  How did they mutate and do you think this means I now have mutant powers?  Wouldn’t that be cool?  I could be like my own superhero with the powers.  Maybe I could join the X-Men and wear a sparkly pink unitard with a cape and fight evil with my mutant uterus in my hand.  I could throw cancer cells at the bad guys randomly to defeat them.  Take that bad guys!  I can grow mutant uterine cells and you can’t mostly because you are bad guys and guys don’t have uteruses (or is it uteri?)!  Hi-Ya!  Feel the wrath of my mutant cells!  Take that stupid cancer!  Maybe my uterus could multiply like the cancer cells and then become a flaming ball of uterine cancer.  That would be rad.  I want to race Professor X’s wheelchair down the hallway and chase all the other mutants.  I wonder if they would let me fly the secret X-Men jet and if I could get Wolverine to use his cool claws to like open a bag of Skittles for me or something.  Then I would offer my new pal some and whisper all covertly to him “Taste the rainbow Wolverine”.  It would be the best day ever.

You might be wondering how I can be so cavalier about such a thing as cancer.  Well, why not?  We all have challenges in our lives and we have all had those moments when words change our lives, but I won’t let this freak me out.  I would rather let those words be fighting mutant words and let them change me that way.    We have the ability to decide how words will change us.  Only you can let words affect you.  This is just another hurdle for the Fat Girl to jump and jump I will.  With my mutant superpowers, unitard and cape on, uterus in hand ready to fight.  Just watch out…I am not sure of my jet flying ability.

Oh yeah.  I didn’t die today.  I did decide not to let words change my life negatively but rather keep on…well….running.  I am Fat Girl with a inhospitable mutant uterus but a sparkly pink unitard and cape running.  The experiment continues…