Final Destination

Have any of you seen this movie? There were several of them I believe. I’m pretty sure I only saw the first “Final Destination” movie, though. They were pretty terrible, but I’ve been thinking about the plot of the first film a lot lately.

For those of you that haven’t seen the movie, the premise is that this young man and some of his friends were supposed to go on a roller coaster, but he had a vision that the roller coaster was going to explode or something? I don’t really remember. Anyways, he frantically convinced his friends not to go on it.

Everyone died on the roller coaster, but the main character and his friends were spared. They had cheated death. The remainder of the movie was “death” trying to kill the main characters. It was a pretty gory film as I remember it.

But, the idea was that when it is someone’s time to die you can’t get out of it; clairvoyance be damned.

Like I said, I think about this a lot. My maternal lineage has left me a legacy of death in the form of a lethal BRCA1 mutation. My mom, maternal aunt, and maternal grandmother all died of ovarian cancer in their early to mid forties. Leaving motherless children behind.

Thanks to modern medicine I was able to have genetic testing to determine whether or not I inherited this mutation, which of course I did.

My plan was to cheat death. I had the genetic testing done when I was 28 years old and had undergone the recommended screening in the form of a mammogram and breast MRI. I saw a breast surgeon annually. I had a plan to have my children and breastfeed them and then have my breasts removed afterwards. I would have my ovaries removed by age 35 years old. I underwent in vitro fertilization with pre-genetic diagnosis to insure that my children would not carry the brca1 mutation. How clever? I had the information and resources to remove this deadly mutation from my lineage and I could save myself, too.

But maybe death personified has other plans for me. I must tell you all that I hadn’t been very concerned about breast cancer. My mom, her sister, and their mother made it to their forties without getting breast cancer, so I figured I should too. But maybe death had different plans for me. Maybe I am meant to die from this gene. Maybe…

Maybe it knew that I was going to outsmart it and so it decided to fuck shit up. In the form of breast cancer during my first pregnancy. Well I am nothing if I am not an overachiever. Sure, bring it on. I can handle this. I can do anything for 10 seconds, or four years of medical school or three years of residency or 9 months of pregnancy or months of IVF or 5 months of chemotherapy. You all get the point. Bring it on motherfuckers.

I could have dealt with sacrificing a year of my life to cancer. Even if that was the first year of my son’s life. Even if it would put my career on hold. Even if it would put my whole life on hold. I have been doing that for as long as I can remember. Putting my life on hold to achieve what I wanted. To work for the life I wanted for myself. I put off having kids during residency. I can be patient. I can wait.

I would see a lot of women in my support groups talking about how they couldn’t move on from cancer. How they thought about it all the time even after they were done with active treatment. I wouldn’t have been like that. I could move on. Death or the universe or whatever higher power there is wasn’t satisfied though. I must suffer they all must think.

So even though I did all the treatment as aggressively as possible, even though I had a good attitude the whole time, death wasn’t satisfied and my cancer spread to my lungs. And now I never get to move on. I will always be a cancer patient. I will probably die from this. I wonder if it is just because it is my destiny. Maybe death is coming for me, just like in that stupid horror movie. And maybe there is nothing I can fucking do about it.

I don’t know. But I will say I am pissed. I am grateful, but I am pissed. I am pissed that I don’t get to live the life I had worked so hard for. My friends who graduated residency with me are starting to find their strides in their careers. I am so happy for them and proud of them and not surprised at all, because they are so amazing, but I am jealous. That could have been me. But, it couldn’t. Because maybe I was always meant to die from this. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know…

Until next time dear readers. Love and light to you all.