Some backstory, pt. 1

The first entry was why I made this decision, now maybe I need to do some backstory on my life.


My grandmother, Zelda, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer when I was still very young, around seven years old. She lived about 18 months after her diagnosis. 


I don't remember being told she had cancer. I don't even remember being told she was sick. I knew she was going to see a lot of doctors and was very sick, but  I don't have any memory at all of being told she was sick and how sick she was.


She lived in Glen Daniel, West Virginia all her life, as far as I know. She was a school teacher at Fairdale Elementary School, teaching second grade, at least from my memory it was second grade. 


We lived in Maryland, very near John's Hopkins Hospital. I remember her and my grandfather visiting what seemed like very often, but you have to keep in mind I was seven, now I am 45 and looking back and sometimes our memories say one thing when it was really another.


I remember visiting her once in the hospital there. I have a vague memory of what seemed like a lot of people in a small, what was probably a visitor's room. I think she had an i.v. and a hospital gown. I don't know what I felt, but this is the vision that I have carried with me as I have grown older.


I remember later on, after the disease had ravaged her body, of her being at home to die. We would take the train from the station in Baltimore to the station in Prince, WV. I don't remember anything eventful on these train rides, but I remember taking the train. My uncle Tony, my dad's side, would pick us up or drop us off, probably another family member would share in this, but he is the one I remember. One morning, we were going back home and the train was very late, Uncle Tony stayed with my mom and I until the train came. I remember seeing the creek and not ever realized there was one until that morning~~I guess we always got on the train in the dark.


I remember her in the hospital bed with a green oxygen tank next to her; I remember it being early spring and taking daffodils to her that I had cut from the hillside where they lived. 


I don't know how many of these trips we made or even how many trips my grandmother and grandfather made from WV to MD, but I remember them. 


I remember being at my paternal grandmother's house when the call came in that my grandmother Worley had passed away. I am sure I was very upset, she was my grandmother and I loved her dearly. 


I have lots of great memories of being at her home, going with her to her school and being in her class, going to Coal Marsh Baptist Church, going to Lake Stephens every summer. 


This year marks the 100th anniversary of her birth. Wish I could remember in what month she was born, will have to get with my mother on that one. 


What I am leading up to, in a very round about way, is that I have these memories and I didn't think they made much of an impact on my life, that is until I had to confront my own diagnosis of BRCA positive and my mom getting O.C. 


Family history, our memories, what we perceive as our memories, all have an impact on what we choose, why we choose what we choose, even if we don't realize it.