You know what’s worse than being diagnosed with early-detection breast cancer?

Being diagnosed with early-detection colorectal cancer before breast cancer surgery.

What’s worse than that?

Pathology results from my lumpectomy (surgical removal of breast tumor and surrounding tissue, and sentinel lymph node) showing cancer in the lymph node, few enough cells that they wouldn’t remove more lymph nodes, my surgeon said, but I might need chemo. She didn’t talk about stages, but I knew I’d gone from an assumed Stage 1 to at least Stage 2.

Than that?

Learning that while my local hospital was satisfied with pathology from my second colonoscopy, surgeons at Dana Farber are not; they want 2mm margins, and mine were 1.3.

Fuck cancer.

~~

Several years ago, my friend Trish gave me back one of the clear quartz crystals I’d given her, after she delicately suspended it in thread.

After I learned the breast cancer was in my lymph node (but before I learned I wasn’t in the clear with rectal cancer), with the specter of chemo hovering, I needed something to focus on. “I want you to teach me how to do this,” I texted her. She wrote back, “Of course. I might still have the tutorial I used.”

Tutorial? I hadn’t thought of that. I quickly found two on Pinterest (this was macrame, I learned) and cut twine. I googled — overhand knot, lark’s head knot — and began tying.

The crystal slipped, and again, and again. I untied and retied knots. Each time, I breathed in, found the patience I’d lost in past decades, and tried again. After an hour of returning and focusing, I had a macrame-wrapped crystal.

I bought embroidery floss at Michael’s and wrapped my second crystal. I learned that I made the first one harder than it had to be and that my natural crystal beads (which I’d found going through office boxes) didn’t have holes large enough to string above the quartz.

After seeing me hunched over my desk with tweezers in each hand, my husband brought me a task light with magnifier.

For years, I’d thought how beautiful crystals would be as Christmas ornaments. As I gained confidence, I moved to thinner thread and smaller crystals — ones that could hang from our tree.

~~

The practice of learning, returning, and focusing has become a core piece of self care, and I’ve expanded my crafts.

Christmas trees with a wire hanger frame (with shaping help from my husband) and beads. I practiced with plastic and glass beads and then used natural stones for a friend whose favorite color is purple.

I tried to make my friend a snowflake using my abundance of round amethyst beads. This was less successful and is still in my house.

My husband and I took a flat-glass class at a studio, and for two hours, I forgot about cancer. This is before firing; I don’t have the fired piece back yet.

There’s more: more beading, quilling (rolling strips of paper), and last night I began to try knitting. That’s another story.