The Little Green House: 17 Years Later

We have lived in our present home since I was six months pregnant with my son. The story of how my in-laws decided to purchase the house is not a particularly interesting one. The house was previously occupied by a schoolteacher who attended mass with my mother-in-law. The school teacher died at the average age of life expectancy and her children were selling the house. My husband and I were looking for a home because the apartment we lived in contained stairs. I had a fear our as then unborn son would toddle down the stairs and hurt himself if we stayed. We were facing what many people do when adding to their family. We needed more room.

It was the eleventh hour in decision making when I visited the home. I sighed when looking across the street. It had been ten years at that time since I went through chemotherapy for dysgerminoma (a rare ovarian cancer) but the experience remained with me. I have had an uphill battle with both physically and psychologically recovering from the event. When I visited St. Jude hospital for the long-term survival effects study a physician referred to childhood cancer survivors as having gone through Chernobyl. He couldn't have been closer to the truth.

I had seen the home across the street many times. It is located off a main road in town. For years I had shivers run up my spine when I remembered how sick I was living there. The house was not a home my parents and I lived in for long. Our residency took a few months longer than my chemotherapy treatment. When we moved I knew I would always refer to it as the "chemo house."

In spite of this house being across the street from the home we were thinking of purchasing, I put the past out of my mind. My little boy would be born in three months, the home was in the right price range, and I hated our cramped apartment. I agreed with my in-laws and we moved in one year after my husband and I were married.

The years passed. Our son was born near Christmas that year. Our daughter was born in the summer of 2005. In 2007, it was confirmed many of my medical problems were a result of Cowden Syndrome. Because I had undergone cancer twice, each new lesion had to be examined for cancer. The lesions were a result of the Cowden Syndrome.

In February 2008 I opted for a preventative mastectomy when ductal carcinoma in situ was discovered in pathology results. Two years later I had my children tested for Cowden Syndrome and was saddened to learn they both have the mutation. Less than six months after the testing, I lost the one person who was there for me most during the cancer battles. My mom lost her battle to colon cancer in November 2010. To say I was devastated is a mild understatement.

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer, the little green house began to haunt me. I would walk outside and see where it felt like the losses began. The house reminded me of how much of my mom's spirit she gave to get me through the cancer. I was angry she had to go through cancer and lose her life.

In March 2011, I was invited to the St. Jude for Life study. There were findings of atherosclerosis, major muscle loss, calcifications of the spleen from suspected granulomas disease, and more. It crossed my mind that I hadn't thought much of that little green house across the street until my mom died, my children began exhibiting Cowden Syndrome problems, and the results of 17 years post-chemotherapy came back.

What had I missed while thinking so much of my past? The little green house reminded me it was always there and I hated it. That house became the embodiment of what I had lost to cancer.

I faced the house every day. It was impossible not to see it sitting there across the road. I questioned my sanity in continuing to live across the street and face it each day. I wondered why I was placed in a home across the street from what was, for me, a tragic occurrence. People who are in accidents often avoid the scene for many years and there I was living across the street from my own natural accident.

Slowly my viewpoint began to change when our pastor said, "God places you were you are for a reason, you may not understand why but I guarantee there is a reason." While our pastor fell short of saying we were placed in our specific house for a reason, I now dare say that we were.

If I hadn't gone through chemotherapy while we lived in that little green house, I would not be thirty-four years old today. My children would not be 6 and 7 years old because none of us would be here. Somewhere along the way the house is transforming into what I have gained rather than what I have lost.

I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.