During my solo night experience, I take inventory of what I’ve accomplished during the past two days. With flashlight balanced and listening to the music of night sounds, I record in my journal:
Trusted eleven strangers to catch me as I fell from a tree.
Rappelled down the cliffs and recovered without panicking when my body swung out of control.
Reached out to trust again and was not disappointed.
Came to understand that I’m brave.
Loaded with backpacks and sleeping bags, we begin the descent to the Outward Bound Center. We don’t want this time to end, and we reluctantly follow the path through the trees, across a wooden bridge and along the creek. Unexpectedly, Jeff turns off the path and leads us to a solid wooden structure nearly twenty feet high. We look at him questioningly. We thought the solo in the woods last night was the final challenge.
“This is the wall,” he says solemnly. “You have forty-five minutes to get everyone, leaders included, up and over. No ropes or belts allowed, and no using the sides of the wall.” He instructs us to put on our harnesses, then calmly walks away to talk with the other counselors. We’re left to wonder whether anyone has ever completed this exercise.
After a few false starts, we begin to focus on the task. Emilio and Tina serve as ladders as we hoist Dana onto their shoulders. Extending as high as she can on her toes, she finally grasps the top board and pulls herself up and over the wall onto the narrow platform behind it. I’m next to climb the human ladder. Dana leans over the wall from the platform and grabs my extended wrists. I dangle in space as I attempt to swing my leg to the edge. At last, I swing high enough for Dana to release one of my hands, grab my leg and haul me over the top. One by one, my companions traverse the wall, until only Jeff and Emilio remain.
Emilio climbs on Jeff’s shoulders and reaches for Tina’s and Dana’s extended hands. They grasp his hands, and he dangles as Jeff jumps and grabs his harness, unsuccessfully trying several times to climb up and over him. Jeff continues to slip, and we aren’t certain he’ll make it. We cheer him on, and gaining renewed energy, he at last pulls himself up and over Emilio, making it to the top.
Together, we hoist the hanging, stretched Emilio to the platform, finishing our task with five minutes to spare and with the invaluable knowledge that the only walls in life are those we construct ourselves—that cancer doesn’t define who we are or determine what we can accomplish.
Michele V. Price
Abreast in a Dragon Boat
I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.
Jimmy Dean
In the fall of 1994, I had surgery and radiation for what I jokingly referred to as a “mild” case of breast cancer— stage I. As a professor of physical therapy, I was acutely aware of the risk of lymphedema, an irreversible, dreaded swelling of the surgical-side arm. In fact, my own physical therapist, who specializes in treating women with breast cancer, chastised me for raking leaves one beautiful autumn day.
“Repetitive upper body activities,” she warned, “could bring on lymphedema.”
I started to read all I could about lymphedema, which can be caused by lymph-node removal, radiation and obesity, and I realized that even in the medical literature there are a number of unverified assertions. Women are warned never to carry a purse on their involved shoulder and to avoid strenuous exercise with the affected arm for the rest of their lives. For the rest of their lives! As a long-time jogger and recreational soccer player, I was irked by the presumed need to avoid strenuous exercise.
Luckily, one of my colleagues at the University of British Columbia, Don McKenzie, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of sports medicine and exercise physiology, set out to challenge that myth. He organized twenty-four breast-cancer survivors into a dragon-boat racing team.
Dragon-boat racing is a competitive and recreational sport developed centuries ago in China. It involves eighteen to twenty paddlers who propel a forty to sixty foot wooden boat along a 500 to 650 meter course. It’s a strenuous and repetitive upper body sport—just the type of exercise my physical therapist warned me against! (I took a certain mischievous pleasure in disobeying her orders, but you should always check with your doctor before undertaking an exercise program).
To prepare for on-water training, Dr. McKenzie and the other coaches developed a three-pronged, land-based training program, involving stretching exercises, three twenty to thirty minute aerobic workouts a week, and weightlifting to strengthen our upper arm and back muscles. I loved the training and the weekly regimen. I also loved my teammates—breast-cancer survivors all. Soon we developed friendships that endured both on and off the water.
Our team, Abreast in a Boat, has competed in dragon-boat festivals in Vancouver, Toronto, Seattle, Portland and Wellington, New Zealand, and it has fostered the formation of more than 100 other breast-cancer teams around the world. Not one of the original members has developed lymphedema, nor did the condition worsen for the two members who had pre-existing swelling. More significantly, many of the women from the team became important role models for me.
Three months after competing in New Zealand, I was diagnosed with a second primary tumor in the opposite breast. Two of my teammates accompanied me to hear the worrisome initial diagnostic news from my surgeon: I had stage IIB. When I was deciding whether to have a bilateral mastectomy in June 1998, teammates who had been through the procedure bared their breasts (reconstructed and otherwise) to help me make my decision. During the dozen chemo sessions, at least one teammate was there with me, as a role model and supporter.
Although I had to sit out for my year of treatment and six months afterward, I began training and competing again in the spring of 2000. The women from my team, their partners and kids have become family to me. They have enriched my life in unexpected ways—inviting me to join their families for Christmas when I was too immune-compromised from chemo to fly home to my own, and serenading 150 guests at my fiftieth birthday party with songs they wrote about me and dragon-boat racing. I am so grateful for their ongoing love and support. After all, as one of my teammates said, “We’re all in the same boat!”
Susan R. Harris
As previously appeared in
Mamm Magazine
Racing for the Cure
It’s all right to cry, but not for too long. I made it, and so can you.
Betty Ford
As a result of God’s grace, the love and support of my family and friends, and the skill of a talented team of doctors, I am about to celebrate my eleventh year of survivorship. I fully expect to live to see my children graduate from high school and college, get married, and have their own children. I am overjoyed.
In 1995, my doctor said words I could hardly comprehend: “Mrs. Callahan, I am very sorry to tell you that you have breast cancer.” I was forty-two years old, with no history of breast cancer in my family. The pea-sized lump that I found during a self-exam had not even shown up on a mammogram.
I talked to my doctor for an hour, taking copious notes. When the conversation was over, I was stunned to see that I’d written down only a few words. I later realized that she had explained the diagnosis over and over again, but I just couldn’t absorb the information. For days I held the paper in my hand—not to read the scant information, but to hold the proof that cancer was really happening to me and I was not dreaming. I still have that piece of paper.
However, in June 1995, a month after surgery, my spiritwas temporarily occupying that dark place between hoping that I would fully recover and knowing that I would. I decided to walk in the National Race for the Cure, which takes place every June in Washington, D.C.
My husband, two children and extended family joined me in the race. We drove to the nearest metro station. As we approached it, I noticed a stream of people walking toward the station entrance and was surprised the metro was so busy on an early Saturday morning. Moments later, I realized that all of these people were wearing Ra
ce for the Cure T-shirts. When we stepped into the subway car, race participants were sitting in every seat. Even though the station was on the outskirts of the subway line, there was standing room only. Most of the T-shirts were white (runner or walker), with a sprinkling of pink (survivors) and yellow (volunteers).
We exited the subway and walked toward the starting line on Constitution Avenue. As we cleared the tall buildings near the exit subway station, I was overwhelmed by the panoramic view of the starting line. There were 50,000 race participants that year. Nearly all were wearing “In Memory Of” or “In Celebration Of” placards on their backs. Somehow, I felt they were all there for me. My eyes wouldn’t stop tearing.
Many racers were part of teams. There were teams from countries around the world, from corporations around the nation, and from schools around the Washington area. Each team carried a sign or a banner announcing its presence. There were Girl Scouts, military personnel, college students and babies in strollers. There were also the survivors, all proudly wearing pink—some robustly running at top speed, some being pushed in wheelchairs.
I happened to be assigned race number 409. During the race, the yellows were on the sidelines yelling, “Go 409!” and “Good going, 409!” I received high-fives from pinks, whites and yellows. When I finished the race, a loud speaker blasted to all 50,000 participants, “409 just crossed the finish line! Congratulations, 409!” I finished the race exhilarated with encouragement and hope.
After the race, my sister Maggie and I were chatting while waiting for the closing ceremony to begin. I saw my dear friend, Ginny, walk by with her family. She was also wearing pink—we had made our cancer journey together, and we greeted each other, laughing and crying. We were incredulous that we had bumped into each other in the midst of the tremendous crowd. When she walked away, Maggie and I saw the placard that she wore on her back. It said, “In Celebration of My Friend Ellen Callahan.” Maggie and I hugged each other and cried.
I have participated in the race every year since 1995. Sometimes I wear pink, sometimes yellow, but I always cry. And Ginny and I somehow manage to find each other every year. Last year over 70,000 walkers, runners and volunteers came to the race. The race continues to nurture my hope and confidence in the future.
I am truly blessed.
Ellen Ann Callahan
This essay is dedicated to my courageous friend and fellow survivor, Ginny Westrick.
For Josie
We are not confused—we know we are two separate people—man and wife. Yet when we met, when we married, when we had children and grandchildren, we knew. Something existed between us, beyond us, that exists as a third entity—something each individual contributed to and could draw on.
And now we have cancer, knowing that one of us must fight an internal battle and one of us will tend the supply lines, knowing that the two of us are one, each afraid— each giving courage to the other, knowing we will endure.
1965—Sir Francis Drake High School, San Anselmo, California.
Third date, basketball game at Terra Linda, the path from the parking lot to the gym blocked by a wire cable: we duck under the wire, reaching for each other’s hand to steady ourselves, knowing yet not knowing the meaning of holding hands, surprised by the electricity, delighted by the simplicity, content in the rightness of such a simple act.
And we never let go—even to arrange fingers in a more comfortable arrangement, not even to appease the dean of women and rules against public displays of affection.
We held hands to exchange rings, to deliver two children, to teach them to cross the street, to make a swing for grandchildren, as we walked—one, two, three.
2001—Swedish Medical Center, Seattle, Washington.
Pre-op: I held her hand as she lay on the gurney waiting for Dr. Dawson. When he arrived, I let go of her hand and he took it in his and walked beside her, holding it.
Post-op: The doctor told me many things. I asked questions, relieved and worried. I wrote them down, looked for hidden meanings, sifted through hopes and fears.
He explained that she would be fine, detailed the required next steps. Information swirled, yet I knew his meaning fully and understood his gentle smile when he said, “I held her hand.”
The Rapids: This turbulent river on which we travel is not of our choosing.
We were not heading in this direction when we slammed into the first rock. Cancer—malignant. It took three doctors before we could even believe we had hit a rock. By then, we were upside down, over the first falls, taking on water, spinning, gasping for breath.
When one is in a whirlpool, one cannot swim toward the surface, one cannot overcome the downward force of the water. One must swim downward with the pressure, letting the turbulence push down, out, then up. This requires presence of mind, especially when one is not sure what is up and what is down.
For the moment, we have righted the boat and are learning to paddle, know we are on the river, aware there is rough water still ahead, and there are people both on the bank and in the water to offer help and believe we will make it.
We will make this river our river.
Cancerland: We unfold the game board as one opens a fortune cookie hoping to discern the future. As much as we watch, cancer always makes the first move and catches us by surprise. We ask the experts: What are the rules? They tell of statistics, survival rates, possible outcomes, risks, but still, we must roll the dice, count out the spaces, slide into despair, climb upward in hope.
One must wait one’s turn for treatment, must wait to learn the results of tests. Blood counts fluctuate. Side effects accumulate like so much debt. Must wait years to know for sure, years of worry and dread.
As children, we played simple games. Primary colors. Rewards came quickly, defeats forgotten easily.
As parents, we taught our children games to pass the time. Taught them to follow the rules: win or lose, we could always play again.
As grandparents, we understand the rules are unknowable, that time passes of its own accord, that this game is serious, and our best may not be good enough. Yet we start each day, stubborn, ready to compete.
As children on a bright day, we would hold a magnifying glass to catch the sun’s rays, focusing the circle of light on a piece of paper into one point of intensity until the spot scorched, smoldered, flamed and burned.
Now machines focus unseen energy on those cancer cells that may have escaped the surgeon’s dissection, the chemotherapy’s poison.
Let there be light.
Let there be life.
Doug Manuel
No More Fear
It is the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living.
Simone de Beauvoir
I’ve always been terrified of needles. I am one of those people who faint at the sight of blood. All my life, every time I had a shot or had blood drawn, I passed out in the doctor’s office—even when I went for my blood test to get married. So I was really worried about all the needles I would have to face during surgery and chemotherapy.
My sister Barbara and my husband, Don, came with me to surgery. I had scheduled my same-day lumpectomy for the first thing in the morning. I felt that if I was early, there would be fewer chances of being pushed back by emergencies and delays, and I would get to go home rather than spend the night in the hospital.
All three of us were very nervous. It was 5:30 A.M., and we hadn’t eaten anything—me because I wasn’t supposed to, they because there hadn’t been time. We arrived at the reception area, courageous but sleepy.
The nurses took me in, and Barbara and Don were allowed to accompany me. I was settled into a small cubicle surrounded by medical equipment. A nurse came in to prepare me for the IV. I tried not to look at the long tube attached to the needle that she was preparing to insert in my arm.
Suddenly, Barbara said, “What about the numbing cream? I’ve heard you can put on something to make the area numb.” r />
The nurse looked at her with surprise.
“Oh, we only give that to babies,” she said.
“I’m a baby,” I responded.
We all laughed a little, but she could see I was serious.
“Oh, all right. I’ll be right back.”
She returned a few minutes later and applied a white cream to my hand. She placed a clear tape bandage over it.
“It takes a few minutes to go to work. I’ll be back.”
I shot a triumphant look at my sister and Don.
“Thanks,” I breathed a sigh of relief.
We three chatted for about ten minutes, talking about anything except the needles and my surgery. It really helped to have them there with me. I wasn’t nervous now, and I felt completely loved and supported.
The nurse returned and inserted the IV into the large vein in the back of my hand. Thanks to the cream, I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. A smile of shock and amazement lit up my face.
“How is that?” she asked.
“Fine, I can’t even feel it. Thank you. Thank you so much!”
She smiled, “You know, that was a good idea. I don’t know why we don’t use it more often.” I couldn’t stop myself: I jumped up and gave her a hug.
“You will never know how much this meant to me. “ I said.
She smiled, then stepped aside as the anesthesiologist came in, asked me if I was allergic to anything and hooked me up to the IV drip. Again, I didn’t feel a thing. I smiled and waved to the angel nurse, my sister and my husband. I was wheeled away to the surgery room. My last thought was how loved I am, how kind the nurse was, and total amazement that I felt no fear.