I entered the Land of Needles with no fear. That is a miracle!
Mary Olsen Kelly
7
SURVIVAL
There is often in people to whom “the worst” has happened an almost transcendent freedom, for they have faced “the worst” and survived it.
Carol Pearson
“Even without lights, water or a roof,
this hurricane is a breeze compared
to surviving my breast cancer.”
Reprinted with permission of Charles Markman ©2005.
Fifty-One-Year Survivor!
Fifty-one years ago, when I was thirty-two, I discovered a lump in my left breast. It was “suspicious,” and a radical mastectomy was performed with drains in the armpit, which needed daily care.
So began the “five-year cure” syndrome. If anything suspicious or questionable arose, I was carefully watched and hospitalized to undergo a battery of tests to see if there was any spreading of the cancer. What a happy day for all of us when the five-year period passed without complications! However, it was not so for some of my friends and acquaintances, so while I had reason to be grateful, thankful and jubilant, I had cause to wonder, WHY?
In 1965, thirteen years after the left mastectomy, small lumps began appearing in the right breast area. It was different from the first time, when I had only one lump. Once again, I waited six months—perhaps too long—before consenting to a radical mastectomy. But increasing pain had finally determined my choice: surgery (by the same surgeon) was undertaken, and the bone was scraped. This time I had no drains and no swelling, and once again began the five-year count. That was thirty-eight years ago, and I’ve had no recurrence.
I was certainly more fortunate than some other victims of malignancies, but I obliterated the “cancer” word from my vocabulary, referring to it by any other name I could substitute. Denial? Perhaps. But great faith, loving support of family, relatives and friends, and physicians and surgeons who provided exceptional care—all were comforting and provided great incentive to “overcome”!
Last year was my first experience with the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. My daughter told me that if I was able, I had to go and participate in the walk. The prior year was the first year she had done it, and she was so impressed with what she had seen.
I was reluctant. When I had my surgeries, people didn’t talk about breast cancer. And if they did, it was in whispers. It was a dreaded disease, one that didn’t have much hope of a cure, so I wasn’t accustomed to talking about it, and that’s why I had obliterated the word “cancer” from my vocabulary. There was not the widespread knowledge and support for breast cancer that I’ve learned exists today.
I didn’t decide to go to the race until just a few days before the event, and I probably wouldn’t have if my daughter hadn’t refused to take “no” for an answer.
I was so impressed, as she had told me I would be, and I couldn’t get over how many people were there and all that had been done to make the day special: the breakfasts, the volunteers, the sponsors. It was such a positive experience for me, I was amazed.
As I was putting the ribbons on my cap—all fifty of them!—more and more people approached me to ask me how many years it had been. When I said, “It has been fifty years,” they couldn’t believe it. I was hugged and kissed by strangers who felt a bond as I did. It allowed me to talk about something that I really hadn’t been able to talk about for most of my life and, just as important, to feel as though I could provide some measure of comfort and support to those who were just experiencing what I had gone through many years before.
I appreciate all the work the foundation does to increase awareness of breast cancer. When you’re struggling with cancer treatment and surgery, it’s so important to be able to talk to others who understand or who have gone through the same thing. It’s something that I didn’t have in my day.
Last year, we had a small team that my daughter put together. This year we’re trying to put together a bigger team. We told my husband and son about it, and they want to come, and I’m going to ask some of my friends to join us. How about you? Would you like to join along?
Kathryn O. Sharr
All the Gifts
The flight to Honolulu is a long one, and I lean my forehead against the cool, soothing window of the plane. I haven’t been able to cry yet. The call came a few days ago; Mom has breast cancer and is going to have a mastectomy. I will be there for her, and I need to be there for me, too.
Plane time is strange time; you’re in another place, and yet somehow you are nowhere. I let my thoughts wander to a time when I might lose her, not have her loving presence in my life and children who may never get to know her, and hot tears burn my cheeks. The morbid thoughts are shaken from my mind as the islands of Hawaii appear in the blue water below—it is beautiful and lush even from 10,000 feet, and my heart lightens.
The glorious aroma of Hawaii enfolds me as I leave the plane. My brother Jimmy places a plumeria lei around my shoulders. Common in Hawaii, this beautiful, fragrant gift from my mother is an appreciation of things done by hand, a gift of someone’s time, a loving thought put into action.
Back at the house, Mom has made my favorite Hawaiian foods and lots of poi. She looks happy and relieved to see me.
The next day we see the surgeon. My mother seems to trust him and asks no questions. I like him, too, but ask many questions. He answers them all, and we feel that together we’re making the right decision. Mastectomy has been the “gold standard” so far, in conjunction with adjunct chemotherapy. We talk about a lumpectomy, but my mother seems more secure with the mastectomy, so the decision is finalized.
A few days later we walk into the Queens Medical Center in downtown Honolulu. My brother and I are joking and teasing her to keep up all our spirits, but the gravity of the situation is etched on our faces. We dissolve into small talk to pass the time, the big talk too painful to say aloud.
I kiss her good-bye as she is wheeled into surgery and tell her, “I’ll see you in a little while.” I remind her to hurry up or Jimmy will eat her delicious hospital lunch. She doesn’t laugh. I see fear creeping into her face—and sadness, too.
Three endless hours pass. Finally, the surgeon comes in and tells us everything went fine, and she is in recovery, able to see us. She opens her eyes and tears fall. “I didn’t think it would hurt so much, Pamela; it’s all pain.” She squeezes her eyes shut.
Ten days later, we get the first full look at her scar. It is huge. It runs from the middle of her chest, around to her back, stopping just before her shoulder blade. It is red and angry, but the doctor says it will get better and starts to talk about reconstruction. Mom doesn’t want to hear it.
“I’m too old and don’t care how I look.” She never has the reconstruction, partially because she doesn’t want to have to worry about self-exams on the new breast. “I am happy to be alive; I will survive.”
Survive she does. I make her a fake boob out of a Nerf ball and eventually convince her to buy a real prosthetic. Her ability to continue and thrive is amazing and inspiring to everyone who knows her.
Fast-forward eighteen years and my mother is still going strong at eighty-two. My sister asked her on her eightieth birthday how she keeps going. “I feel like that bunny with the drum. You know, I just keep on going.”
She is visiting me in Connecticut, and I have a mammogram appointment. I’m running late as usual, and she waits in the car with my two boys, eight and twelve years old. They have their lunches and GameBoys, and since my appointments usually take no more than twenty minutes, I figure it will be fine as always.
In five minutes, I have my mammogram. “Wait a minute, the doctor will be right in to see you.”
The technician comes back fifteen minutes later and says, “We need another close-up.”
Now I’m waiting in another area; it’s been forty minutes, and I’m worried about my kids and mother in the car—and about my boob. The radiologist com
es in. “We need to do a sonogram; there is a shadow we can’t quite make out.”
After the sonogram, the doctor looks upset as I try to remain calm. What is bugging him is the fact that he can’t find the shadow, whatever that is. They ask me to wait in another room. Then they hand me my X-rays and tell me, “Please call your gynecologist and have her recommend a surgeon.”
I walk out to the car. My mother takes one look at me, and she knows.
Two weeks later, I’m at the hospital to deal with the lump. This means a surgical biopsy, and I’m being prepped. The only other time I’ve been in a hospital was to have babies, so it’s bizarre to be in for any other reason.
My husband waits with me. “Small talk” again; “big talk” is too painful. Steve has always been there for me, his big blue eyes shining, not always saying anything, but always there. Our marriage is another one of life’s gifts to me.
As I’m put on a gurney and wheeled away, he kisses me good-bye and says, “I’ll see you later.” The anesthesiologist puts something into my IV, and everything takes on a dream-like feel. I hear them talking, I hear scissors cutting thread, but it is all so far away. I find myself in the recovery room, no pain, slowly coming back to Earth. I go home and wait some more. Mom calls every day, but there is still no word. A few more days, and the biopsy is negative. It is a benign lymph node!
At my check-up I see my scar for the first time. It is angry and red, about an inch long, running on the same axis as my mother’s. I have a tiny version of her scar, a tiny reminder of our connection. We are bound, my mother and me, by birth and family, by blood and pain, by humor and sorrow, by determination and survival, by love and spirit—all the gifts we share.
And we have the scars to prove it.
Pam Arciero
Dancing at Evan’s Wedding
Health is the first and greatest of all blessings.
Lord Chesterfield
In the fall of 1996, I was enjoying the good life . . . the mother of three young sons and happily married to a man I had loved and trusted since college. We lived in a beautiful home in a small Indiana town where I was a social and community leader and my husband a successful businessman. I was a former Seventeen magazine model and a teacher at Plymouth High School. I was to receive a grant from the Lilly Foundation, recognizing my accomplishments as family and consumer services teacher. “They used to call it home ec,” the woman said. By any name, it was a major accolade for my professional career and a proud moment.
It didn’t last.
Fate was about to deal severe blows that would leave me personally devastated and fighting for my life. First, my husband of twenty-one years left me.
Five months later, I felt a tingling and drawing sensation in my right breast. I was knowledgeable about body changes; for ten years I had taught my students about breast and testicular cancer. The material was part of the curriculum, and though there is no history of breast cancer in my family, I had regular mammograms and faithfully did breast self-exams (BSEs). I didn’t smoke or drink caffeine, only had a glass of wine occasionally, and took no drugs of any kind, except hormone replacement therapy. I was forty-three.
I had nursed my babies, which is a plus for women not to get breast cancer—besides that, it’s the right thing to do, for many reasons. It had been a little more than a year since my last mammogram, and I had no reason to suspect anything. My doctor found nothing unusual at my appointment. A month later, I woke up to find extremely swollen lymph nodes in my right armpit . . . like a bunch of grapes. They weren’t painful, but I knew something was seriously wrong.
I made an emergency appointment with the doctor; he ordered another mammogram immediately. It showed a small, definite change in breast tissue. A needle biopsy discovered a one-centimeter tumor that was infiltrating, so the surgeon removed four lymph glands for analysis.
All the tests were positive: a fast-growing malignant tumor, “worrisome and serious,” according to the doctors. Four days later, I had a radical mastectomy and removal of eight of twelve nodes, also positive. Six months of chemo reduced me from a size twelve to a size six.
At first, when I started losing hair, I was brokenhearted. My youngest son, Evan, saw me crying and said, “Mommy, don’t cry. Chas, Matt and I will take care of you.” Then he went to the bedroom, got my wig out of the drawer and brought it to me.
“Put this on, Mommy. It’ll make you feel better.” And it did.
I lost the hair on my head and my eyebrows. As it began to fall out, I imagined that every follicle that died was now a dead cancer cell, so the balder I got, the more cancer was being destroyed. I shaved off the rest.
Evan went with me for my radiation treatments, an eighty-minute round trip. The doctors let him push the radiation buttons, and he believed he was truly helping me get well. I minimized the pain from the burn by holding on to one dream: I wanted desperately to dance at Evan’s wedding—whenever that would be.
Nine months later, every method of testing for cancer proved negative, and six months later I underwent a seven-and-a-half-hour reconstructive surgery to form a new breast.
My dream of dancing at Evan’s wedding is going to come true! I believe in angels, and, after all, I live on Angel Street, in Plymouth, Indiana.
Nancy Jaynes as told to Ida Chipman
Joy Is the Simplest Form of Gratitude
The joy of a spirit is the measure of its power.
Ninon de Lenclos
A person who has been diagnosed with breast cancer anxiously waits to celebrate the five-year mark. Many doctors will tell you, “After five years with no cancer recurrence, you are cured of breast cancer.”
During those five years, your vocabulary may include words like biopsy, chemotherapy, radiation, tumor markers and tamoxifin. They are not just words—they are experiences.
During the first year you’re busy fighting for your life. Your calendar has more doctor appointment pages than social events. You’re still trying to accept the fact that your name has been used in the same sentence as cancer.
The second year, treatment is over, and your bald head now has peach fuzz. To a cancer patient there is no such thing as a bad-hair day: It is thrilling just to have hair, and it feels truly wonderful to have the wind blow through that new stuff on your head.
Years three and four, you start to relax. Every time you cough or have an ache or a pain, you no longer believe you might have a new cancer. Life is starting to become normal—you even visit the beauty salon to have your new hair styled.
The fifth year you graduate from the school of cancer. You’ve had a very tough teacher, but you did all your homework and learned your lessons well. A breast-cancer survivor never forgets the date she was told by her doctor that she has cancer. It is etched in her mind with all the other important events in her life. And graduation day, equally memorable, finally arrives after five long years of hard work. You stand a little taller, have a song in your heart and a wonderful smile on your face. It’s a wonderful day! The pill box has been removed from the kitchen counter, and the wig has been pushed back to the corner of the closet, now accumulating dust.
No one wants to hear the word cancer once—and certainly never twice.
Three months after graduating from the school of breast cancer, a routine pap smear showed abnormal cells, and the doctor said, “It would be a good idea to have more medical tests done.” I now learn more words: sonogram, CAT scan and that word biopsy again—and more blood tests. I had the tests and hoped I passed. The thought of having another cancer was unthinkable, and my mind repeated and repeated: I’ve already paid my cancer dues. I waited for the phone to ring, and when I heard my doctor’s voice I hoped she was calling to do lunch.
Deep within my spirit I knew something was wrong . . . and heard that ugly word again. The demon of cancer had raised its head, and once more it had invaded my life. Now I was really angry! I had graduated from cancer school, and now I’d been sent back to first grade! I wanted to yell and
scream! I needed to hit something, to release these demons!
The hard part is telling the people I love that I must have an extensive hysterectomy—more scars on my body. Oh well, my childbearing days are over, and my bikini days are long gone. Another trip to a hospital—just put the car on auto-pilot because it knows the way after so many journeys. I realize I need to approach this one as the last and live my favorite quote: “I might have cancer, but cancer does not have me.” I will be the same positive person I was before.
After surgery I waited to hear if the words chemo and radiation would be spoken, but this time—this time—I heard the words: “No further treatment will be needed.”
The wig can stay in the back of the closet, thank God! The pill box is back on the kitchen counter, but the color of the pills have changed. I am truly thankful that a routine pap test had shown there was a problem and a doctor ordered more tests. Twice I’ve been told I had cancer, and twice I have survived.
I see in the mirror a fun-loving, positive, upbeat woman, albeit scarred. I smile at her, and she smiles back. She knows she is a breast-cancer survivor!
Karen Theis
Reprinted with permission of Jonny Hawkins ©2005.
A Time to Listen
True silence is a garden enclosed, where alone the soul can meet its God.
Catherine de Hueck Doherty
Standing in front of the kitchen sink, cleaning up yet another mountain of dishes, I complained loudly to myself. Here it was mid-December, and once again I wasn’t nearly ready for the holidays at our house. I was failing miserably at a half-hearted attempt to make my oldest daughter’s birthday cake before going off to work, and I’d have to leave early to be at school for a presentation my daughter was giving. Never enough hours in the day! Was I always going to be pulled in three different directions at once, doomed to play beat the clock? If only I could have time to read a book, watch a movie, be alone or just plain think. In less than two weeks, my prayers would be answered, and I would get everything I’d wished for—and more.