Wednesday, December 13, 2000, was another full day: a morning social obligation, mammogram at 10:30 A.M. and then school activities for the kids. I was dreading the whole day, especially the mammogram.
At the radiologist’s office, I casually mentioned that during a self-exam I had noticed a small bump on my right breast. “Probably hormonal, no big deal,” I told the technician. The area was marked and X-rayed. Strange, they called for an ultrasound—just trying to be thorough, I thought.
Then a doctor said, “You need to see a surgeon and have that taken out; there’s a good possibility it’s cancerous.”
The next several minutes were a blur, but I do remember finding myself in the bathroom crying. Wait a minute, I haven’t even had the time to get this Christmas underway, and it might well be my last one. This can’t possibly be happening to me. I’m only forty-six, in good health, exercise and go to church regularly, and have a young family to care for. Surely there has been a terrible mistake!
At home there was a message from my gynecologist: “Call me!”
I did, and he offered me kindness, support and the name of a wonderful surgeon who saw me the very next day. I trusted him instantly. A biopsy confirmed it was malignant. The tumor was not very large, only five centimeters, and detected early. “You’ll need another surgery,” he said, “and radiation, but you can expect complete recovery.”
The surgery could be done on Friday, three days before Christmas, or I could wait until after the holidays. I decided the sooner the better. How would we tell the kids, our family and friends? The children would have to be told first, since I would be going to the hospital before Christmas and staying overnight. At a family meeting during dinner, we simply told them the truth: “Mom has cancer.”
Although the surgery was considered successful, a big surprise to all of us was that the tumor was almost twice the size as originally stated, and that both sentinel and axilliary lymph nodes were involved. This would change everything, and it meant there would be six rounds of chemotherapy followed by seven weeks of daily radiation. My immune system would be compromised. Work and vacation plans would have to be changed. I would lose my hair. All of a sudden, there would be plenty of time for me to read those books, watch that movie or just plain think. There would be many hours that would be spent alone recovering.
Although the scope of what was happening wouldn’t occur to me for a while, God was answering my prayers in his own way. My life was beginning to change.
Looking for a positive spin, my daughters and I spent an afternoon wig shopping, the three of us trying on new colors and styles. I thought, Well, this would be the first time in my life I would not have to worry about bad-hair days.
I was in treatment from January through the end of August 2001. Most of that time was spent in a doctor’s office, being examined, having blood drawn or getting daily injections. During that time I found time to watch only one movie and read two books. I slept quite a bit and certainly had plenty of time to think, but most of my time was spent listening . . . listening to others tell their stories, celebrating with other patients who were well enough to go on a long-awaited vacation, giving hugs and good wishes to those who had finished treatment and always marveling at the patience, skill and kindness of the oncology nurses, appreciating the brilliance of my oncologist and surgeon.
I participated in seminars, workshops and clinics, watched the seasons change, listened to my kids laugh, had actual conversations with my husband, learned how to draw eyebrows on my pale face, became close friends with a certain baseball hat, but best of all came the startling realization that the life I have, although sometimes crazy, was a good one and certainly one I was not ready to abandon.
Cards, letters and well-wishes arrived often. I’ve kept every one of them and will always be touched by the time taken by all of these people, some of whom I barely knew, to lift my spirits and send encouragement and support my way. On those especially bad days, I would take them out and read them again and again. They provided a renewed energy and determination to be strong and fight hard.
My diagnosis was over two years ago. There are still days when I’m tired, cross and angry, and don’t think I can fit it all in, but I’m very pleased to still be here to fit in what I can. God’s gift to me was to listen to my prayers and answer them in a way that would allow me to realize how truly lucky I am to have a loving husband, three beautiful children and wonderful friends. I’m still busy, but never too busy to take time for an impromptu lunch, a cup of coffee, take a walk or listen to a friend. Now when I find myself standing in front of the kitchen sink, cleaning up those mountains of dishes, I smile and thank God for the second chance to truly enjoy the life he has given me.
Donna Andres
The Olsen Girls
Light tomorrow with today.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
My little sister turned fifty today—the one I carried around when she was a one-year-old and I was two and a half. I told everyone, “My baby. This is my baby.”
She had a naturally curly, blonde ponytail and big blue eyes. “Oh, she looks like a princess,” strangers would exclaim. My brown eyes downcast, I nodded, brown hair bobbing.
Always calm and observant, she would sit in the middle of the living room, serene and quiet as I ran around the room, a four-and-a-half-year-old doing cartwheels, turning somersaults, singing show tunes, kicking up my heels— anything to get attention and applause. At three years old, she already knew she was loved. She was enough and didn’t have to work for it.
She had a pretty singing voice, though she didn’t think so. I taught her songs so we could sing harmony. We put on shows in the garage, big productions with makeup and costumes gleaned from my mother’s cast-offs. In the backyard we would perform acrobatic feats of wonder using the garden hose and creating a circus for all the neighborhood kids. We were a team—we were sisters.
We discovered books together and became bookworms, each checking out fourteen books a week from the local library, and reading all twenty-eight before they were returned and exchanged for a new tower of fourteen each. We worked through Mary Poppins, Little Women, Jack London and all the Oz books, the Shoes books (Ballet Shoes, Skating Shoes, etc.), and A Wrinkle in Time. We loved fantasy and stories about girls who were heroes.
Neither one of us was popular in high school; we were both smart and fell into the geeks and hippies segment of the teenage caste system. Bored with normal activities, we opened our own fashion boutique at fifteen and thirteen, designed and sewed all our own clothes, and with the help of our friends we filled a whole store with our creations. We even made costumes for rock groups.
College for me, Europe for her, then we came together again in the early seventies to open a bikini shop in Maui. We could do anything—we were sisters and a team.
Relationships and marriages followed, years of working in the theater for me, years of working in publishing for her. We were always connected, always close.
Then I was diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago, and she dropped everything to come and be with me. She cooked hundreds of meals and froze them, cleaned our house top to bottom, and went with me to scary chemotherapy treatments. At forty-eight years old, I finally learned what she had always known—I was loved; I was enough; I didn’t have to work for it.
I’m fine now, and she and I talk every week from 3,000 miles away. We’re a deeply connected team, and our husbands joke about how lucky they are to have married the Olsen Sisters.
How could she be fifty? How could I be almost fifty-two? Well, that’s the magic. She is really still my baby, and we’re still singing songs together, putting on puppet shows in the garage, reading books and now traveling the world. Every time I think of her, whether we are together or apart, we are all these things. She has been there with me, through all of it. We know all the secrets . . . we were there. Together.
I threw a big party for her fiftieth birthday. Everyone was asked to bring a skit or po
em or song. We learned the song “Sisters” from White Christmas and performed it at the party; at the end, the crowd applauded and someone yelled, “Do it again. We want to hear it again!” So we did. And I’m sure we’ll do it again and again over the next fifty years. The Olsen Girls never quit. We’re a team, forever and ever. We’re survivors. We’re sisters.
Mary Olsen Kelly
Laughter Is Bubbly!
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
Mark Twain
One sunny afternoon about two or three months after I had finished chemotherapy and radiation, I was outside watching my husband, Walter, wash our car. I decided to help.
He really didn’t want me to because I was still very weak and tired from the treatments for breast cancer, but being very persistent (translation: stubborn), I insisted. He finally agreed and brought a little stool for me to sit on and said I could wash the tires. I did this for a while, but it was very awkward sitting and scrubbing around the spokes in the wheel cover, so I stood up and leaned over.
My prosthesis popped out of my bra, fell in the soapy water and slid right under the car. We couldn’t see it in all the bubbles, and Walter was afraid to move the car for fear of running over it. So I slid under the car and fumbled around and finally found it. Retrieval was difficult because it was so slippery in the soapy water, but I finally had it in hand and plopped it right back where it belonged, bubbles and all.
I’ve always wondered how many people witnessed that spectacle. You see, I forgot to mention that we live on the busiest street in our town.
We laugh a lot at our house—always have. Laughter is indeed the best medicine!
Judy Averitt Hayes
Bad news, people. The latest research indicated
that laughter really is the best medicine.
Reprinted with permission of Mike Shapiro ©1997.
Diagnosis: Canceritis
Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes.
Henry J. Kaiser
It was just a little bump. A little red mosquito-bite-looking bump on my stomach, discovered while I was taking a shower.
I have skin tags, moles, beauty marks, age spots and other “skin decorations” too insignificant to have names, but I’d never had one on my stomach. I didn’t think about it again . . . until the next day. Again in the shower, I noticed the little red bump and then forgot about it once I turned off the water.
On day three, when the bump hadn’t gone away, I started getting nervous. I found myself surreptitiously lifting my shirt throughout the next couple of days to check it, and each time it was still there. I became more alarmed and tried to stay calm, but my heart skipped a beat.
I lived in a steadily increasing state of panic for seven long days and then did what any woman who had just finished breast-cancer treatment would do: I got to my doctor’s office as fast as I could!
When I had been diagnosed with breast cancer, I immediately thought I was going to die. But as the days and weeks passed, I realized I just might be one of the lucky ones who made it and began to relax a little.
By that time, I was fully engaged in my treatment plan and doing everything possible to be well again. I tried to cover all the bases: combining conventional medicine’s chemo, surgery and radiation with not-so-conventional treatments like meditation, visualization and dance movement therapy. I became an expert in my kind of breast cancer and drove my oncologist crazy with questions about bizarre therapies I’d found on dubious Web sites. I felt like I had a handle on this cancer thing . . . some control.
After nine months of total immersion in medical appointments, procedures and theories, focused only on my healing, I finished treatment. Wow! I was ecstatic and relieved that I had survived all the poking and prodding and probing and plotting. I thought, Now my life can get back to normal—no more treatments or doctor appointments or tests!
The euphoria of completing treatment lasted one week. Then it hit me that I was no longer doing anything to keep the cancer away. I felt like a tightrope walker performing without a net.
I became obsessed with checking for signs that it was back. Breast self-exams were not enough: I performed total body exams. Cysts I’d had for decades became suspect. Moles that had been part of my physical landscape from birth were examined daily for changes. Showers became agonizing events as I scrutinized every inch of my body for evidence that it had taken over again. I had a full-blown, hard-core case of CANCERITIS.
Yes, canceritis—the most common and least treatable long-term side-effect of breast cancer. Shortly after my diagnosis, on the phone with my mother, a forty-five-year survivor, she was telling me how funny her surgeon had been years ago when she’d gone through her breast-cancer experience. She laughed as she recalled one visit. After listing all her aches and pains that proved the cancer had returned, he asked: “Where did you receive your medical degree?” I remember rolling my eyes and thinking how incredibly paranoid she was.
So, a few months later, here I was doing the same thing over a little red bump! And I wasn’t the only one: I’d met many women who had survived breast cancer, and every one of them had canceritis. Some called their doctors daily with “symptoms,” some just thought about calling, but all of them were preternaturally aware of every nuance of their bodies. And their “symptoms” had begun shortly after their treatment had ended.
Hair grows back, nausea goes away—the body heals. But the mind gnaws on that cancer thing like a dog gnaws on a bone—compulsively for a time, and then burying it, digging it up, burying it, digging—again and again. There are many medications and therapies to heal the body’s wounds, but only one treatment for the mind. The magic bullet for alleviating the symptoms of canceritis is time. And the more time that passes, the less canceritis you have. My mother is cured of it, forty-five years later.
However, it had been only forty-five days for me when I found that little red bump on my stomach, and so the possibility that the cancer had come back was pretty much number one on my list of “what it could be.” The doctor said it was nothing. I asked how she knew it was nothing. She said it didn’t look like cancer, didn’t feel like cancer, wasn’t in a logical place for cancer to be. I repeated my question. She explained that just because I’ve had cancer doesn’t mean I’m not a candidate for other illnesses and conditions (hardly fair, if you ask me). And I said that sounded reasonable, but how did she know it was nothing?
Just to get rid of me, she sent me to the dermatologist— who told me it was nothing. I asked how she knew it was nothing. She said it didn’t look like cancer, didn’t feel like cancer, wasn’t in a logical place for cancer to be. I repeated my question. Just to get rid of me, I think, she removed that little red bump, did a biopsy of it and proved that it was indeed nothing.
I felt a lot better without that little red bump on my stomach (of course, now there’s a little red scar instead), but I realized how foolish I’d been. It’s understandable that I would immediately suspect cancer, and it was responsible of me to consult a doctor, but I did go a little overboard, insisting on a second opinion and a biopsy. That canceritis definitely had me going.
So I’ve decided to take a lesson from my mother and think twice before diagnosing myself with cancer every time I have a little ache—or a little red bump. And I’ve decided to stop the anatomical examinations in the shower every day. Why go looking for trouble? Why live the rest of your life worrying about every little something that pops up?
And I plan on making those changes just as soon as I get back from the doctor. You see, I’ve got this odd pain in my finger and . . .
Lori Misicka
8
GRATITUDE
There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.
Celia Thaxter
The Twelve Gifts of Chemo
I always feel that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing.
Katherine Mansfield
When I was d
iagnosed with breast cancer, I was flooded with love and support from a wide circle of friends. Cards, flowers, phone messages, e-mails and meals all were dearly appreciated and helped me have some bright spots during those most unsettling of times. But the efforts of one special friend really stood out.
When I was told I should undergo twelve weeks of chemo resulting in “100 percent hair loss,” I never dreamed I would actually look forward to my “chemo days.” Of course, I knew I would look forward to them in the sense that having chemo would reduce my chances of a recurrence, but actually looking forward to the days with anticipation and excitement never occurred to me . . . until my dear friend Chris worked her magic. She had already begun to do all the dear and loving things an extraordinary friend would do, such as acting as my “communications director” and gatekeeper, organizing a weekly delivery of meals, filling my bedroom with ten vases of flowers to welcome me home from my first surgery, doing research and helping to care for my three young children so my husband could be with me.
And then the day of my first chemo treatment arrived. Chris showed up at my doorstep, as she would every week for twelve weeks, with the first of her gifts for “The Twelve Weeks of Chemo,” delivered to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” The first week was “A Travelogue and Some Tea” (a very funny travel book by Bill Bryson titled Tales from a Small Island), accompanied by a card Chris had designed herself, which clearly took an enormous amount of time. Even though the card said “On the First Week of Chemo, My Girlfriend Gave to Me . . . A Travelogue and Some Tea,” I didn’t catch on that this was to be an every-week deal. However, after week two, when Chris again showed up with a card saying “On the Second Week of Chemo, My Girlfriend Gave to Me . . . Two Turtle Doves” (two Turtle candies and two Dove Bar candies), I started to get it, and so did my husband and children. When week three rolled around, I was excited to receive my surprise, and the first thing the children asked when they got home from school was, “What did Mrs. Helmholz bring?” By week four, it was one of the first questions my chemo nurses asked, and I started bringing in my treasures to show them. Chris had managed to find loving ways for our family look to forward to each week. My chemo nurses even looked up and printed the words to the song because none of us could quite remember what weeks seven and beyond were, and we were trying to guess what would come next. (It turns out that Chris had used this same technique, but the Web site she consulted had the wrong order of things, which caused her great consternation, but made me giggle all the more.) Here is the complete list of her weekly gifts: