Cancer doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care who you are, how much money you have, whether you have kids, a spouse, parents. It doesn’t care if you’re a good person and it certainly doesn’t care where you are when it decides to drop in and stay for a while. Which, if you’re home with family or friends or even alone, is probably a good thing. Where else would you be as you deal with surgeries, treatment, drugs, emotions, healing?
Month: October 2010
The Power of Pink
Now, A Public Service Announcement
Or, just me stepping onto my soapbox.
Here’s the thing to remember: Early detection saves lives! I can’t stress it enough. I didn’t explain it in my last post, but my mammogram looked absolutely fine that day. It was the ultrasound that showed something. It was too small to feel and not visible on the mammogram. In retrospect, a sad day turned out to be my lucky day. I caught it early.
Please, please, please ask for both a mammogram and ultrasound, especially if you fall into any high risk categories. This is my message and I’m sticking to it. Shouting it out loud for all to hear.
OK, that’s it. Back to your regularly scheduled life. Oh, and if you have an early detection story, I’d love to hear it. They make me happy.
Five Days
My assumption, these days, is that everyone has a story like this and if you don’t, you’re lucky. However, you don’t know that yet and most likely you’re not reading this. My story begins five days before May 2, 2009. That date practically jumped off the calendar every time I glanced over for the months leading up to it. If the date box could flash strobe lights, it would have. That’s how excited we were about our first family trip to Disney World. I know some don’t see the joy there, just huge crowds of hot, sweaty, cranky adults and crying kids, but not us. My husband and I loved it and to say we were excited, limits how we truly felt. If I could yell here, I would. We couldn’t wait for that day to arrive and our vacation to begin.
Disney World’s theme in 2009 was “What Will You Celebrate?” and we had so much. My 45th birthday, the 2nd anniversary of H’s adoption and AC’s 5th birthday. All good things. What better place to be?
Five days prior to leaving, in the midst of packing and planning, I went for my yearly (since turning 40) mammogram, along with my first ultrasound. My mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer at only 49 and her sister at 50. I was used to the concern my family history brought me, but I was also used to breezing through the mammo appointments with an all clear. Besides, this year I had other things on my mind. As any Disney fan knows, trip planning takes over your life. It becomes an obsession. There’s just no other way to be and I had it bad. If the radiologists had done an ultrasound of my brain, I’m sure they would have seen mouse ears, maybe a castle, for that was all I had in there. It was stuffed with all things Disney. There wasn’t any room for thoughts of daily life. However, the ultrasound they did do showed one, so small, so very tiny, yet suspicious cluster of cells in my right breast and in one sharp instant my brain cleared and my heart sank. This could not be happening.
Five days. I had five days to prep for the vacation of a lifetime. Five days to plan our adventures in the Magic Kingdom and Epcot and Hollywood Studios and the Animal Kingdom. Five days to plan our meals, our snacks, our pool time, our fun. What would become of our celebrations, my birthday?
Days slowed into hours and 48 hours later I was having a core needle biopsy and 48 hours after that, just 17 hours before flying off to the happiest place on earth, I was told it was cancer. I heard the words I had been running from for 25 years, ever since my mom was first diagnosed when I was 19 years old. It finally caught me. I was sad and scared, of course, but also, bewildered and that’s not a word I use often, but that describes it. I didn’t know where to turn or who to talk to, and looming right in front of me was a trip with my husband and two small boys. I had to finish packing and catch a plane.
Why Goliath?
Goliath is my dog. One hundred pounds of beautiful, purebred German Shepherd. He’s mellow. He likes to sleep a lot and these days you need to nestle close to his ear if you want him to hear you, but this wasn’t always the case. My husband and I adopted Goliath from the local animal shelter when he was nearly two years old. We were ten years younger, childless and very likely smarter than today. I always had dogs growing up and convinced my husband our very small, very old Victorian house needed a walking furball to shed all over it and besides, it would be fun. My husband had never had a dog before, just childhood dreams of how great it must be… a boy and his dog running in the fields. Off we went. When you’ve never had a dog, it seems fine to immediately gravitate to and fall in love with the biggest dog in the shelter. “Sure, he has a sweet face, but he’s so big,” I said. “Ok.” I also said. That may be the moment our quiet life began to change.
We named this giant dog with the sweet face, Goliath. Just because we liked it, not because he resembled a huge warrior or anything. Well, maybe just a little. I couldn’t know at the time his name would become to symbolize so much more. From here on out, things that seemed so ordinary, things that should have been ordinary became giant struggles. Goliath size struggles. Such as having a big dog, trying to start a family, and later being diagnosed with breast cancer. All major, life altering things, yet life does go on, every day. My boys still need breakfast, they have homework, they want a mommy playmate. The dog needs to go out, or the floor needs cleaning. There’s laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, husband, work, bills to pay… You know what I mean. The stuff that makes up every day continues, whether you’re told you probably can’t conceive, whether you just flew home from Russia with the cutest baby EVER, or you’re told the small spot is cancerous. I know I can’t possibly be alone in these things and that’s what brings me to write here.
I’ve search the internet for another like me, someone with similar experiences and the guts to share it, hoping for a connection to others that “get it.” When I couldn’t find what I was looking for, I thought I’d put it out there myself and see what happens. I hope you find me and share along with me. We all have our goliath size struggles, everyday, but at least we’re not alone to carry them.
Hello world!
Why Goliath?
We named this giant dog with the sweet face, Goliath. Just because we liked it, not because he resembled a huge warrior or anything. Well, maybe just a little. I couldn’t know at the time his name would become to symbolize so much more. From here on out, things that seemed so ordinary, things that should have been ordinary became giant struggles. Goliath size struggles. Such as having a big dog, trying to start a family, and later being diagnosed with breast cancer. All major, life altering things, yet life does go on, every day. My boys still need breakfast, they have homework, they want a mommy playmate. The dog needs to go out, or the floor needs cleaning. There’s laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, husband, work, bills to pay… You know what I mean. The stuff that makes up every day continues, whether you’re told you probably can’t conceive, whether you just flew home from Russia with the cutest baby EVER, or you’re told the small spot is cancerous. I know I can’t possibly be alone in these things and that’s what brings me to write here.
I’ve search the internet for another like me, someone with similar experiences and the guts to share it, hoping for a connection to others that “get it.” When I couldn’t find what I was looking for, I thought I’d put it out there myself and see what happens. I hope you find me and share along with me. We all have our goliath size struggles, everyday, but at least we’re not alone to carry them.