The "wig" part I love. Someone gave me a blonde Jean Harlow one, I bought a a red headed one, that my husband accidentally threw out at a rest stop on the way home from Wyoming. Oh I missed that one! (It was in a plastic bag on the front seat, I used to take it off when we were driving down the road because it was so hot and I guess he thought it was garbage. He has never thoroughly owned up to doing this.  ; D!) And, I had a brown one that I LOVED, had a lot of oomph on top but I ruined it by bending down too close to the stove one night when cooking chicken. Actually, I did it TWICE. (no sense!) Now, I have one that looks like Audrey Hepburn’s dark hair in "Two for the Road." I love this wig. Please. I even got a blue and white checked shirt at The Gap to wear with it sometimes & just top off my new Audrey look because I am such a goofball. ; )

Of course you don’t want to have cancer and go through the treatments. Take one step at a time- 8 chemos, then 7 etc- same with radiation- don’t think about how much to go- think about what has come and gone.  I worked part time through my chemo and radiation. Sometimes it took me all day to get out of bed, showered and dressed. But while at work it was a lifeline- my job was great to me and if I could not work, I got workmen’s comp so I did not use all my vacation time. I now work with other women with breast cancer and hlep support them through their times. It is helpful to me and to them.  You’ll make it, one day at a time!   Pris 5 years out.

 Dear Little Engine,

       I know it seems trite, but it is so true, take it all just one day at a time.  Know that in a few years you will look back on all this as just a bad memory, but full of the knowledge of the tough stuff you are made of.  You fight the fight for all of us.

                                     RN with breast CA in the past 

 

Your post made me laugh and smile… because I am right there with you. Diagnosed stage III breast cancer August 08 — been thru chemotherapy, modified radical mastectomy and radiation…still going through herceptin treatments for another 6 months. And smack dab in the middle, I celebrated my 40th birthday. I’ve never had kids, still haven’t been married and I swear I’m so pissed off about cancer its crazy. But I’m slowly accepting that I’ll never get my "life" back. It will never be the same, I will never be the same and that’s what it is. What’s good is that I got to swim in the ocean a few days ago to celebrate my life. And if I don’t get to swim anymore this year — there’s next year. :)  Cancer stinks. I need to know how it happens, why it happens and where’s the cure? I feel robbed but then… who told me that life would be easy? All that to say, your post was certainly heard by this cancer-babe … for a moment, I thought somebody was reading my blog back to me. What cancer takes away from you, love from other people fills those voids and makes you feel that even with a different life, it can still be a good life. 

i know this beautiful woman—and isn’t she beautiful—hair or no hair. she has a kind soul as large as the grand canyon-humor that you crave to share-laughter that echoes in your mind long after the visit has ended. i pray for her every night—she is my college roommate’s sister and HER BEST FRIEND. i am blessed to know her and keep her close to my heart every minute.

connie wilder

Dear sisters, please realize that by the time breastcancer (most cancers in fact) are diagnosed, it’s been there 10 years, or more.

Everyone "does it" alone - others can care, help, try to "be there," but we do it alone. Not to diminsh the value of supportive friends and family who, hopefully, take over the labors we did in our daily lifes BBC (before breast cancer), but for those stricken, we are thrown into a coccon and realize very quickly that echos are all around us.

As a 3-time survivor, and now international advocate (online and phone), what does matter, and help, is knowing we have the best team possible, with top 2nd opinion experts, knowing what our "next step" must be, always, and then realizing that "waiting" will never completely go away.

Bless all of you dealing with cancer, now. Our Dora is struggling through chemo, now, sisters - and I just heard from her again. (Hi, Dora!!)

 

WAITING 
These are the real feelings of a cancer patient, waiting for results, waiting – after check-ups, waiting … Nothing, education, career, experience, nothing spares one from deep personal emotions and feelings about life and its most precious aspects. The doctors were there once she created her own team. Finally, they could all openly feel together as a team. Yet, waiting can really only be experienced by the one the waiting directly affects.   ©  All rights reserved (contact Carol J Hinkley Thompson for permission  lorac657 at gmail ) 
How do I feel? Worn out, I gladly took the drugs, the morphine—everything and anything. This disease scares the, well, it scares the hell out of me; it just does. To admit it is not over with — if I do, I scare others and tell the world I am an emotional weakling, as well.
In the newspaper, on TV, on the radio, and at the doctors’ offices, researchers keep asking, "Why don’t women go for Pap smears, screening, and follow-up mammograms?" Before we have time to think about our own reasons, they answer their own questions: "They are afraid." Who is "they?" Am I distracting myself to quell the terror? Anxiety surrounds how I will act if there is something there, again. How will others act and how can I hold myself together long enough to keep existing day to day, job to job, child to child, shopping to shopping, night fall after night fall?   I’m trying to think, concentrate, meditate but I can’t fool myself—maybe that is what I’m supposed to do. It makes others feel better. How do others handle it?  Will I be able to handle it? Will it be possible to go through it, again?

I know that cancer can be in me—yes, it can. Suddenly my response is unlike anything I ever imagined. I will not be myself. There is another self, emerging, hovering, and watching the one I thought I knew so well.   Searching for soft, comforting bodily shelter, my own, another’s, my pet, my lover– this time, maybe just for now, fear and the need for comfort are always there, even when the cancer is gone, or “no longer active.”   Treatment is complete now, “It’s all a matter of symptoms with breastcancer,” the doctors told me; breast cancer is 100 cancers. I wait for symptoms. There is no other way to find or seek out the elusive killer that I know may return, or re-emerge. Sometimes symptoms come after treatment and the unpredictability of how I will handle the news arises again, but fatigue, emotional fatigue sets in even when there is no advantage to being prepared. Hatred exists for a cell that threatens my other cells as it creates new ways to survive, all without my permission.

Oh, yes, we all have to die—life is only for this moment—yet somehow we maintain that thread of connection with our inner self and then watch it slipping slowly through our fingers. Grasping, grasping for another’s hand may help me, for a time.

 

Perhaps reality is too present, like the sound of a tin can, rolling in the streets at 3:00 A.M. is real. The sound of crisp leaves underfoot, emitting their scents of delightful dampness is real, too. Can I remain real?

No one wants to hear, "You’re strong," or "You can handle it." How grateful they are that they do not have to bear the fear, the reality, no longer recognizing our bodies in the mirror, the feelings, and the needs—yet those who care feel the helplessness we share as humans when there is nothing we can do to change the course of the future.  The needs, oh yes, the needs—I ache to be taken into someone’s arms to be sheltered, hidden, protected by humanity, the earth, and strengthened. My soul feels the weakening of the my structure folding like a card tower and life’s thread slips further through my fingers but I’m afraid to hold on too tightly in case I have to give it up.

I long to hear people to say, "DAMMIT—this isn’t fair—there’s nothing we can do for you except the dishes, laundry, shopping, and be with you." Oh, but please—do these things, the things that need doing. These are mundane things right before my eyes that deny me space and time, the here and now, so I don’t have to use my physical energy too late.  Preserving the façade of the person I used to be is all I can focus on—the one no longer there, the one driven out whom I knew so well. Part of my self is gone but the façade continues without notice.  Is the thread gone? Do I have the power to pull it back into myself to prevent it from disappearing completely? Would it be ‘lady-like’ to stop that thread? On the other hand, is that like keeping our knees together when sitting down, once taught to us when we were young, now rejected by so many. Now, maybe, just maybe that will work and perhaps it was right after all. Maybe many things could have been different.  My self wants to let go of the thread, but somehow it’s connected to me and to everyone and everything in my heart. My young brother and my little sister are now gone—torn from me by this same vicious cell. Am I brave enough to let the thread go, forgetting the feelings of others? They don’t know this pain; they don’t ask. The thread holds my essence, but it is weakening.  The cancer was unseen but it was there on the negatives of this structure that contained me—films, negatives, overlooked impressions. “Impression” that’s what they told me. Words. “Positive–we’ll check.” They mean so much, yet nothing. Could careful monthly examinations have caught this in time? No, there were too many, and they were too small, “The most legal ones …” But, I didn’t miss it? I kept asking myself this question many times in the first months. Did I ignore it? Maybe I didn’t believe it, so it was easy to keep asking just as I didn’t believe in the comfort of an old stuffed animal. I do now.

My façade seems not to care but I know I must go on to find a new meaning within—perhaps its slipping, the absent self—fear is showing. Looking at my scarred flat chest, I realize that part of me was mutilated even though it was cut by a master’s knife, with my approval. Can one approve being mutilated?  Deeply, yes, to survive long enough to seek, look for the chord, for a time. Such a wondrous surgeon removed all of the minute strands of defense and their nodes along with the most utilitarian part of my body—twice, because someone “didn’t see it” on the other side, earlier. The shiny holes were still there to pour more chemicals directly into my heart even though I refused some of the recommended treatments because they seemed so extreme and dangerous. Is it too much for others to feel—to be nearby—to come to “repair wounds” and understand that cancer may be waiting for them? Of course—but it’s only in silence that breastcancer may continue to kill.

Oh, the next examination—it could be me, again. There is no way to feel prepared, no way to escape it, no way. I must just trust those I have asked to be there. The little things matter, like waiting, or the friend who doesn’t visit, the person who doesn’t call—like the hospital credit monsters, an unfeeling doctor or nurse.  The thread, my life’s thread is slipping away and I feel helpless to my self. I can help others. This time though, it is me again.  Little things matter so desperately. Understand my joy when you speak to me.  The unique abstracts—full of beauty and light delight me. Knowing, we learn about a new level of loving, depths of disappointment that bring with it a very new fear, or even when someone fails to show up as promised. Those who take my time and presence for granted cannot imagine that our world becomes life by the minute—no matter how hard we try to ignore the slow passing of time. Is human dignity really so insignificant?  Ah, but we are so fused to our physicians—the only trust we dare to place in another, for now, every communication with them becomes prime moments in our lives.  Maybe those I love know the truth, too—life is just for now. So many seemingly have forgotten about my life, my feelings, and my self, that self that is no longer there. Does the doctor know and not care?  How can I go on caring—is life caring? Am I feeling this vacuous space from others when the vacuum is really inside of me—deficient feelings that could protect me? Is reality wrong in times of a serious illness? For those of us who have learned and lived truth find ourselves wondering if it would be better to change and let ourselves assume a fanciful approach—wigs, reconstructed breasts, or the perfect size prostheses—drugs and denial. “Another test, just one more”—more technology, will it repeat the agony again? "It’s questionable—but with this new technology we can be quite certain as to…" As to what? It is cancer. Will it change because of the new tests? Does the new machine chase it out of the body, my body, my tissues, my heart, my brain, and my memory? The mistakes made along the way… there is always someone rising to the surface who has made a mistake and now that too becomes part of my waiting, wasting, watching, checking, and re-checking.  Oh God, how can there be so many tests? How can there be new techniques or drugs that work when others have only lived a year since they tried them? Do thirty months of data make a new drug worth trying? To me that is less than three years. I am supposed to have hope and to believe those who took it are still alive—after thirty months. Where are they, now? The decisions affect me; I must decide with everyone—reality is the real question, not a trial, new consensus, or a new protocol. What is my heart telling me?

The thread, I see it—praying it will knot. I have to hang on to reality. It will slip on through eventually. Waiting, waiting, waiting, hearing questionable results over again, when will it stop? "We have the results now…" The news comes. It is not malignant this time. According to the tests, they should say it has not spread. There are no objective, clinical analyses to prove it is gone or in remission.  Nevertheless, oh God, it has spread, it has taken part of me away, never to return. It has made me another person—another layer of uncertainty is open now. This layer is raw.

When life began, there was nothing. It’s at that level, again—a few atoms and a lot of radiation in which I exist alone. Now my anxiety floats off as an enormous unseen bubble, into the farthest end of the universe. As I watch it ascend, something else is there and it will have to be. There is no escape, no escape with a narrow margin, and no escape from a “close call.” I watch until it disappears, but the thread is still there.  My mind seeks to find space to accept this good news, and to think of healing what the waiting took out of me that no one else really knew about. I know the bubble containing life’s spirit—that which only those waiting can see—may burst up there—we know when that precious thread by which we hold it is no longer taut. If we can be prepared—it will be easier to handle—but that strength requires others, too.  Yes, it knows something. It is leaving me with the answers to seek, or to abandon me to return to my façade, the shell that once was myself, and filled my spirit. The self I knew so well—the person who responded with spontaneity, fullness, assurances, never letting such thoughts wedge themselves between my pores.

The next time the news, "It is malignant" and the tunnel closes in, compressing my torso. I am the only one who can hear my screams—they are so loud the intensity numbs my eardrums. My scream is within, from another time, yet I hear it in that tunnel as I slip down, grasping for someone or something to hold.  Friends and family cannot take this either or they will descend with me. They are tired, too.  How do others manage a recurrence? If there is a God would it hurt to let me know now? Please, life, please don’t let me use any energy on hoping against hope. The agonizing reality, the questions, the options, and the same phrases I heard before … life expectancy, this new drug, a new protocol—the tears are choking me, and I long to cry out, Doctor, please just hold my life for now. I need to trust you. I am no longer a strong professional. I know nothing, now.    Where is that bubble? The bubble I watched until it disappeared into the crevices of the universe. Why did it leave? Why did it take that part of me that was prepared—just in case? Why did it take that part of me that could hold me, help me now? Oh, why did it ascend? Not now—there is no time—I have more questions but I’m worn out from the repetition of tests, of waiting, and of pretending. Pretending to be a strong woman—Piercy knew about strong women.  Can someone help me with these questions, ask for me, or go with me? This is a killer disease, and no one pays enough attention, no one really truly cares or I would have known what to ask about and what to look for. I am no longer being strong. I have given that up, at least until I can find stronger days and resume waiting.  

First, I have to find the space to begin asking, learning about who I am, about me, for me. When I no longer keep looking for the thread, I can cry alone and give up because I have found myself.  ###

In 2005 I was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer consisting of 2 invasive tumors in my left breast. An MRI and surgical biop confirmed this mamogram diagnosis, & also found pre cancer lobular and ductal in my right breast. I opted for a bi-lateral mastectomy, and lymph node removal on left breast side.

Of course I miss my breasts for many reasons other than pure vanity, and I’ve developed lymphedema as a result of lymph node removal. Am I happy about this? No. But and it’s a big but..I opted to stay alive.

All of it is worth it, and I understand your struggle,pain,disruption, and all that it implies.  It takes courage and you certainly have it. Besides complaing about your treatment is a good thing as it allows you to blow off steam and vent.  You will survive and am sure be cancer free. Today I am cancer free and that is all that matters at the end of this journey.

Stay strong and stay with it.

My first run in with cancer was 27 years ago and I was pregnant with my son, who I am please to report is a healthy 26 yr old with a loving wife and good life. I had uterin cancer and after a colcon biosopy I had a hysteroctomy at 27. My second run in was with skin cancer, I was in the Navy and I’m very fair skin, I’m more freckles then can be counted (but I like them).  Then there was a growth on my leg which turned out to be stage one and removed right away.  I developed IBS from all the bed rest and meds and then came the polups, some were melignant and some were stage one, they were removed and I’ve been monitored yearly.  Then a few months after my divorces (after 21 1/2 yrs of marriage), I went back to school, in class the professor called me to her desk to point out my blouse was went in the nipple area, I freaked, I left class and went right to the VA Hospital.  The Doctor was a complete ASS, she insisted for four months that it was just an infection.  When she went on vacation everyone at the hospital who had been trying to get me a core biosopy of the tumor got it done, within days of the biosopy I was scheduled for surgery, I had BREAST CANCER and it had moved on to the lymph system, I lost half my left breast and all the lypmh nodes in the left arm (I am left handed).  I went through chemo/radiation and threaphy all alone.  My mother was sick and dying and I couldn’t bother her but my silbings completely ignored me unless they wanted something.  To use the computer, my car, money, any drugs they could steal, they never even came to the hospital to visit me.  My children came to see me as time allowed and with the help of God and my pets I got through it.  CANCER SUCKS, I don’t care if your a man or woman or what type you have.  NO one knows what your going through because each one of us deals with it in our own way.  If I didn’t have a strong spiritual relationship with God I wouldn’t be here right now.  So many times i was sick of being sick I thought about taking all the pain meds and anything else I had in the house, but then I thought about my children and how commiting suicide would be harder on them then a natural death, so I fought and I’m still fighting.  I will be in pain for the rest of my life, but I will put up with it and do what is necessary to be around so when my children decide to make me a Nana and I can spoil them.  My life seems to be one loss after another but I look to God for help.  I have done many things in my life that I’m very proud of and I will leave this earth when God says so and not a minute sooner.  SO KEEP YOUR HEAD HI, YOUR EYES ON GOD, YOUR EARS TO HIS VOICE AND YOUR HEART OPENED TO THE LOVE THAT EVERYONE IS SENDING YOU.  I hope my fight w/ cancer will help you, and give you some insight to the fight.  God Bless you, Deni

May God bless and keep you all in his loving arms.