Cancer SAVED My Life

 It has been three years since my last post, and four since the mastectomy.  

My mastectomy was February 26, 2020.  That was the day a piece of my body was removed. I'm pretty sure it was the day that a lot of what makes me "Me" was removed.  

A week before my mastectomy I made a post about how my cancer had basically saved my life, my will and my desire to live. I had made a vow to myself in 2019 that once all of my 2020 landmarks left, I would be sure there was no more of me to remember.  I wanted to be rid of this life more than anything.  My 50th birthday was at the very end of 2019 and I would be 50 for the year of 2020.  I would also have my 25th anniversary, the year I would have been officially married for half of my life.   

I don't know why, but I felt such shame.  I spent a long time thinking God was telling me "Okay, you wanted to die so I am providing you a way."   I felt such shame and despair that I might have to rely upon anyone. That I would let anyone down or not be available for them. I hate being a burden to others.  Then I started praying to live.  Every time a death thought entered my mind, I would try to pray it away.  I wanted to LIVE. I prayed like every moment was my last, and that I could be given some more moments. 

Just the diagnosis of "cancer" steamrolled me. I heard words out of my doctor's mouth, but the messages sounded like little more than the teacher on the intercom on Charlie Brown shows.  I was quite surprised at the people who came alongside me.  I got a little prayer blanket from the Sunday school class of a lady who had known my brother and I since we were children.   My boss and his wife gave me the Hoda Kotb book "I Really Needed That Today." My co-worker Maxine was wonderful and encouraging.  My boss hired a young lady to assist during my absence from work and she was a dear.   My wonderful friend Darlene and a couple of young ladies who are her friends, Haley and Sidney, were by my side almost all the time. I stopped in to see Darlene after every appointment to let her know what was going on. 

We went on a family cruise to celebrate my father's 80th birthday and my 50th shortly after my diagnosis. I had taken almost a month before I told my family, just waiting to make sure everyone was on the same page about my diagnosis. I got permission from my surgeon to go ahead on the cruise before we started the treatment process in earnest, but I had to tell my family before we went. I had that dark cloud over my head and it was just following me everywhere and affecting everything I thought and everything I did. 

We returned from the cruise, and my first appointments were set with the radiation oncologist and the medical oncologist on New Year's Eve. What a day to have appointments like that.   The doctors were incredibly gracious, and my mother met my surgeon for the first time that day too. I had warned the surgeon that she was overbearing and I was told "I'm not scared of her. If she gets to be too much for you, we can tell her to wait in the lobby."  I knew I was in good hands.  My course of treatment at that time was a course of 45 radiation treatments and then likely 5 years of Anastrazole. 

In January, I had my first surgery, a lumpectomy. They did not receive clear margins and I was told I was headed for a mastectomy.  I was told that even though it sounded scary, it would remove the entire breast and take radiation off the table as a part of the treatment plan.  That sounded okay to me.  A month later after CAT scans, PET scans, MRIs, I was headed for surgery.   My left breast and sentinel nodes removed, and there was no sign that my lymph nodes were affected.   They got everything.  

That praying seemed to be working.  People were being really sweet and then things went a little sideways.   I needed a ride to my last appointment before my drain came out. My mother was going to come but she hurt her back. I called to my friends and neighbors. All of those people who said "If you need anything, just ask" were gone.  They stayed gone.   I Ubered to my last appointment to have my drain removed. I was starting to feel a little lonely and uneasy, but I just kept praying.  Everyone at work was having a fit for me to come back, but I had to wait to be cleared to drive.   I returned to a frenzy of paperwork and what I didn't do while I was gone.   THEN, two days later, the world shut down due to COVID-19, Coronavirus, "the pandemic," whatever people wanted to call it.  The world was pretty much projected to end.  It was sounding like the Apocalypse.   But it gave me time to regroup, to figure out how I was going to work and stay safe and not get sick. 

Recently, we lost a friend in the neighborhood- four years to the date of my mastectomy.  In the interim, two years ago we almost lost another friend to a heart attack.   She was having a really hard time with the fact that this last friend's death was two years to the date of her heart attack. A couple of days later I had my four-year checkup and my doctor reminded me of the date.  I remarked about it later, and another person at my friend's house made the comment that out of the three of us, it wasn't fair that I was the one who survived because I didn't have a family who would miss me. (I guess they meant I didn't have children or anyone to leave a legacy). I do have a family and I hope someone would miss me. I have LOT of thoughts on that issue that I will share in another post. I walked away that night REALLY knowing my place and why everyone had disappeared. I won't ever depend on them again or take them at their word that they will "be there for me." That ship has sailed.  I haven't had the emotional strength to speak to any of them since that day. I just can't. 

All of the 2019 emotions came flooding back, attacking and smothering me like a tidal wave.  I've been rolling around in the emotions and the guilt and the anger and all of it all over again.   Perhaps I would have been the easiest to get over. Maybe my purpose in living was to take all of the anger.  Maybe it is to pray for the families of my other friends.  I don't know what God's plan is for me, and maybe it was just to let me know that I was not the one to determine when I die.  

With God beside me, no matter who is against me, I have less fear than I did before cancer saved my life.