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My name is Linda W. My mother, who was 76 at the time, had scheduled our mammogram appointments for July 3rd. We went as a team every year, but I didn’t really want to do it that weekend, because it was the fourth of July weekend. So I called my mom and told her I was going to cancel it. She kept insisting it would only take a half hour, so I kept the appointment.
My mother saved my life.
The following week I got a call saying that the doctor wanted me to come in for a needle biopsy. I didn’t think anything about it because there is no history of breast cancer in our family. And I had been on herbal products for eight years, was in great shape, took a pilates class and was even at my goal weight. I thought I was the picture of health.
A little over a week later, on Friday, July 18th, I got a call from my surgeon. He told me that I had infiltrating ductal carcinoma – breast cancer. I can vividly remember the sickening feeling that came over me. I thought for sure they had read the wrong pathology report. That somehow my name got put on somebody else’s results. There was no way I could have breast cancer – it didn’t run in my family. It just didn’t make any sense to me.
When I could talk again, I asked, “What do I do now?” That’s when he told me that I was scheduled for a mastectomy on Wednesday. I didn’t really have a lot of time to think about it. Which I guess in some ways was better than having weeks and weeks to dwell on it. So I immediately called my husband to tell him. Then, the hardest thing I had to do was to call and break the news to my girls.
I have two daughters. My oldest at that time was 30 and was pregnant with my first grandchild. My youngest was 26. There was a lot of crying over the phone, and a lot of praying. It was also pretty devastating for my mother to watch me go through this. But we have a very strong faith in God, and I knew that no matter what happened I was in God’s hands.
A month after my surgery, I went to see my oncologist, thinking I was going to have to start chemotherapy. When I got there he was reading my report and said, “I’m not going to poison your body with chemo. You’re an extremely healthy woman.” I felt that was an oxymoron. I had breast cancer, but I was healthy? Since they didn’t know what caused the cancer, had done a mastectomy and took out six of my lymph nodes, they felt that they had gotten all of it. I felt blessed that I didn’t have to go through chemo.
It is devastating to be diagnosed with cancer. And it’s devastating as a woman to lose your breasts, because our society is so focused on them. But I made it through and I’ve had wonderful support from my family and friends. I don’t know what I would have done without my husband, my daughters, their spouses, my mother and extended family. Everyone was there for me. People from our church and neighborhood brought dinner over for weeks after I got home. The support was just amazing. The love and friendship was overwhelming.
My coworkers were also great throughout the entire process. Before I was diagnosed I was always telling the younger girls how they needed to eat better because I just wanted everyone to be healthy. Then afterwards, I felt I had let them all down. Here I was, preaching about being healthy and I was the one that got sick. I shared that with them and their response was that if I could get cancer, anyone could get cancer. A lot of them scheduled mammograms as a result of my diagnosis.
Now that I’m an over five-year survivor, I just look back at that high-five I gave my doctor and realize what a great milestone it was. But the cancer will always be in the back of my mind. No one is ever immune to it. Instead, it’s a journey. You have to take the good with the bad.
My advice to other women going through it is just to be there for each other, woman to woman. Let the person going through it ask the questions. Wait for that. Each woman is different in how she deals with her cancer and her treatments. For me, there were four generations of women – including my granddaughter Audrey – in my family, so while it was really overwhelming, it also brought us even closer.
Now my girls will have to start having mammograms at an earlier age than I did. Making younger women more aware of the disease and what to look for is really important. If it hadn’t been for the mammogram, I wouldn’t have found the lump on my chest wall. And because it was a fast-growing cancer, if I would have postponed that appointment until September, it would have been really bad for me. My mother probably saved my life by pushing me to go, and I’m incredibly thankful for that.
- Linda
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