Happy Cancerversary to Me! I am a one-year survivor.

Happy Cancerversary to me! A year ago today, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. As they say in Cancerland, I am a one-year survivor. It’s sort of a weird thing to “celebrate.” But it feels right and appropriate to step back and say, hey, it was a slog but I am still here and I am doing great! And it feels right to say thank you to all you friends who helped me and my family get to the one-year mark.

Thank you, friends!

                My daughter, Julia, said a few days ago that she felt the anniversary would be a sad day for her. She said she would be thinking of how awful it was a year ago, and everything that changed.

I told her I felt the opposite, and that I planned to be very, very happy. Yes, a year ago it was awful, but things have turned out so much better than they could have. And there has been good as well as bad.

                I was diagnosed on Ash Wednesday, March 9, 2011. I had found a lump in my breast. My OBGYN was hopeful it would turn out to be a cyst. But we scheduled a mammogram, and the ultrasound technician and the radiologist were clearly horrified by what they saw. The film looked as if fireworks had gone off in my breast; there was a scattershot pattern of little tumors. I asked the radiologist if there was any way this could be anything but cancer, and he admitted, no, no way. I had an appointment with a highly recommended surgeon by that afternoon.

When I met with that surgeon a couple days later, she did not seem optimistic. The horse was pretty much out of the barn. It was stage three, and had spread to a bunch of lymph nodes.

                I asked her if she thought it was doable—survival, that is—and she said yes, but she didn’t look like she meant it. She did not smile. There was no hugging, no warm fuzzies. I started crying and she passed me a tissue.

“I get it,” she said. “You have an eight-year-old kid. You need to stay alive.”

I wanted to have surgery ASAP but she said it was too far advanced and we needed to do the chemotherapy first to reduce the chances of the cancer spreading.

I met with the oncologist, who prescribes the chemotherapy, a few days later. In just that little bit of time, the cancer had visibly progressed. You didn’t need to feel the lumps; if I took my clothes off, you could just see them.

Dr. Smith, the oncologist, is an understated, soft-spoken guy. But after he examined me he turned to me with frustration. He spoke sharply.

“Have you EVER had a mammogram?” he asked.

“I’ve had several,” I said, “but I was late for this one.”

I asked him the same thing:  was survival doable?  He said yes, it was, “But we’re going to have to make you jump through some hoops to get there.”

So it was a year of jumping through hoops, but we made it, so far.

I’ve told the whole sad story here already. At first it really was up in the air whether I was going to make it. I remember planting gladiola bulbs with Matthew last spring, and thinking that I should have bought perennials instead, because I might not be here next spring to plant more. And I remember when Easter was coming and the Hershey’s candy-coated eggs (an addiction of mine) arrived at the drug store. I told myself to enjoy each one, because you can’t get them after Easter, and this might be the last Easter I’ve got. I wasn’t being morbid; I was being honest.

Well, it’s a year on, and here we are. I’m in remission. I’m feeling very good. I am even beginning to have some sort of hair. How did it go so well?

I was lucky—or blessed—with what kind of cancer I had. It is a kind that is fairly non-aggressive and quite susceptible to chemotherapy and hormone treatments. Things started looking up as soon as it became obvious the chemo was working and the tumors were shrinking. The chemo made me pretty damn sick, but compared to how sick some people get, I had it relatively easy. The surgery went fine, the rehab went fine, the radiation went as well as it could with people deliberately burning you.

 Now it’s almost Easter again, and I am alive and kicking, and cancer-free. Wow! The chocolate eggs are back, and I have to pace myself on them. They are too good.  And Matthew and I have another bunch of gladiola bulbs to plant.

I feel great.  Funny how exercise and eating reasonably well and not drinking much at all makes you feel good. I’m in better shape than I have been for probably 20 years. I’ve got a trainer at the gym, and she’s kind of mean, in a friendly and sneaky way.  I did five miles on the elliptical this morning, but she tells me I should do it faster, and with more resistance. She made me do about a million arm curls on Wednesday, but I can’t whine about it, because my radiation oncologist says it’s paying off, and my bad arm has greatly improved.

I have a guitar and I’m learning to play it. And we just bought plane tickets for South Africa. We’re going to visit friends and family, and do a service project--I’ll be helping some women at a women's shelter make and market their beadwork.  And we will go on a safari. We are getting busy living!

I have gotten to think a lot this year about what is important and what isn’t. One thing that clearly is important is spending time with people you love. My friends and family have made it clear to me in many ways this year that I am loved. So I, personally, can’t feel sad this anniversary. I feel grateful and much loved by all of you guys. Thank you so much! And I am going to try something new in the blog today—I am going to try to post a video. Check it out if you have a few minutes.