Breast Cancer Awareness - lesson learned from a survivor
As a breast cancer survivor I don't think about cancer one month a year. I think about it every day of every month of every year. Once you have been touched by this disease it never completely leaves your mind. I don't obsess about it but I never completely forget about it either.
In my family we have four survivors - my step sister Beth who was diagnosed over twenty years ago at the age of 28. Myself, having just celebrated my eleven year anniversary of being cancer free. My sister-in-law, Carolyn who is a two time cancer survivor and is at her nine year mark. Lastly my youngest sister, Laura who has just passed her two year mark. You've probably heard it said but when one person in your family or immediate circle is affected with cancer of any kind - everyone is affected. It's not just the person fighting the disease it's everyone who knows her.
Although I was far from my family geographically when I fought my battle, I was blessed to have a loving circle of women who supported me and the knowledge that anyone from my family would have been with me in an instant if I had needed them. I will never say that I'm glad I had cancer, as I have heard some say. To put it bluntly, it sucked. There was nothing about it I would happily do again. Yes, I lost all my hair. Yes, I had all of the side effects of the chemo. Yes, I have the physical scars and places in my body that will never work the same way after having lymph nodes removed and so many drugs that my veins have too much scar tissue to be much good in some places. Yes, I have very small tattoos from where they gave me massive doses of radiation.
But despite all of the bad that came with having breast cancer I did learn one important lesson. I learned how to let people help me. As an extremely independent woman, it was beyond difficult for me to allow people to do things for me, even though they wanted to and I needed them to. At the time I thought the battle was my own. What I have learned in the years since is that no one wins a war alone. It takes a team to fight the important battles. A great team of doctors and nurses and all the love that your family and friends want to pour over you.
I hope you never hear the words, "You have breast cancer". I hope you never hear those words about someone you love. But if you do, let people help you. Let them stand beside you and fight the battle together.
Leslie
In my family we have four survivors - my step sister Beth who was diagnosed over twenty years ago at the age of 28. Myself, having just celebrated my eleven year anniversary of being cancer free. My sister-in-law, Carolyn who is a two time cancer survivor and is at her nine year mark. Lastly my youngest sister, Laura who has just passed her two year mark. You've probably heard it said but when one person in your family or immediate circle is affected with cancer of any kind - everyone is affected. It's not just the person fighting the disease it's everyone who knows her.
Although I was far from my family geographically when I fought my battle, I was blessed to have a loving circle of women who supported me and the knowledge that anyone from my family would have been with me in an instant if I had needed them. I will never say that I'm glad I had cancer, as I have heard some say. To put it bluntly, it sucked. There was nothing about it I would happily do again. Yes, I lost all my hair. Yes, I had all of the side effects of the chemo. Yes, I have the physical scars and places in my body that will never work the same way after having lymph nodes removed and so many drugs that my veins have too much scar tissue to be much good in some places. Yes, I have very small tattoos from where they gave me massive doses of radiation.
But despite all of the bad that came with having breast cancer I did learn one important lesson. I learned how to let people help me. As an extremely independent woman, it was beyond difficult for me to allow people to do things for me, even though they wanted to and I needed them to. At the time I thought the battle was my own. What I have learned in the years since is that no one wins a war alone. It takes a team to fight the important battles. A great team of doctors and nurses and all the love that your family and friends want to pour over you.
I hope you never hear the words, "You have breast cancer". I hope you never hear those words about someone you love. But if you do, let people help you. Let them stand beside you and fight the battle together.
Leslie
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