September 27 — Celebration

by Cathy Scibelli

Today I’m celebrating the good news I received–my MRI was “normal,” making me officially a two-year breast cancer survivor. The two year mark is an arbitrary one, but nonetheless it’s certainly comforting when they tell you that your odds of surviving long term just increased a few notches.

So how to celebrate? The first reaction to news like this is always to feel as if I want to dance on the moon and shout the news from the mountaintops.

Everyone I mention my good news to tells me things like “You should go out to a fancy dinner,” or “why don’t you take a really special vacation?” or “buy yourself something great.” But an odd thing happens after you’ve been through a life-threatening battle with disease, or at least in my case it happened. The most ordinary things that I used to take for granted become the very things that feel special and celebratory.

It’s like winning the lottery to hear that you’ve just beaten the odds and been given the opportunity to enjoy the fall (my favorite season) without another doctor appointment or scary test until after Thanksgiving. Suddenly, I can feel “normal,” joining the rest of the world picking out my Halloween pumpkins and buying decorations, enjoying long walks in the cooler weather watching the fall foliage emerge. I can look forward to the Pumpkin Fest at my cousins’ Sugar Shack where I can get plenty of warm hugs and hot cider. Then I can come home to my cozy apartment, do some fall cleaning and redecorating, work on my blog and writing class, and continue participating in the women’s writing and breast cancer groups I’ve joined.

Don’t get me wrong, I do still have bigger goals on my Bucket List. One day I’d like to go out to San Francisco and see some of the sites my father told me stories about seeing when he was there while in the Army. I’d like to visit relatives in Tennessee and then attend the Story Circle conference in Texas next April. I think about one day moving to the country and buying a little place where we can have a garden.

But right now it just feels great to wake up in the morning and look forward to a “normal” day. Because when you feel as if every day is a gift and where you are in your life is a place surrounded by loving friends and family, that’s really all you need to have a celebration.

Cathy Scibelli is a freelance writer and breast cancer survivor whose life has been immensely enriched by joining Story Circle Network. She blogs at
http://iconicmuse.blogspot.com

January 23–The Third Sign’s the Charm

by Judy Whelley

After my dermatology appointment, I was to meet the friend who gave me the advice about being open to signs. I was pretty rattled, phoned her and blurted, “I have breast cancer!” We began a Keystone Cops routine, trying to find first a bar and then one another, ending up in the parking lots of bars on opposite sides of the street. She drove over, picked me up and took me to the bar across the street. Why we didn’t just go into the bar where I was I didn’t know. After a good cry, where she just looked into my eyes and listened with complete acceptance, we went in. It was after five on a Friday, too late to get other medical advice.

The bar was full of people celebrating the workweek’s end. I had a beer and a bowl of soup and tried to get some perspective. I faced the door and could see folks as they entered. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I realized that the person who had just walked in was my gynecologist. I walked over to her to be sure it really was her, and it WAS. I shared my diagnosis; she said while she had never treated a case of Paget’s Disease, she knew that the prognosis was good. I think this definitely qualified as a sign. For her to show up at that bar, at that moment, was a gift. Now I knew why we did not go into the bar across the street, I needed to be here.

On the drive home, I panicked. I called another friend and spilled the news. She pulled up Paget’s Disease on the Internet and began to read to me, confirming what my dermatologist said: it is rare, treatment is surgery, it can be DCIS (ductal cancer in situ) or invasive cancer, it is usually confined to one breast, one surgery involves removing the nipple and aureola, another is a modified radical mastectomy, sentinel nodes are removed to check the lymph nodes, sometimes follow up radiation, no mention of chemotherapy. The information from WebMD and the Mayo Clinic was almost identical.

When I told her I would have to go to the state capital, to the medical center there, she immediately volunteered to accompany me. I accepted, with gratitude; I was in the midst of an ugly divorce so I had no spouse to hold my hand and I had just lost my mother to cancer so the very word struck fear in my heart. It was such a relief to know I would not have to go alone. This was the final sign, letting me know that all was unfolding as it should. When I need to just cry and be heard, that will happen. When I need a doctor, the right one will appear. When I need someone to help me with travel and doctors a friend will be available. The signs are all there.

Judy Whelley is a writer living in Dayton, Ohio. You can blog with her at www.sensuouslysixty.blogspot.com.

January 23–A Harbinger and the First Sign

by Judy Whelley

In 2009, on my way to the dermatologist’s office to have a stitch removed from my nipple after a biopsy of some irritated skin, I saw one of those pink ribbon bumper stickers. The print under this one looked a bit different and I could not quite read the words. Avid word lover and reader that I am, I maneuvered my car till I was in position to read the bumper sticker and laughed out loud, “Save the Ta Tas!” I thought there goes a gutsy woman with a great sense of self and a great sense of humor.

At the office, I asked the nurse who had just removed the stitch about biopsy results. She said it was odd that they were not in the folder but she would check on them.

She returned, with the doctor, who pulled up a chair and said, “We have to have a little talk.” My heart sank. I wondered what kind of skin problem I had on my nipple and what the treatment might be. I was stunned when she told me that I have breast cancer, a rare type called Paget’s Disease. It accounts for less than five percent of breast cancers. At that moment I realized that the bumper sticker had been a harbinger, a preparation for what was ahead, a reminder to stay positive, maintain a sense of humor, and that being a gutsy woman is a good, good thing.

I have a dear friend who, whenever she is troubled, asks for signs from the universe to let her know things are unfolding as they should. She always promises that she will recognize the signs when she sees them.
After the doctor gave me the news and that the first line of treatment is surgery, she left to make an appointment for me with a breast cancer surgeon at the University Hospital at the state capital. She felt strongly that because of the rarity of this kind of cancer I needed to go to a major medical center. I just nodded. Do you know how, when you have just heard something truly astounding, for a while it is the only thing you can hear? I just kept hearing, over and over, breast cancer. Then, through that roar, I realized music was playing in the room. Despite my anxiety, a smile crept over my face. It was Louis Armstrong singing Wonderful World. I had helped found a charter school and that was our theme song. I was immediately soothed by the memory of several hundred children touching their foreheads and then outstretching their arms as they sang “and I think to myself, what a wonderful world.” The peace and hope of those children centered me. I took a deep breath, relaxed into the music and the memory, and acknowledged the sign.

Judy Whelley lives and writes in Dayton, Ohio. Visit her blog at
http://www.sensuouslysixty.blogspot.com

———————————————