I Run for You and Me, My Friend

Tomorrow I will walk among thousands as we participate in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. 

Three years ago we found a large lump in my left breast.  It had grown quickly, from nothing to the size of a lemon in a few months.  Oh I didn’t go in right away but checked it daily for a few weeks.  Yeah, it’s still there…  So I did the right thing and had it checked.  The radiologist had never seen anything like it before–maybe cancer…maybe not. 

It turned out to be a phyllodes tumor, which is a rare form of breast cancer.  Less than 1% of all breast cancer are phyllodes.  It is considered breast cancer because it is extremly fast-growing and at the snap of the fingers, it can change from benign to malignant.  Just on a whim.  What the heck.  I’m tired of being benign, so let’s change.  The only treatment is to remove it.  Nothing else touches it–no chemo, no radiation.  Just cut it out.  Only 35% of women get a return of the cancer, but when it recurs, it is deadly.

So I had this tumor inside my left breast and had it removed.  If I was a smaller woman, I would have had a Mastectomy.  But instead I had 3/4 of my left breast removed.  For the past three years I have joked about this whole process.  Wow, I’d say.  If I have to have breast cancer, this is the best kind!  Nothing to do but have it removed.  No chemo!  No radiation!  No hair loss!  I have joked about when I finish losing weight, I will have my right breast reduced to the same as my left and fix the wonky boob.  I even had a boob savings account (but I bought an iPad with part of it and now *shrug*).

So I yesterday I am sewing and listening to music.  Melissa Etheridge’s song, I Run for Life, comes on and I find myself crying.  I laugh at myself and try to listen to something else.  Maybe a little Ellen Jewell.  Maybe a little Ray Charles.  But I keep going back to Etheridge, listening to her anthem song again and again.  And I start to cry every time. 

I realize a bunch of things.  First, I never allowed myself to think about cancer.  Ever.  Joked and reassured my kids I was fine the whole time.  Secondly, I feel like a fraud saying I am a survivor because what I had was nothing NOTHING N.O.T.H.I.N.G compared to many women.  And yet, still I cried.

Today Doug and I went to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Awareness Expo to pick up our packets and t-shirts.  As I was given my shirt, the woman said, "Wow!  Congratulations to you!  YaaaHooooo!"   And standing among the booths and people selling pink stuff, standing with Doug holding my hand.  I started crying again… 

It is time I let myself heal.
I walk for hope~~