Marilyn tells us how her family played an integral role in her breast cancer experience.
October is breast cancer awareness month. Throughout the month many events take place to raise funds needed for research. Cancer is something that occurs any day in any month. I’m writing this article because someone I know has just been diagnosed with breast cancer, and to those who may someday be affected by breast cancer, I hope my experience will make your experience less frightening.
Even if you haven’t been personally affected by breast cancer, sooner or later you may meet someone who is.
At some point in your life you are almost certain to encounter this disease – through someone who has had breast cancer, or whose mother, sister, or daughter has had it. When you do, your reaction is very important, because your words and actions may have a profound effect on that person. When a woman learns that she has breast cancer, as I did, it is a moment in her life when time seems to stand still, and the effect of that news puts her life into a momentary state of suspended animation. In a split second, all the thoughts and concerns previously in your head just disappear, and all you can think about is the news that you have cancer.
You stare at the doctor who relates this to you, but the person is no longer in focus. You are jolted into a state of shock that quickens your heartbeat, causes your body to go cold, and you feel pressure in your head as you try to digest what has been said to you.
When you open your eyes and recognize that the person who is talking to you is a responsible person, you can’t help but realize that they were speaking in earnest. For days, you waited for reports from tests, praying that all would be well, but thinking only negative thoughts. Only a split second passes, but it seems like an eternity, and when you can bring yourself to speak, you say, “What do we do?”
The significant word is “we.” Modern medicine, surgery, radiation, chemo, and drugs are available and, if diagnosis is early and the treatment successful, then this – the worst moment in my life – is the moment from which I can begin to build a new life. For my family, this is the beginning of the worst moment in their lives because what they do, what they say, and how they act will have a monumental effect on me and my future.
“What do we do?” means that everyone is the patient and the way that we accept and respond to treatment will determine whether we survive as a family.
When my family became aware of the illness and were fully cognizant of its effect, they had questions:
- Should they just ignore what was happening? Was it possible to go on with their lives as if nothing had happened?
- They wondered if they could disagree with me when they had an argument. They feared that upsetting me might hinder my treatment.
- They considered whether they should offer to do my work so that I could rest and take care of myself. Should they tiptoe around me, relieving me of any decisions so that I was free of external pressure?
- Do they treat someone with my diagnosis as if they were in a glass box and say everything will be alright, even though she can see by their actions that everything is not?
I wondered what my friends would say. When I told a few of them, I noticed that some found it difficult to look me in the eye. The conversation seemed stilted and uncomfortable. Others were very sympathetic and caring, and concerned about my health, but I sensed that my presence made them uneasy. I began to feel guilty that I was responsible for what had happened to me, and I started to keep my health problems to myself.
The years have passed since that time, and I’m thankful that I can now call myself a breast cancer survivor. Even though I am fine, I still have fear that never leaves me. My family and my doctors have played an integral role in my road to recovery through their love and support.
Being diagnosed is not a death sentence, and there is life after diagnosis. The role of the family is integral to the experience of cancer. There is a constant need for the mind to be cured while the body is being treated, and the family can play an important role in this healing capacity. Friends, too, are family in every sense of the word because they are the bonds between a normal life and a secluded existence. When you are ill, the need for a family is essential.
N.B.: To my good friends who were not survivors: Marian Sager and Barbara Grimson.
