Coleen and her daughters in their Run for the Cure gear.
My dear “Oma” (German for grandmother) received a radical mastectomy in the 1940s. She was in her early 50s. She passed away from heart disease at the ripe old age of 97! What an amazing story, when we think about how much medical research and technology there was way back then!
Then there was my dearest friend in the world: my mom. Talk about a fighter. Although, she never really wanted to know much about anything that was happening to her. I am still very bitter about her story. No one deserved the pain and suffering that this woman went through. Four separate diagnoses. She lived with cancer for over 34 years: cervical, thyroid, breast and finally bone. This demon finally took her in 1999. I was 34 years old with two toddler girls of my own. How unfair.
Because of the family history, it was a yearly mammogram for me since the age of 28. I felt confident. With my self-checks and my yearly physicals, there was no way this was going to happen to me. Even if I do get breast cancer, it will be caught really early, and I will fight this easily!
In September 2010, I found a lump in my left breast in shower. My doctor checked me and sent me for another mammogram mid-year in left breast only. Nothing to worry about, thank God!
Then on Dec. 12, 2010, I found another lump in my right breast this time. It was huge. Mexico in three days! I thought that since the lump just “popped” up (it wasn’t there last month) and I would never get to see my doctor before the holidays and Christmas, I would wait until I got back to see what was going on.
Mexico was the most fabulous family Christmas vacation ever! I could never have imagined what horror was waiting for me in January 2011. I am 46.
In seeing my doctor on my return from vacation, she assured me not to worry as it grew too fast to be anything. She had only seen me in September! She sent me for another mammogram again, this time on my right side just to make sure. Mammogram showed nothing!? But everyone could see and feel the lump protruding out of me!
Ultrasound next … biopsy … CANCER!! How could this be?
My cancer is lobular. Apparently, very hard to detect with a mammogram. I never had an opportunity to have an ultrasound along with any mammograms. I felt like, all these years I was fooling myself thinking I was keeping myself safe. Me. The organized, “on top of it” kind of person. The one that was going to catch it in time.
The last five months have been a torturous hell. I lost my breast, my health, my hair, my dignity, my confidence. I lost me. I am fighting to re-capture anything that resembles “me.” Three point six centimetres, 30/38 lymph nodes, six rounds of the harshest chemo, four weeks of radiation, 20 pounds of body fat that I swore four years ago I would never regain. All this for being “so on top of things.” Yes, I ask, “Why me?”
My reason for fighting is this: my love for life, all because of my devoted husband, my amazing two daughters, my fabulous family and fantastic friends. If I can do anything positive through this I want to show you all no matter how bad things are, maybe, just maybe, there is a chance to live. Like my Oma, like my mom. I don’t want to die. I never want my two daughters or you to go through what I have. This is why for the past 13 years, I “Run for the Cure.” This year, I will be wearing a pink “survivor” shirt. This is where I am “Finding Hope.”
