My husband Tim and I walk most mornings. There is such beauty in the quiet of the dawn. Walking together early before work there is time to listen to one another. There is space to remember what a precious gift each day is. What a strange and wondrous path we have shared with one another.
Our youngest daughter, Hannah, is now doing her clinical rotations as a PA student. Her first rotation has been surgery at Regions Hospital in St. Paul. Last week she was the first assist on a bi-lateral mastectomy. She found it fascinating, especially how the surgeon could save the nipples and create pockets of tissue for the reconstruction of the breast.
In some ways her fascination is not surprising. She was 5 when I was diagnosed with invasive lobular breast cancer. Not in school yet, Hannah often came with me to the infusion clinic on my chemotherapy days. She loved the nurses and they loved her. Hannah would get gloves, syringes and lots of treats. She often played doctor or nurse. It has come full circle with make believe to now real life. I’d like to think her early experiences will make her a better practitioner.
Cancer or any life changing illness impacts everyone in the family. I became profoundly aware of this when I first learned that my bone scans were clear of cancer. When I told our girls the news, Madeline, our daughter who was 8 then turned to me and said, “Mom, you’re gonna be breastless but not breathless.” Her words became my mantra during my 8 months of chemo therapy and 35 rounds of radiation. “Breastless but not breathless.”
I shared my “Breastless but not breathless” mantra with a co-worker at Lincoln Park Middle School who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She and her husband also have two young daughters. When her scans came back clean I couldn’t help but cry. She and her beloved are now on a similar path that Tim and I shared, a journey shared by so many people.
For me the cancer journey was always a communal one. We do so need each other. Friends fed my family on all my chemo days. We literally ate so many people’s prayers, baked into all that lasagna and pie, meatloaf and soup. Now it’s my turn to bring the food and the prayers to my dear friend. It is Hannah’s turn to hold real retractors in a surgical suite.
It is a strange and wondrous path we all share. May you have time to see the beauty strewn all along the way.
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