This week marks a year since my breast cancer diagnosis. I’ve been quiet on this blog.  Silent.  My last post, six months ago, was celebratory and conclusive: I was done with chemo. I’d rung the bell. I knew I still had surgery and radiation, but the worst was over.  I’d done it. People joined in my celebration. 

But then… it got complicated.  The surgery showed “residual cancer”  that had gone into a lymph node and a “little” beyond its barrier. More surgery showed that it wasn’t worse than that– and we all knew it could have been.  It wasn’t the news I wanted, and I was grateful it wasn’t worse. I also felt like I’d lost my place in line for an easy, predictable prognosis. I didn’t know how to talk about something that hadn’t gone quite right in spite of my fortitude, agency, and (let’s just say it) positive attitude. I was so cheerfully public about my happy progress. And suddenly, I felt very private about a setback I didn’t fully understand.  I was open with friends but didn’t know how to write about it.  I wanted to shout, “But wait, I meditate.  And I do YOGA!  I have a good attitude, and I PRAAAAAY!”

A year ago this week, a breast cancer diagnosis landed in our lives.  It didn’t blow up our lives; it lay there silently, taunting dark possibilities. I slowly discovered that I wasn’t dealing with destruction. I was dealing with the unknown. It felt the same.  I felt healthy and normal; I was loving my life with my husband and minding my own business.  I was eating organic food and avoiding processed meats. The world was opening up after the pandemic, and I’d scheduled the things I’d put off during the shutdown.  One of those things was a mammogram.  I was happy to check it off my list.  

A phone call.  More imaging.  A diagnosis. Hard words clattered like spilled marbles on a hardwood floor. Breast cancer.  Aggressive. Tumor.  We can bring you in next week.

Ben and I spent a long morning at Massey Cancer Center.  My oncologist, whom I liked and trusted right away, explained that I’d been diagnosed with a kind of breast cancer that 25 years earlier, for the most part, had not been curable. But then, she explained, some courageous women had gone into a tough trial, and almost all of them got well.  When the trial was announced as an approved treatment, the oncologists present at the conference gave a standing ovation.  They’d all lost patients to this, and that was about to change. 

I visualized that standing ovation every day.  Sometimes, in my mind’s eye,  my parents stood with the doctors.  Even the family dog showed up a few times. I followed this with a prayer, “God give me a long life.  Hold the drama.”

I told my doctor I wished I had not skipped that pandemic mammogram.  She told me that we were not looking backward; we were looking forward.  That was then, this is now. I was filled with gratitude for this team of doctors and their contagious confidence.   That has never wavered. 

I was pragmatic. I made a playlist of strong uplifting “I Will Survive” music, opened a new journal, called the owner of the beach cottage we love, and scheduled my tears for early private predawn moments.  I made sure my meditation apps were up to date.  I was trying to take hold of a storyline with a plot twist that did not belong there. I was wrestling misfortune for the job as narrator.  When in doubt, I fell into my husband’s arms. We’ve been graced with a pretty big love story, but suddenly, the reality of mortality intruded. There was no place for dread in our determination-filled lives– but dread would not leave the room.

The surgeon put off my port placement for a week so we could go to the beach.  During our stay, the roiling post-hurricane ocean regained its steady calm, and so did we.  Tide in, tide out… waves in, waves out… breathe in… breathe out.   

One morning on that trip a year ago, we ran into our good friend Linda Lauby on the beach. She’d recently finished treatment for breast cancer (the same kind I had); I hadn’t seen her since she was mid-treatment.  She was strong, in great health, and fully taking her life back.  She had us over to dinner and made us the most delicious Latvian Stew, inspired by Amor Towles’ Two Gentlemen from Moscow.  The meal in her gorgeous home, full of art and whimsy, was magical. Nothing would taste so delicious for a long time. Linda told me exactly what to expect. She gave me caps that were the perfect weight and texture for what would become my bald head. She put these in a bag with The Cancer Fighting Cookbook and cozy chemo shirts that unzipped for easy port access.  Her extraordinary kindness guided me across a threshold I’d been terrified to cross and would later inspire me to help others I dearly loved. She was a living and beautiful reminder that, in a year, this would be over. 

After that meal, I was ready to tell friends and family, and with their help, I was ready to face treatment. My family and friends were so very present.  Treatment was hard, but life was rich.  It wasn’t hard to track beautiful moments each and every day. Cancer treatment can be lonely, but my family and friends made sure I knew I was not alone. Holidays happened happily, and birthdays were celebrated. A Meal Train kept us going. Friends gathered. Time passed.  

It is one year later. We thought this would be over, but it isn’t yet.  I am in a clinical trial with chemotherapy, that is much easier to tolerate.  My hair is growing back. Food tastes good again.  A generation ago, we whispered the  C word, piling helpless hopelessness onto any diagnosis.  Things are different now.  We are slowly catching up with science. Our medical research teams are way ahead of us and certainly ahead of internet search engines.

The doctors and nurses at Massey Cancer Center have helped me get over my preoccupation with prognosis. One of my doctors explained that patients who are overly focused on prognosis during treatment become overly focused on reoccurrence after treatment.  He added, “That’s no way to live a life.”   It is true.  Life is too beautiful for that, and that is just one of the things I’ve learned this year. 

Some other things I’ve learned:

1. Don’t confuse cancer treatment with the cancer disease.  The treatment makes you feel ill, not the disease. 
2. People will say the wrong thing– we’ve all done it.  Realize what they are really trying to say: “I want you to be okay.”
3. Forgive yourself for not returning emails and phone calls.  Everybody else already has.
4. Faith is seeking answers as opposed to having all the answers. 
5. Rumination is not prayer.
6. Fatigue requires self-forgiveness, the understanding of others, and naps. 
7. Fiction makes the world bigger.  Exercise the reading concentration muscle, even while chemotherapy makes concentration harder.
8. Soft qualitative skills (meditation, social networking, family connection, faith, exercise, good nutrition) are big qualitative guns in the science of cancer treatment.
9. Nature makes everything better.

This year, I’ve had COVID twice, chemo, radiation, and two surgeries. I’m not done.  I still sit in the infusion chair every three weeks (but for much less time), and there are lots of appointments and tests.  Somehow, my focus has broadened beyond cancer.  My prayer has shifted from “God, give me a long life– hold the drama” to “God, help me embrace today.  Hold the drama.”  Make no mistake– I am going for a good long life.  But for now, I am playing the long game in the present moment. Life is full of love and hope. My prayer is answered every day, and I am grateful.  I know how lucky I am.