I began to visit here last year when my husband was dying of prostate cancer. I posted a few times after he died and many people kindly posted or emailed me condolences. I lurked on the site for awhile, but the summer was very busy on our farm and my computer time was usually taken up with business matters.
Then, this past Halloween weekend, I found a lump in my right breast. I can still feel the ugly shock of the moment, and the sick, sinking feeling - I KNEW it was cancer, and I was right. That was bad enough, of course, but it seemed more than commonly “unfair” to me since I had already had one bout of breast cancer in 2005. I had then had a lumpectomy and chemotherapy and radiation; that took up almost the entire year. I endured it and came out with the certainty I was cured and need never think of it again.
I was wrong. It’s not fair. But it’s been many years since I had any notion of life’s fairness and I took this new blow the only way I know how: standing up and determined to fight.
This is a “new primary”, not the first cancer returned. Instead of a lumpectomy, I had a mastectomy and I have had 2 of the 4 chemo treatments my oncologist recommended. At the moment I am pretty much bald. I look in the mirror and I see that I now look almost exactly like my late grandpa, a dour and stout old Scot. His face glowers out at me and it makes me laugh.
Ha ha, she laughs. And yes, she does.
At the end of March I will be done with the chemo. My hair will grow back. At some point I will have my left breast removed. Life will go on. I expect many years of joy and many more tribulations. Nothing stays the same. How awful it would be, if nothing ever changed.
