Fight

Biopsy, lumpectomy, or mastectomy or words I personally associated with women I saw on TV, women giving testimony at an annual walk I did or someone somebody else knew. But never would I have associated the word with myself. I called myself supporting issues that I felt were popular or trendy. I'm always the one who will give to a worthy cause or walk for one. I just didn't think I would become one of the causes.

I was turning 40 and couldn't wait to celebrate ME. Something that I had not done my entire adult life. Being unusually tired and feeling as though I might have pulled a muscle in my chest exercising I went in for an examination with my primary care physician. Who would have thought that visit would send my entire world in a tail spin. A seven year journey where I would have to learn how to fight for my life by diving into a world that only my doctor friends ventured into.

The primary care physician was doing the best explanation possible without causing me to have a "natural born fit" in the office. Besides others were there for wellness checks and my soaking the carpet with tears would not change the diagnosis. I sat there alone allowing the impact and the weight of it all to settle by pinching myself from time to time just making sure I was not dreaming. I felt myself reaching for the phone a couple of times to phone my husband and then realizing this was not how I wanted him to find out.  The conversation I had I really don't want to repeat not now or ever. It was the lowest I had ever sunk.  I only wanted to know, What's Next?

Well in January of this year after much research, prayer and thought I had a double mastectomy opting for reconstruction. Many would call it a good move others would think it to be a bit drastic. I say until you have faced what I faced personally, don't judge just listen. Dealing with breast cancer up to this point had been seven years, six surgeries and a mountain of medical bills. Yet, I had not shed a tear or felt alone. Just before they wheeled me into the operating room, I took a long deep look into my daughters eyes and we both immediately broke.

This was my only daughter, my first born. I had her at 20 and she grew up as I grew into adulthood. She was there with me when I married her father. She was there with me when I got my first job. She was there with me when my husband traveled five days a week for years. She was there through the ups and downs of life. She has always been there. I felt her spirit long before I gave birth to her and I knew there would be no greater love.

I looked at my daughter and I saw the heart of a champion shatter because this was one she could not control. Her superman complex fizzled and breast cancer had did this not only to me but to her. She was not accustomed to seeing me in such a venerable position and the weight of it all over took her. I saw her face fold into the chest of the man I have known and loved for over 28 years and I was angry. I felt her pain in my heart and throat and I wanted to reach out to her and hold her in my arms taking her pain away. But I was on a journey that no one could go with me. It was the first time in my adult life  my daughter would not be with me. I was alone without my baby girl.  

My voice was gone and there was nothing I could say. So I cried. Not so much for myself but for all those lives touched because of this disease. For the mother daughter talks and special girl night dates that would not happen. For all the daughters who had to live their lives without the mothers they loved. For all the prayers prayed. For all the stolen joy and faith, I now was angry. Angry enough not to die but to fight.

So I write this today still fighting something that touches more people than my pea brain could have imagined. I fight not for The Cause but Because I serve a God through which all things are possible to them that believe. I fight not for myself but for my daughter and for her daughter. For all the daughers we no longer want this disease to touch.