Two days ago I lost myself in a few glasses of wine. Not something I often do. Just three. Three small glasses. Way more then enough for me. It was enough to push the tears. To allow my guard to go down and the tears to silently slide shinny paths across my cheeks. Sometimes you cry for nothing. Sometimes you cry for everything. Sometimes you don't even know exactly why. Sometimes your heart aches for everything that is and everything that isn't. Sometimes you are just plain overwhelmed by every little thing. Keeping yourself together can be exhausting at times and it's only when you pause, that the inertia breaks and the dam busts. When you keep going, going, going and it's all "good". Stop and you might melt in a puddle. Might stall. Might not be able to start again. It takes more effort to keep it all together then to fall apart. Yet, so rarely do we allow ourselves to fall... the pieces scatter where they may... and sometimes amazingly, if you actually allow them to fall... then the pieces fit back together again. Then you feel lighter, freer, better.
I was in my early 20's when I felt a strange lump behind my nipple. It wasn't painful, but I knew it wasn't "right". I first went to my general MD, after all, who thinks breast cancer when you're barely 22? I was told it was probably a case of mastitis, as I was a runner, and it was most likely due to irritation from my running bra's. Given antibiotics, I was on my way.
Ever feel like you are in a dream....everything is wonderful and suddenly you look up and there is a mac truck in your face? That is how I felt when I woke up from my breast biopsy back in Sept 2000. My life was wonderful. I had three adorable kids who were the light of my life Tim 6, Matt 4 and Holly 2, and a great husband, Keith. The biggest thing I worried about was what kind of pancakes the kids and I were going to make that day, or what park we were going to head out to. Over a series of months I had noticed a chain of small lumps in my right breast develop and thought for sure they were cysts. It was the breast surgeon that I finally saw that saved my life, Dr David Kaufman. Because my breast were dense at 32 years old, the lumps did not show up on the mammo and he insisted that I have them biopsied. I fought this idea. I was so busy with my kids and did not want to take the time to be in the hospital for a day. I also somehow thought that because I had such small breasts there was no way it would be cancer. Almost annoyed with having to do this procedure I dragged myself there. When I awoke from the anesthesia all I could see was the worried face of Dr Kaufman and the words I could not comprehend "Doris it is cancer, you have to come back tomorrow for a mastectomy"........Cancer? I didn't know anyone who had cancer. I did not have any of the risk factors. Had all three kids under thirty, breast fed them all, never on the pill, no family history, 32 years old. Are you kidding me????. "Fine"....I said to myself. I came home I looked my breast in the mirror, thanked it for nursing my three kids and serving me well....and said "goodbye".
