April 28, 2007

I have a couple of books about cancer that my daughter Susan bought for me. You would think that all has probably been written about cancer, the stages one goes through etc. However, I’m sure it’s completely personal to each individual, as certainly I feel it’s personal to me….so these will be my feelings as I become immersed in being a cancer patient…. Forty-six years ago Joe and I were married; and over a span of the next 18 years, we brought six children into the world. We were divorced in 1997 and reunited in 2001. Intermittently since that time, we’ve worked at spending the “golden years” together. On February 11, 2007 with all of our children and grandchildren present we renewed our vows in the Catholic Church. The next morning, sitting on the couch, for no apparent reason, I felt my breast. There was a “lump” there. I was incredulous. This couldn’t be. It must be a mistake. My daughter Teresa, who came down from Reno, for the celebration is still here getting ready to catch a plane today. I can’t tell her. I can’t tell Joe. I can’t tell anyone. This is surely a mistake; it will go away in a day or two. Oh yes, it went away all right on April 19^th when I had a lumpectomy. The remains are still there though….the cancer cells that have invaded other breast tissue and the soreness still under my arm from the removal of so many lymph nodes. It doesn’t matter any more for me how I got here…but it might matter to someone else…I was too busy and too arrogant to get regular, not even regular, to even get a mammogram in the last x number of years. My maternal grandmother lived to be 100. My mother died a few days short of her 78^th birthday from advanced Alzheimer’s disease. I have no siblings and no close female relatives on my mother’s side. So, I figured I was excused from breast cancer. But here’s a thought I had yesterday…my mother and father were divorced when I was three. My father was around town and came by for holidays, school performances, and things like that. Here’s the point….my father’s mother was killed in a pedestrian accident at the age of 49 so I never knew her…but what about his sisters….he had a few of them…..I wonder now if any cancer ran through his side of the family….it’s too late for me now, but what about all those divorced families out there….do people know what the medical histories are on both biological sides of their family….good idea to find that out…

Several months ago my kindergarten teacher friend, Beth, offered to help me set up a Dr. Dottie website where I could share literacy information for teachers. I could discuss strategies from the book of which I’m a co-author. I could provide lessons, advice, helpful hints, etc. on presenting those strategies and much more. I never found the time to get together with Beth, and we never made the website. Now, here I am, with a blog, provided by my future son-in-law, for the purpose of sharing my thoughts, feelings, experiences, etc. with my recent diagnosis of cancer…….what a difference a day makes…Here is the first entry that came to mind two days ago, so here goes…

April 25, 2007

Yesterday, after being told by my surgeon (who recently performed a lumpectomy on me) that I would need a mastectomy, chemotherapy, an oncologist, a radiologist, more tests, more, more, and more…I realized that I am no longer an elementary school assistant principal; I’m not a part-time literacy instructor at the university; I’m not a writer/author; I’m not a mother; I’m barely a grandmother; I’m not a wife, lover, best friend, mentor, role model, listener, advisor…I’m a cancer patient…That is now what defines me…my actions, my conversations, my feelings, my everything…As I said yesterday on the way home from the doctor’s, I’d like to cry; but there are not enough tears in the world to cry about this…so why start…