It was the day before Thanksgiving. She introduced herself, and with a startled look said, \u201cYou don\u2019t look XX-years-old.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then she locked her huge brown eyes onto my small hazel ones. \u201cIt\u2019s a baby tumor.\u201d<\/p>\n
The oncology surgeon let that sink in and repeated it several times.<\/p>\n
With that, I was ushered into the world of cancer. Because of what had always been a routine medical exam, my life turned onto a road no one chooses travel. My whole life changed. I would forever be a cancer patient, hopefully a cancer survivor. My thoughts dashed from the realization that perhaps I wasn\u2019t invincible after all, to the people this would affect, to the things I wanted to do before I left this world and world events I might miss. I was a bit concerned that my life had been put into the hands of medical professionals I had never met. Just keeping track of their names and specialty already overwhelmed me.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always thought I\u2019ve been concerned for people battling cancer. Now, I am sharing their journey. I am only beginning to realize a bit of the depth of their feelings.<\/p>\n
My prognosis is good. With repeated assurances from the medical staff that \u201cwe got this early,\u201d and with a care plan in place, I see this more as a blip on my personal radar screen. I\u2019m almost ecstatic with the news that this is small and treatable. And I feel a bit guilty because so many don\u2019t have that hope.<\/p>\n
So, I am full of thanks for:<\/p>\n
An outstanding health facility nearby,<\/p>\n
Excellent, compassionate oncologists and support staff who jumped into action when they \u201csaw something,\u201d<\/p>\n
My primary care physician who has kept me healthy for many years and whom I trust,<\/p>\n
Good health insurance (How do people without it have any hope for beating cancer?),<\/p>\n
Family support and prayers,<\/p>\n
Prayers of people who don\u2019t know me, but who care when someone else needs help,<\/p>\n
Ongoing research into all forms of cancer and their treatments.<\/p>\n
Several years ago when new guidelines were issues about the frequency of mammograms, I asked my primary care physician what she recommended. She replied, \u201cAs long as you can crawl into this building, I want you to get a yearly mammogram.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve done that, and thanks to a whole bunch of people, joy takes on new meaning this season. The New Year for me will be shrouded in joy when I walk out of that building, cancer free. (Well, technically, I will leave that building in a wheel chair because I will be woozy following surgery. But, that didn\u2019t sound as dramatic.)<\/p>\n
Writers are always looking for new material. I would prefer something more pleasant such as writing about travel to Tahiti, say. But, I do have new material.<\/p>\n
Twenty-nineteen will see me becoming a pest by asking everyone I see, \u201cDo you have regular mammograms?\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, do you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was the day before Thanksgiving. She introduced herself, and with a startled look said, \u201cYou don\u2019t look XX-years-old.\u201d Then she locked her huge brown eyes onto my small hazel ones. \u201cIt\u2019s a baby tumor.\u201d The oncology surgeon let that sink in and repeated it several times. With that, I was ushered into the world… Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,22,10,33,32,13,27,50,49,9,24,11],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-biography","tag-creativity","tag-daily-life","tag-editors","tag-journalists","tag-lifestyle","tag-books","tag-breast-cancer","tag-cancer","tag-memoir","tag-publishing","tag-women"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions\/209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}