Category Archives: breast cancer

My Inspiration

30 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in breast cancer, writing

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This is all Gretchen’s fault. If this post makes you cry (and I am talking to my dear family members), you can blame her.

This week, her prompt for Spin Cycle is to write about a woman who is your role model.

I tried NOT to go with the obvious choice.

There are SO many women to choose from. I have been inspired by women I know and women I don’t know. Women from the past and women from the present.

But there is one woman who made me the woman I am today.

My mom is not my role model because of all the quilts she made, although she inspired me to start quilting.

Mom is not my role model because she took voice lessons on and off her whole life, although people at church have told me I have a voice like hers. (They are being so kind, but it is simply not true!)

She is not even my role model because she survived breast cancer for twenty-six years with such dignity and supported me through my own diagnosis of breast cancer.

All of these things certainly do inspire me. HOWEVER…

…my mom listened to me rambled on and on with my teen-aged thoughts when she came home from work and had to make dinner.

She gave me voice lessons and was my best cheerleader before high school musical auditions.

Mom spoke her mind, and told me when I was not dating the right boy, and as much as I hated to admit it, in my heart I knew she was right.

She told me not to be mad at my new husband, and told me all about her first fight with my dad.

Thrilled to be a grandma, she encouraged me as a new mom. When I was struggling with temper tantrums and potty training, Mom always had words of comfort and advice.

Simply put, Mom is my role model and my inspiration because she is MY MOM.

For more Spins about inspirational role models, visit Gretchen at Second Blooming.

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Step Up! Share the Love!

14 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in breast cancer

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A few years ago, I had just returned back to school after winter break. I was in my classroom, preparing for class, when I got a phone call. It was a good friend of mine. She had lost my home phone number, but she knew I would be back at school that day. When she told me her news, I burst into tears. She was barely 30 years old and had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Last summer, I ran into a friend of my sister-in-law’s at a funeral. I looked at her short, curly hair, finally growing back after chemo. This mother of two, in her 40’s, told me how relieved she would feel if she could just reach the five year survival anniversary. Five years. I smiled and agreed. Inwardly, I cringed, thinking that the fear of cancer recurrence never goes away. Not after five years. Not even after fifteen years.

Just last week, something happened that made me tearfully collapse in my husband’s arms. “It’s not fair!” I wailed. “I’m the one who had cancer. I’m the one who had needles poked into my arms for chemo. It’s not fair!”

Yes, even fifteen years after my diagnosis of breast cancer, I still have a self-pity party every once in a while.

The three of us have survived breast cancer, even though we were diagnosed young. However, the breast cancer community online was shocked by the loss of two young women who had been fighting metastatic breast cancer. Rachel, author of The Cancer Culture Chronicles and Susan, of Toddler Planet, both passed away on Monday, Feb. 6, 2012. While I never met them, I read their blogs and am so saddened by their loss.

I’ve been praying a lot these days. Amy, the Matron Down Under, just discovered she has breast cancer, and she is only 35. Her sister Becky (Suburban Matron) had her own fight with breast cancer two years ago. I just don’t understand why so many of us are diagnosed with breast cancer at such a young age.

 

Today, for Valentine’s Day, Dr. Love/Avon’s Army of Women is going to Share the Love to help further breast cancer research. LOVE Goes Beyond a Cure, and So Do I! Below is a video I made in October which answers the question, “When did you know breast cancer was going to change your life?” Since this video was made, I also was able to join  a breast cancer research study. What a great feeling! (If you are reading this post in your email or a reader, you may have to click to Lemon Drop Pie to watch the video.)

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