High blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems, strokes, and arthritis—that is my family’s medical history. I grew up thinking that was all I needed to worry about. Good thing! Because, of all the ailments around today, cancer is the scariest one, the monster of them all. But there was no cancer on either my mom’s side or my dad’s side. So at least I didn’t have to worry about that.

    All the stories in books and on TV about people with cancer would make me cringe. Something that ate you alive from within was something I never wanted in me! I envisioned this big, black, yucky stuff all over someone’s pretty, red, healthy organs. And then there was the horrible treatment. In my mind, chemo and radiation were equivalent to someone holding you under water until you almost drowned—and even with them your survival is iffy. Who wants that?

    Then, at my regular mammogram, they found a shadow. Talk about being scared! But I had a really good doctor at my side. She was so reassuring and comforting. She had them take a few extra pictures with the boob-squishing machine and then she did an ultrasound. She talked to me the whole time and let me watch the images on the screen.

    When she was finished, she said that the shadow didn’t look like anything to worry about. She didn’t think it was cancer, but just to be safe she wanted me to come for a mammogram every six months. I breathed a great sigh of relief. A shadow is so much better than cancer.

    I went on with my life, and every six months I would get my boobs squished and have an ultrasound. After about two years it had become very routine. So when my dad was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus and the doctors told him he had about three months left to live, my shadow was tucked far in the corner of my mind and forgotten.

    Daddy’s cancer was shocking to me. Cancer? There wasn’t any cancer in our family. How could this be? A few days after I found out that Daddy had cancer, as I was driving home from work, the vision of that big, black, yucky stuff filled my thoughts. I could see all that ugly stuff on my dad, and I started crying and shaking. I should have pulled over until I regained my composure, but instead I rear-ended the car in front of me. It was the first time I had caused an accident, and while it wasn’t much of a fender-bender, I didn’t know what to do. I called my husband and just cried and cried. I don’t know what I was crying over: Daddy, the accident, or myself.

    If Daddy had cancer, then it was something I would have to worry about for myself. I thought briefly about the shadow, but I knew it was not cancer and I didn’t need to worry over it. I was going for regular checkups. Daddy didn’t go to the doctor until it was too late.

    And it was too late for him. Three months to the day from his diagnosis, Daddy died. He told my husband before he died that he wished he had gone to the doctor sooner.

    I went for another mammogram and everything was the same. The shadow was still there. The doctor told me that they were going to put me back on a one-year schedule after my next mammogram. After seeing what had happened with my dad, I felt they knew what was best for me.

    But at my next mammogram, one shadow had become two. While the first had not changed, this sudden second shadow concerned my doctor. I think my mental defenses kicked in and denial took over. I just knew this was going to be nothing. Cancer can’t happen to me. I had been going for regular checkups and doing everything they told me. Daddy didn’t. Daddy had had cancer. Not me.

    They ran some tests. And I was once again driving when I found out what they showed: breast cancer. For about a minute I started losing it. But then I would not let myself feel. Everything was so surreal. Daddy had had cancer and was now dead. They gave him three months. How many months would I have?

    No matter how much I fought the feelings, they continued to surface. A multitude of emotions invaded my denial and forced reality through, until my mental defenses kicked in again. I would cry over anything. I tried very hard to hide it because I didn’t want my husband, who was already stressed, to worry more.

    I got Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book. Whenever the doctor used a new term, I had my nose in that book to learn all about it. I threw myself into learning all I could from books. I was like a separate person, stepping outside of myself to look at everything clinically and impersonally. Once I reached this point, I also started to use humor to release some of the tension I was feeling. I was like Rodney Dangerfield—I took a bad situation and laughed. When I did that, the situation wasn’t as bad.

    Over the next few weeks they put me through a dozen more tests. I got so sick of doctors, hospitals, needles, and pain. I knew all the nurses and technicians by name. I knew every corner of the hospital. I knew which vein they could stick to suck my blood out. Now tell me, why can’t they all use the same blood to run their tests? What is the difference between the blood Dr. Smith drew on Monday and the blood Dr. Jones drew on Wednesday? Couldn’t Dr. Smith and Dr. Jones share the blood? No! They had to poke me like a pin cushion! It didn’t help any that I have bad veins and they were getting worse by the day.

    During this time, I started going through my house and getting rid of things that I thought were junk. Or at least that is what I told myself and others. Now that I can look back at it, I see that I was getting ready to die. We live in a very small townhouse and I am a pack rat by nature; there was stuff everywhere. I didn’t want my husband to have to go through everything. By the time I was finished, I must have gotten rid of a fourth of the clutter.

    A pretty amazing thing happened when I was clearing things out: I started to feel better about my home. I had never realized how stressful living in a cluttered home is. If I didn’t need it or want it, or if I’d never used it, it was out of there. I am now able to go to the store and not buy more clutter, so now my home doesn’t stress me like it use to. I still don’t like it because of how small it is, but at least it isn’t stressing me out.

    December 1st was my surgery date. My surgery would be a double-decker. One surgeon would remove my right breast and check out my lymph nodes. After she was done, the other surgeon would remove the extra tissue that was hanging around my stomach and use it to replace my boob. I was getting a tummy tuck and a boob job all at the same time! Hey, a girl has to be happy about that!

    Well, I had never had major surgery before, so when they told me about doing these two major surgeries at the same time, I didn’t bat an eye. I told the plastic surgeon that the only thing I really wanted from him was smaller boobs. See, I hated my double-D boobs and I’d had enough cleavage to last a lifetime. I wanted to be a B. He kept telling me that women these days were wanting larger, not smaller, but I persisted. Give me a B!

    The surgery went very well. My doctors were very good and the hospital had a great nursing staff. Everything was fine, except that when I woke up, the temperature in my room was turned up to 100 degrees. The plastic surgeon said I needed to be in a “body temperature” room for the first 48 hours so the plastic surgery would take. Body temperature, my foot! I know they had that heater going full blast for more than 48 hours. I was cooking but, as I wiped the sweat off my face, I just kept telling myself that I was alive and they had got all the cancer.

    Several things surprised me. For one, although I knew I had to go to the bathroom, it felt kind of funny down there. The nurse who had come in to check on me told me that they had put a catheter in. Well, when did they do that? And who did that? For some reason, a sudden wave of embarrassment and modesty flooded over me. It was bad enough having those double-Ds out there for everyone to see, and now this! But the nurse assured me that it was standard procedure, and then I thought about how I had gotten a tummy tuck. Of course they were going to have me “exposed.” What was I thinking! Who cared that the whole hospital had seen every square inch of me? I was alive.

    Wait just one minute! I had told the surgeon I wanted to be a B, but I still had my double-Ds. What was going on? I knew I had just had surgery because I was feeling terrible, but what did they do? Somewhere in the haze, though, I didn’t care about my breast size. I fell back asleep happy in the knowledge that they had got all the cancer.

    Yes, the cancer was gone and they didn’t see any cancer in the lymph nodes. I was so happy, but I couldn’t express it. Since I was their new clam bake, I didn’t have the strength to get up and dance. But every time someone came in my room, I told them that the cancer was gone. It was such a good feeling. I knew I still had to go through some chemo treatments, but that would be a breeze after going through two major surgeries at once.

    But I wasn’t prepared for the post-surgery stuff—things like the bursting out in tears over every little thing. My moods were all over the place and my poor husband never knew what he was going to get out of me. I was happy to get home and back to my normal life, but that wasn’t going to come as quickly as I wanted it. I found out that I not only had six months of chemo to go through, but I still had another surgery. If the new breast tissue worked, then the plastic surgeon could reduce my breast size. He said he had told me all of this before the surgery, but I think I must have zoned it out.

    About a month later, I had a port installed in my arm. By this time I’d had enough of doctors and needles and pain, and I had started to voice my discomfort. So, since they don’t knock you out to install a port, I yelled when it started to really hurt. But I was also chuckling at myself because for all my life I had secretly prided myself on being strong and able to withstand pain. After all, when I gave birth to my daughter, I had natural childbirth. Even though I had had back labor and had been in a lot of pain, I had been strong. Not now. Call me a wimp and I will agree! I was in my mid-40s now and I didn’t have to prove anything anymore. That doctor must have thought I was crazy, yelling with pain one minute and giggling the next. But this was the new me.

    Chemo was not like I thought it would be. Because of all the medical advances that have been made over the years, the treatment has improved. So there was no gasping for breath. Chemo was actually fun. Well, let me clarify that—the staff members at the Rocky Mountain Cancer Center were fun. They were all wonderful to my husband and to me. I was nervous at my first visit, but they explained everything. Nothing was hurried. I sat in a recliner with a chair beside it for my husband, and the treatment began. It was a good thing I had had the port put in because I know my veins would not have lasted through my chemo treatments.

    My husband and I became well known at the cancer center. When we went in, we would say hello to just about everyone, and anytime I had a question, I would call them. They had become like family. Many of the nurses would come around when I was getting a treatment and we would all joke, laugh, and have fun. I was happy to do anything to get my mind off of what was going into my arm.

    There are some things you just have to find out for yourself, like how hot wigs are. You know that your hair is supposed to fall out when you go through chemo, and when it does, you wear wigs. I didn’t want to go through the whole hair-falling-out thing, so I got it all chopped off and started wearing wigs. And then I found out that not everyone goes as bald as a cue ball. While I did lose my hair, it was more a severe thinning, but a wig or a hat was still a necessity.

    All of that would have been bearable, but to complicate things, I found myself in menopause. I was having hot flashes left and right! I just could not get comfortable at any time of the day or night. My poor husband had to live in a freezer—I kept the temperature at 68 and I was still hot. I would sleep on top of the blankets and he would be buried under them. Because of the kind of cancer I had and the chemo, I had to be careful of what I took to relieve the symptoms.

    Before long, I had finished my chemo treatments. I was ever so happy to get that port out of my arm, although once again I found myself yelling when it hurt and giggling afterward. I know the people at that hospital thought I was crazy.

    One month after my last chemo treatment I celebrated with some of my co-workers. We went to a nice restaurant and I had a few Long Island iced teas. Did I say a few? I meant to say I had several. But I didn’t care; my friends didn’t care. We were all having fun. I was alive.

    I find myself saying that a lot. I’m alive. It’s a good feeling, one I still like to this day.

    It’s amazing how a person can change when something like cancer comes into her life. It doesn’t have to be the end, like it was for my dad. I know that cancer will always be a part of my life now, but not as the terrifying thing it once was. I know it can come back again. I go for those regular checkups and follow all the doctors’ instructions. But I am alive and so are many others who go for their mammograms and conduct self-exams at home.

    Cancer is a monster. But cancer can be defeated. I am living proof of that.