All to often in life we find ourselves at a cross roads. About the age of 12, a girl finds herself at the crossroads of childhood vs womanhood. For most girls its a right of passage. A time she has prepared for, for a couple of years, if not in mind then at least in body. But for some giving up childhood isn’t so easy because it’s easier to stay in our comfort zone than to venture into the unknown.
For myself, I left childhood behind like a stale donut. It looked good on the outside but the taste wasn’t something I wanted to remember. I didn’t have a bad childhood my Mom and Dad were great parents. I just never seemed to fit in anywhere. I wasn’t sure about my new journey though, I’ve always been half afraid of what the next step could bring. I grew up in the country where we ran barefoot through the woods and never left a barn unexplored. I knew about rotten boards and uneven ground. And I was sure that life was going to be good to me as long as I tried hard enough to avoid it’s pitfalls.
But try as one may there are pitfalls a plenty. And breast cancer is just one of them. It finds you no matter what stage your life is in.
Walking into the oncologists office, I had the feeling as if I would step on one of those rotten boards and fall straight onto a pitchfork. To me, Lucifer had me in his sights and he wanted me to fail at all cost. Also the feeling that God left me behind because I didn’t live a perfect life. I had made many mistakes in my life and I was sure this was my ultimate punishment. I knew I had a team of supporters that loved me and wanted me to beat the devil out of cancer. But, my mind would tell you a different story if you asked at that moment. My mind would tell you I was headed to the gallows and I already had one foot on a rotten plank.
Dr. O and his assistant sat before Joe and I and while talking about more tests and scans that needed to be performed before they could tell me anything definite about my treatment regime. They wanted to make sure my heart was up to a rigorous, chemical intake and that I didn’t have a tumor or mass elsewhere in my body. So, an echocardiogram was in order first thing. Because if my heart wasn’t strong enough, we couldn’t proceed with chemotherapy. A PET scan was ordered next, as well as an ultrasound on my ovaries. With reassuring smiles from both the doctor and his assistant I was on my way out the door when I had one more question. “Dr. O, is this kind of cancer hereditary?” He paused for a moment and asked if I meant could it be genetics? Yes, what are the chances that my daughters and granddaughters could be carrying it or passing it down. He said we could do a DNA blood test and send it off to make sure it wasn’t a malfunction of the BRACA1 gene. Ok, I said that sounds great. But in reality, all he said that I understood was, Its possible.
It’s hard to understand doctor speak. Mainly because we are not educated the way they are and terms tend to be a little over the average persons head. I left the doctors office with the knowledge of two certainties. One was, that I had triple negative breast cancer and two, I had a lot of tests in my near future. As I was walking across the parking lot to get to my car, I felt a warm breeze blow across me. That was weird I thought because the temperature was only in the 50’s. But at the same moment I looked up toward Heaven and knew that was Gods way of telling me he hadn’t really left. Oh what a beautiful day to learn that God would come along on my journey.