A Day Remembered, A Disease Never Forgotten
Today I am grateful for the doctors, technicians, and support crews who helped diagnose my breast cancer 11 years ago. I am also grateful for songs that hold special meaning for me.
May 29, 2008. A day I have written about many times. A memory etched in my mind. A rundown parking lot now home to a HyVee grocery store. A stretch of road I traverse each day I go to and from work. My doctor's words coming through my phone, somewhat expected, still shocking. This after an anxious couple days of waiting after a MR-guided biopsy of a "suspicious area" in my right breast.
A biopsy that came a month after a "normal" mammogram. It's the stuff of stories and powerful writing. It feels different, much more sinister, today than it did some of these last eleven years. My diagnosis was Stage I, early stage, and surgeries showed no evidence of advancement of the disease. That could change though, like it did for my sister Mary Jo, who now is ravaged by and dying of metastatic breast cancer.
It is hard to write about gratefulness when I feel the despair this disease has brought to my loved ones and so many others. The despair and grief it has brought to me. It is a stretch to face fear with faith when the fear looms so large some of the time.
So what do I do? I write. I process. I feel. Here are a couple of posts marking this anniversary in recent years:
400,000 Gone, I Am Still Here: Marking 10 Years (May 29, 2018)
D-Day: Four Years Ago Today (May 29, 2012)
And I close in the only way I know how. Cancer or no cancer, all any of us have is today. Live it.
Embrace it. Cherish the mundane moments. Love deeply.
May 29, 2008. A day I have written about many times. A memory etched in my mind. A rundown parking lot now home to a HyVee grocery store. A stretch of road I traverse each day I go to and from work. My doctor's words coming through my phone, somewhat expected, still shocking. This after an anxious couple days of waiting after a MR-guided biopsy of a "suspicious area" in my right breast.
A biopsy that came a month after a "normal" mammogram. It's the stuff of stories and powerful writing. It feels different, much more sinister, today than it did some of these last eleven years. My diagnosis was Stage I, early stage, and surgeries showed no evidence of advancement of the disease. That could change though, like it did for my sister Mary Jo, who now is ravaged by and dying of metastatic breast cancer.
It is hard to write about gratefulness when I feel the despair this disease has brought to my loved ones and so many others. The despair and grief it has brought to me. It is a stretch to face fear with faith when the fear looms so large some of the time.
So what do I do? I write. I process. I feel. Here are a couple of posts marking this anniversary in recent years:
400,000 Gone, I Am Still Here: Marking 10 Years (May 29, 2018)
D-Day: Four Years Ago Today (May 29, 2012)
And I close in the only way I know how. Cancer or no cancer, all any of us have is today. Live it.
Embrace it. Cherish the mundane moments. Love deeply.
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