No Hands, No Breasts
Today I am grateful for my siblings and for the play of dew on the grass with the sunlight this morning.
The other day I was biking and thinking about being playful. "Play" is my focus word for the year, given to me randomly by a friend each new year for the last few years. I knew it would be a stretch for me and it has been. Lighten up Lisa! I can be and I am playful. I have a sense of humor that is appreciated by others and myself. But playful is not a word I would use to describe myself.
I explored this lighter-hearted concept on my bike recently. Sometimes I will swerve from one side of the path to the other in playful fashion. Sometimes I ride with no hands on the handlebars...whee! I appreciate that I can still balance myself for a nice stretch. (As long as the stretch is flat and straight.)
Balance. Balance the present with our previous experiences. Today's date, July 17, sticks in my memory. July 17, 2008 was the date of the first surgery to address the cancer in my right breast. It was my first surgery of any kind. It came on the heels of weeks of waiting, and a growing mountain of unknowns, what-ifs, and trepidation. It was one of the toughest stretches of my life, those few weeks from May 29 to July 17, 2008.
We knew some information about my cancers (IDC and DCIS) but we would know a lot more after this surgery. FEAR loomed large.
Multiply that by 10 or 100 and that might come close to the fear that gripped my sister Mary Jo when she heard she had metastatic breast cancer. That is one of my greatest fears-that my cancer will return-and likely always will be, until something else takes my life.
That first surgery was followed by a failed re-excision in mid-August and bilateral mastectomies in December. I was just so happy to wake up from anesthesia 11 years ago today, and to also hear that my sentinel node biopsy was negative for any signs of cancer. I still remember the huge sense of relief. Some don't get that relief. Some don't get eleven healthy years and still counting.
My hair would fall out from chemo and my breasts would be removed in the coming months, but I knew some freedom that July day and moving forward. I still know that freedom, here to live it out fully for another day. That is a blessing I don't take lightly.
The other day I was biking and thinking about being playful. "Play" is my focus word for the year, given to me randomly by a friend each new year for the last few years. I knew it would be a stretch for me and it has been. Lighten up Lisa! I can be and I am playful. I have a sense of humor that is appreciated by others and myself. But playful is not a word I would use to describe myself.
I explored this lighter-hearted concept on my bike recently. Sometimes I will swerve from one side of the path to the other in playful fashion. Sometimes I ride with no hands on the handlebars...whee! I appreciate that I can still balance myself for a nice stretch. (As long as the stretch is flat and straight.)
Balance. Balance the present with our previous experiences. Today's date, July 17, sticks in my memory. July 17, 2008 was the date of the first surgery to address the cancer in my right breast. It was my first surgery of any kind. It came on the heels of weeks of waiting, and a growing mountain of unknowns, what-ifs, and trepidation. It was one of the toughest stretches of my life, those few weeks from May 29 to July 17, 2008.
We knew some information about my cancers (IDC and DCIS) but we would know a lot more after this surgery. FEAR loomed large.
Multiply that by 10 or 100 and that might come close to the fear that gripped my sister Mary Jo when she heard she had metastatic breast cancer. That is one of my greatest fears-that my cancer will return-and likely always will be, until something else takes my life.
That first surgery was followed by a failed re-excision in mid-August and bilateral mastectomies in December. I was just so happy to wake up from anesthesia 11 years ago today, and to also hear that my sentinel node biopsy was negative for any signs of cancer. I still remember the huge sense of relief. Some don't get that relief. Some don't get eleven healthy years and still counting.
My hair would fall out from chemo and my breasts would be removed in the coming months, but I knew some freedom that July day and moving forward. I still know that freedom, here to live it out fully for another day. That is a blessing I don't take lightly.
Comments
Post a Comment