On Being a Breast Cancer Survivor

Getting through treatment is only the beginning. The impact of breast cancer is as individual as the women who survive it. It can be an arduous though temporary challenge or an experience so transformative that it divides existence into two parts before and after.

Perry Colmore has experienced the disease both ways. When she was 45, she was diagnosed with lobular carcinoma in situ, a noninvasive disease that signals an elevated risk for invasive breast cancer. Given the choice of preventive double mastectomy or simply removing the small tumor, she opted for a lumpectomy. "I breezed right along, assuming I'd be among the 80% who don't have a recurrence," she says.

And so she was for seven years. Then a lump in her other breast turned out to be an invasive cancer that had already reached 12 lymph nodes. She underwent a mastectomy followed by radiation and chemotherapy. Colmore has been cancer-free for more than a decade, but her health has suffered. Radiation treatments damaged one of her lungs, causing wheezing and breathlessness. She's weathered bouts of pleurisy and pneumonia. And intensive antibiotic therapy for her lung diseases triggered severe diarrhea, resulting in a 40-pound weight loss.

Colmore's experience isn't typical, but it does suggest the range of later effects that can follow in the wake of breast cancer. The good news is that most breast cancer survivors are living long past the five-year survival benchmark of yesteryear. But many also find themselves facing the long-term consequences of the treatments that saved their lives.

This essay is in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

This month plus all other 11 months of the year I'm reflecting on an experience that has rattled me and turned me inside out and back again. I'm also remembering, missing and mourning all the dear friends I've lost (especially my two best friends, Wendy and Shelley). And lastly, I'm holding each and every women who is fighting breast cancer deep in my heart, sending them strength and love.

Imagine, if you can, being handed a gift. It's not your birthday or any other special occasion. You're a bit stumped. Why am I getting this, you think? Where did it come from? Once you take hold of the package it's thrust upon you; you simply have no choice you notice its heft: Its bulky form defies definition. It's confusing, unexpected and quite ugly. It weighs heavily on you, alters your breathing and makes you quite sad, really.

You yearn to give it back, or even heaven forbid re-gift it (but you don't have the heart to do that).What is this? I don't want it. I don't know what to do with it.Why me? But as soon as the gift is given, the giver disappears, leaving you on your own to figure it all out.You've heard rumors that it is, indeed, a gift that you will be grateful for one day. You've heard people say it was the greatest gift they've never wanted.

At first, you resent it, curse at it and throw objects, like sneakers, at it. It makes you bellow with rage. Hole up under the covers. How dare life go on around you; people smiling and celebrating and enjoying themselves when something like this is in your life?.......... Read More.......