This morning as I was dressing, I chose jewelry that I hadn’t worn in a while. I am partial to dichroic glass, I love its depth and variety of color and “inner” texture and the smoothness of its surface is calming. As I put on the pin, and earrings you see above, I realized that my mind had been working in its own subconscious right.

After fastening the pin, my mind traveled back to the day I bought it. Sunday September 19, 2004. It was brilliantly clear as it is today; the sky was blue, there was a touch of warmth in the air, there was a breeze and a slight hint of Fall. I was at The Nassau County Museum for an exhibit of WPA art. There was a crafts fair outside the museum and I trying on the earrings; I was looking at myself in a mirror that reflected large groups of people, treetops, wares and myself: a woman who was doing her best to divert her attention from her terrified gut by trying on jewelry.

Less than two weeks after going to the museum I would be having a right mastectomy.

If I purchased the jewelry it would mean that I would have to live to wear it.

That feeling of terror was like the time I was flying back from Italy many years ago. My husband noticed that the sun was suddenly on “the wrong side” of the plane. We had, in fact, turned around and and were flying back to the airport: we had lost an engine over the Mediterranean and were dumping fuel. As the plane approached the  Fiumicino Airport in Rome, we saw the ambulances and firetrucks lined up along the runway: We were going to die. After a wonderful vacation. Six weeks in Europe, one of many trips before and after. I made several pacts with God: I would have that baby I was unsure about having, I’d change this, be better at that, all the while feeling my life ebb second by second. “Please, if you let me live I will: …”

I held my breath. The plane rocked from side to side, we were on the higher side, then the lower side. We came down with a huge tipsy thud and blew out a couple of tires. We did a lot of bouncing. A few sopranos were screaming. A few “stewardesses” were white. “Can we use the bathroom?” one terrified soul managed to ask. The lady in the uniform responded: “I don’t care what the fuck you do.” We had all lost our minds but we were still alive.

What did I do after I made my way back to the nearly deserted, darkened airport? I walked like a zombie straight to the duty-free shop and bought several (more) Fendi bags–as gifts. When you know you are alive after a near disaster, what is the best way to confirm life? Go shopping.

On that Sunday in September I walked through the day, as I did for weeks before, numb. I was on a plane that was going to come down hard, with a great thud and it would jar me to my core. As the days got closer to the surgery my insides quaked. I had the excitement and anxiety of butterflies in my gut, surrounding a black pit of fear. I lived through each minute still trying to make sense of the diagnosis from the previous July. I was about to crash-land and was dumping fuel.

If you have read my posts on breast cancer (click here for an index to the series) you have followed me on a journey. You may have been on a similar journey yourself; you may have had breast cancer or another cancer, or some kind of frightening illness. Or you may have been lucky and escaped the experience.  You may, on occasion, have heard yourself say the words, “I’m glad it wasn’t me.” You may have been the one who danced out of a mammogram grinning, thinking you were “safe” for another year, exhaling hard. Maybe then you went shopping. You may have been the one who, like I, was called back for a sonogram, only you were told, “see you next time–it is only a cyst.”

I was the one who was told to “Come back, we see something.” I was the one whose sonogram revealed scatters of microcalcifications indicating blocked ducts. I was the one who was told the day before my retirement party, “You have breast cancer.”

I was the one who had five surgeries during the months before and after, to explore, ascertain, diagnose, rectify and reconstruct. By looking at me, you’d never know. There are fading scars on the outside, but plenty more on the inside.

I was the one who was terrified for months, but I made it through a mastectomy and reconstruction in twelve hours. I awoke on a morphine pump in intensive care a forever changed person. It took me a year to feel “normal.”

I am one of many who is still here.

That’s why I have been writing about my experience; it’s partly because of selfishness; I still don’t completely believe it, I still cringe at the thought of another mammography or sonogram or MRI (a new protocol), I’d like to forget it all but can’t.
I lost friends to breast cancer, friends who should not have died as young as they did.

My writing, my collecting for the American Cancer Society has everything to do with surviving and even more to do with loss. It has everything to do with the thousands of women who will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year: there should be no more years of waiting, we need a cure now: There should be no more women hearing those words: “sorry, you have breast cancer.”

There should be no more breast cancer.

This is now all about you or your wife, mother, sister, daughter, niece, aunt, friend. I may be foolish to think that a the money I raise can ward off this horrid disease, that a cure will be found in our lifetime. I may be foolish but it is now my job.

I miss my friends.

Karen, Linda and Leslie are gone. I am still here.

Please read about them.

Karen Hubert Allison,
a remarkable woman.

Linda Anderson,
a remarkable teacher

and Leslie Elder
a remarkable warrior

I owe them this much, to keep their names alive. To let you know that their absence is a big loss.

I am lucky enough to be able to wear that pin and earrings.

2019

Addendum: on the day I speak of during that September, 2004, at the museum, I ran into one of my colleagues, Neil Curtis. Neil was a wonderful worker and a terrific person. While in the gift shop, looking at a poster of The Ramones, I told
Neil what was going on: He saw how anxious and terrified I was and was trying to make me feel better. I remember being numb, I remember forcing myself to focus on the conversation. I was there and I wasn’t. Neil was at my retirement party three months before. I was sitting between him and another colleague, Avi Bernstein, who was fighting cancer. He was doing pretty well at the time.

Here’s what happened: I made it. Fifteen years later, I am still here with no issues. But Avi passed away. He had a cancer that ended up in his brain and passed a few years ago. And then, it was Neil who left, after a grand fight against a brain tumor. And then it was Susan Peet, another, lovely colleague. They were not the only people from work who got cancers, cancers of different kinds. It was a heartbreak for their families and all of those people who knew them. Neil and Susan were teammates, they were bright and fun and talented and no, it wasn’t fair.

When you lose people you love, admire, respect and know, it becomes your job to keep their memories alive.

And to continue the good fight for them.