Jane's Story from Tennessee

"Are you a cancer survivor?"

Unless I find myself in the company of other known breast cancer survivors - as in a Komen Race for the Cure - I am not the kind of person who walks around boasting my survivorship. Like a marvelous secret, I save that piece of myself as a treasure that I let out to certain people at certain times.

Surviving breast cancer twice is just one part of myself for which I am proud. I am proud of who I am, and who I have become as a result of the process of becoming a survivor. To me, in this, as in all of my life, it is the "becoming" of anything that is of greater value than the "being."

Women who have survived breast cancer can relate the tales of their diagnosis through their treatments. There are mammograms, biopsies, blood tests, consolations for therapies, second opinions, family consultations, cancer removal surgical consultations, plastic surgeon consultations, bone scans, lung x-rays, breast MRI's, liver scans, brain scans and hematologist/oncologist appointments.

Some women require cardiac consultations as a result of their chemotherapy and others are rushed headlong into severe onset of menopause within ten days of beginning a therapy that they hope will "cure" them.

From the moment a woman finds out she has cancer, that woman (now referred to as a patient) is literally thrust into a world of continuous doctors and appointments and if she chooses: treatments. And some patients, myself included, find that amidst all of that activity, they MUST get more information about their disease than is available through pamphlets, brochures and consultation with specialists.

I read and took notes on 42 books during the eight weeks from diagnosis through surgery and recovery to the stage where I hade to decide on chemotherapy and radiation therapy. I read about healthcare in the United States verses other countries. I read a book about cell transformation during cancer that if you had told me during college I would understand it, I would have laughed and called you a liar. But I did understand it. I HAD to understand it. My life as I knew it and my well-being as I saw it depended on being able to understand it.

During the process of discovery about cancer and its treatments I was being transformed. Let me share just five of the jewels about life that I had not fully appreciated until that time. First, there is no such thing as coincidence. There is what I now know to be synchronicity. I discovered this many times and in many ways (and continue to delight in the occurrence of it daily) and you could call it whatever you want from "blessings" to "Lord's will." If I were to recount for you all the synchronicities that occurred during my "fight" against breast cancer, you would shake your head in disbelief (like I did the first dozen times it happened) and wonder how it could be so. Coincidences are now something I view as occurrences for which we really have no explanation. Synchronicity, on the other hand, is the continuous unfolding of wonderful possibilities, all directed and guided by the goodness we call "life."

Second, I believe that my physical life will end when it is absolutely the perfect time. I am no longer afraid of when that is going to happen. I am going to try to make every minute count by being as kind as I can to myself and every person I encounter.

Third, I love and approve of myself. I love that when I gave up being judgmental about myself, I was then given the freedom to stop judging others. It seemed an amazing concept when I first realized that I did not have to make a judgment about what anyone else thought or did. I also realized and allowed that if I was always doing the best I can, then others are too. That is a freedom I did not even know I was missing until that time. What a relief! I get to be me and you get to be you - judging is not my job.

Fourth, no matter what else happens in my life, I have lost my fear of the unknown. I was so afraid, so very afraid, the first time I had to deal with cancer - afraid to live, afraid to die, afraid to just "be" and afraid to not "be." Afraid to be taken from my son who was only a teenager at the time. Afraid to have my husband saddled with a one-breasted woman who was in and out the revolving doors of the medical community. Afraid. Afraid. Afraid. I am no longer afraid. I get to just "be" until I no longer have being. There is great comfort in the knowing that I only have to deal with one day at a time. I have today - this minute, this hour, this now.

And finally, I have learned that I have the capacity to give to others and myself in ways that empower them and me. I want to share that empowerment with as many people as I can. There have been many great verses and stories written about the power of living each day to the fullest. I call myself a cancer survivor in certain groups that I affiliate with along those lines, but mostly I am a "becomer" for it is in the "becoming" of who we are at extraordinary times that makes us all survivors.

Thank you for the opportunity to share my blessings. I appreciate all your company has done and continues to do in aiding breast cancer survivors, treatment and awareness.

Diagnosed May 2000 and March 2004

Jackson, Tennessee