God had blessed us with two "whole" children who brought us
tremendous amounts of
joy. From birth, our daughter seemed to be plagued with various
ailments, yet always
appeared to be the healthier child. Fortunately, none of the unusual
happenings seemed to
deter her from her accomplishing fantastic things at very early ages.
Being on a farm afforded
both of our children on-the-scene education that takes years for city or
town children to
learn
At the age of three, she began performing before audiences, singing
songs we learned
together--songs that were long and difficult for many adults to learn.
Consequently, she
never had stage fright or knew what being bashful meant. I really
believe that our music
was the thread that bound the family together. We always felt the need
to turn to it when
things were going wrong; it helped us survive the difficulty at hand.
There have been a number of times in my life when I have made the
remark, "If I can
get through this mess, I can get through anything." As I look back at
some of the things
that I termed a "crisis," it almost makes me laugh. Some of them were
child's play by
comparison to the things that were waiting around the corner in later
years.
We have had the hail storms that destroyed corn crops, a fire that
wiped us out of the dairy
business, droughts that made us wonder why we put so much blood, sweat
and tears into
the farming business and one school year when our children were forced
to attend rival schools.
All of these things seemed to swat us down, but we came back to do
battle another day. These
situations make one feel helpless, but the hope of doing better next
time is not destroyed.
Each time I came forth with my famous statement; each time I
wondered if I would be
conditioned for the next challenge that had my name on it. I began to be
able to adjust better,
or at least I thought I could. Many times folks did not understand my
ability to cope with these
crushing blows was not insensitivity, but strength to see a situation
through the end without
folding. It was holding on in spite of adversity. We survived. Many
years have passed since
the rival-school year and many crises came into the picture.
My husband's mother once said that when a child is born, one
worries about it until either
you or it dies. She was probably correct. I thought I could handle
nearly anything that was
dealt to me. Through level-headedness, music and prayer, many of the
things that came my
way were overcome. Then our daughter told us that she was going for a
mammogram. I knew
something was very wrong.
The waiting period between the time we knew that something was
suspicious and when the
pathology report from the open biopsy was due was an eternity. Each day
when she returned
from work I would call to find out what she knew. Each day she still had
heard nothing. I prayed
that everything was all right.
Finally, on this day when I called, there was a hesitation about
what she knew. Then she
quietly said, "It wasn't what we wanted." Then I knew it was a new
crisis. I contained my
composure until I hung up the phone. At that moment I felt as though
someone had just told
me that she was already dead. I know that sounds very strange,
particularly from a person
who has always been able to hold together regardless of what was going
on. But this time I
felt as though the wrong generation had been attacked. It was not her
turn. I could handle
this much better myself. Mothers can heal themselves much easier than
having their loved
ones in pain.
I began crying and sobbing, as I said before, as though she were
already gone. What am
I going to do to help her now? How am I going to help our granddaughter?
How am I going
to help our son-in-law? And worst of all, how am I going to help my
husband, her father, who
believes that she can almost walk on water? When my husband came into
the house and found
me weeping, he surmised what was wrong. All I had to say was that I
heard from Lillie. He said
later that it was the first time in the 50 years that we had known each
other that he saw me go to
pieces immediately upon hearing bad news. Usually, I held up until a
crisis was over before I
showed any affect at all.
"I can't stand it," I repeated over and over again. "There is
nothing fair about this. She
doesn't smoke or drink. All she is guilty of is working too hard. Why
are energetic people
punished like this? I could handle this much easier if it happened to
me." I went on and on.
He tried to comfort me, but there was little he could do when he felt as
bad as I did. It is
the most helpless feeling that one can experience. You are here, your
child who is a hundred
miles away has been notified that she has cancer and there is no magic
wand to make it
disappear. It just isn't a bad dream that you come out of either. There
is no way to escape.
There were several things that I was working on at that time and I
was making notes about
them. I was constantly using the wrong date. I was hung up in May, it
seemed. That was prior
to the announcement that cancer had found another fertile spot to have
fun. I suppose I wanted
time to reverse, so it would not be known that we had a new crisis.
One's brain works in strange
ways. I competely forgot my sister's wedding anniversary and her
husband's birthday. They
came and went in July, but I was still catching myself dating things
May.
Nothing seemed to be going right for me. Fortunately I did not have
what I used to call
"a real job" away from home. All of the work I do now is freelance or
keeping the farm
books, so my use of the wrong month could be corrected without harm. I
functioned much
like a robot. Many things were done by rote. Many other things were not
done at all. Some
things that had seemed very important no longer had meaning or value. I
called all of my
friends in various churches and asked that our daughter be placed on
their prayer list. We
had people praying in the entire country, many parts of Maryland, in the
District of Columbia,
in Colorado, in California and half way around the world (since our son
and his family were
stationed in Japan).
After the mastectomy was completed, there was another waiting
period. I was not doing
well in the section marked "patience." I felt as though I wanted to find
the person in the labs
where the testing was being done and make sure they were doing their job
properly. The
family accuses me of wanting to have things done properly anyway. Why
not? That's what
a person is paid to do. I also wanted folks in the labs to get moving
before I was totally
crazed with concern about this whole thing. Fortunately I was not
denying that this was
serious, even though I wanted the clock to reverse to a time when
everyone was well, or
at least, when we thought we were. I just wanted answers and I wanted
them pronto, not
later.
As the days dragged on, friends inquired about our daughter each
time I happened to
meet them, on the street, in the grocery store, anywhere. Each time I
found myself being
teary-eyed and had to apologize for showing such emotion. One day,
however, when a
family acquaintance asked about her, as I continued to tell him, the
tears welled up and he
quickly said, "Oh, I'm sorry that I asked. Please excuse me." I knew
then that I had to get
hold of myself. The last thing I wanted to do was to turn off folks who
were genuinely
interested, so I had a firm talk with myself and made it very clear that
I could do better. As
luck would have it, I saw the same man that evening at a meeting and
went to him to thank
him for making me realize that I could control my inner feelings,
particularly when folks who
inquire are genuinely interested in her health.
Fortunately, the lymph nodes were negative, so we felt that the
tide
had finally turned in
our favor. Now it was really time to give thanks for blessings. God has
spared us all for a
reason, I believe. We now need to continue to be crusaders who tell
others there is life after
cancer, that there is life after a mastectomy; that parents can be
supportive to each other as
well as to the family member who is the cancer survivor.
Now I can say that Lillie opted to lose a body part in order to
save her life. This delightful,
bubbly young woman with wit so sharp that one wondered why she didn't
have a daily
newspaper column, or some other way to share it with others who needed a
laugh to survive
the day has taught all of us many lessons through the years, but making
us realize how precious
life can be, is probably the most important lesson of all.
|
I've had the opportunity to experience breast cancer from three
different perspectives: as a teenager watching my mother's best friend
cope with this disease; as a nurse caring for mastectomy survivors; and
as a survivor myself. Why say "opportunity"? Because I am an
optimist...a breast cancer survivor.
It was rather strange the evening when our daughter Lillie called and
asked me if I would write a little bit about being a parent of a cancer
victim. Since I consider myself a rough and tough farmer, it is very
difficult to say the things that I feel, or to put them into print, but
if you are the unfortunate person who has been diagnosed as having
CANCER, bear with me and share my thoughts for a few minutes.
The beginning of the day the bubble burst I guess may be
insignificant, but I was in the shop some 100 feet away from the house
and I heard a noise. I finally came in thinking that my wife was
laughing, which is very unusual, for her to really break up. When I
found her on the sofa, I realized that she really had broken down, I
think for the first time in her whole life. Finally, I got her quieted
down enough to hear the story that Lillie had called and it was cancer.
You immediately think back to what I could have done! Have I contributed
to it? Many things come to mind. Why my family? Why my child? Why not
me? When you crawl back in your big green glass-enclosed monster, where
you are by yourself on a farm tractor, you can think. You think of
everything, I suppose. How when she was a child growing up that she was
fortunate, or unfortunate perhaps, to be born to workaholic parents. I
did not take the time when she was growing up to be with her as I
should. I was busy keeping the wolf from the door and attempting to
make a comfortable future for us.
