Below is another excerpt from my book in progress, Feng Shui Animal House: Raking Sand in the Midst of the Chaos. It follows having the radiologist tell me that she was concerned about my follow-up mammogram results (click here to read about that).
In my family, I am the person who supports others when things get tough. Although my childhood years were difficult at times, my adult life had been relatively crisis free. I had spent years waiting for the other shoe to drop, and now it had. “It’s my turn to have something crappy happen,” I told my sister matter-of-factly.
My greater concern was how everybody else would take it. It was more than just telling people I was having a biopsy–I felt like the radiologist had told me as directly as she could that I probably had breast cancer.
Telling my mother, who had just lost her husband and had suffered a series of other tragedies in her life, was my biggest concern. I feared she would disintegrate with the news. I decided to wait until after I had the biopsy results to burden her with it. [Just for the record, my mother proved me wrong, amazing me with her strength and support once I did tell her.]
I knew it was better to seek the comfort of friends, but I could initially only muster the courage to share the information with a small circle of out-of-towners, whom I wouldn’t have to face immediately.
When my friend Susan in Pennsylvania emailed and suggested Friday, March 13th, to meet for a hike, I replied, “Sorry, getting a biopsy that day!” I told my sister Lisa in Seattle in an email entitled “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better” (she had just had a medical scare of her own a couple of weeks before). I told my friend Marcia in New York (again in the safety of an email), worried how she would take it since she had lost her mother to breast cancer.
Finally, while hiding behind the locked door of the bathroom so my kids wouldn’t hear, I called my close-in-every-respect, including geographically, friend Alice, who was loading her kids into the car to get them to soccer practice. I choked out the news, tears streaming down my cheeks.
Troy, 13 at the time, knocked on the door to tell me he was going to a friend’s house. Max, then 10, erupted into a panic because he couldn’t find his athletic cup before his first lacrosse practice. Alice was fully focused, supportive, and said all the right things, despite the chaos I could hear in the background as her kids were climbing into the car with muddy feet.
The athletic cup emergency finally cut the conversation short. I drove my cup-less son to lacrosse practice, met the new coach, offered to help as a team parent even though I had never seen a lacrosse game in my life, and explored carpool options with another mom. Then I rushed to the sporting goods store, where I stood in front of a hundred athletic cups and asked the poor guy helping me, “How does somebody lose an athletic cup?” What I really wanted to ask him was, “Do I look like someone with breast cancer?”
I bought the one-size-fits all cup and raced back to the field like an ambulance driver, all the while thinking to myself “one in eight women globally get breast cancer. If I can do this favor to my mother and sisters and girlfriends to statistically reduce their chances of getting it, I can handle it.”
Have you had to give family and friends bad medical news, or have you been on the receiving end? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!
Jindra says
Martha you are such a brave and loving woman – loving to your kids, family and friends! For me your story epitomizes how life keeps rolling along in spite of such huge news and how you handled it with such grace! Congrats on the blog and book!
Martha says
Thank you, Jindra. Birds of a feather … (you know the rest, I think).
Yoon says
I remember the title of the later news… as one of the far-flung friends: “big boob news”, I think it was… in response to Felice’s news that their family was moving to Lusaka! And the hysterical stories about debates and discussions about the cup size of the new boobs! Not only were you able to handle this scary news with grace & courage, but it was with a great dose of humor! I cried when I read the email, and I’m tearing up now just thinking about it. BTW, it’s also great getting these regular posts… sometimes a peep into what is going on now, but often some great detail about what has happened in the past, retold with insights and more humor! Awesome!
Martha says
I think the email you’re remembering was titled “Newsflash: Boobs Too Small”, Yoon. Let me take this opportunity to thank you publicly for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader outfit you and Felice sent me after the reconstruction surgery was complete — just in time for Halloween. And this despite the fact that you were both living in Africa at the time! Despite the distance, you were a great source of support (in every sense of the word). Love you, girlfriend!
Mia Gardiner says
I waited 24 hours before sending this. I’m not sure if a blog comment is supposed to be this long, but you said at the end of your blog that you would like to hear about this kind of experience from your readers. So here goes:
Three times in the late ’80s and early ’90’s I had to have breast biopsies, including one in the hospital under anesthesia where I had to sign a permission slip prior to the surgery for a lumpectomy, should the frozen section have shown a malignancy. Had the Dr. deemed that it would necessitate a mastectomy, I wanted to wake up and get other opinions and research options before making that decision. I was fortunate and the lump turned out to be a cyst that they could remove comparatively easily and internally, leaving only a small scar. I had chosen, before the surgery, to let close family and a couple of friends know what the reason was for the hospitalization (we have a ongoing request in our family to not keep significant medical problems a secret because of my experiences with that in my younger years personally, as well as situations I was involved in professionally as a nurse). But for that biopsy it was fairly easy to tell about it ahead of time, because I could precede it with the “I really think it will be o.k.’ phrase, even though I wasn’t really as sure as I sounded. My personal worst diagnosis was when I was told I would be deaf in my right ear forever, and no guarantees about the other ear. It was a huge loss and led to some major changes and adjustments in my life.
However, more to the point of your blog request for comments, my more relevant experiences of hearing and telling difficult medical news was as a partner and caregiver to my husband, Keith. On the receiving end, each time we were told of his diagnosis of cancer, it was as if the world stood still, and it momentarily would feel like the huge effort to get it spinning again was Herculean. But each time we moved on, and are ever grateful for all the positive outcomes. I wrote an essay 20 years ago about how it felt to be sitting in a waiting room while Keith was having a Pet Scan, which would tell us if his cancer had metastasized. I hope I can find that essay and share it with you some day. Knowing that the potential seriousness of the outcome was beyond all we had already been through, that wait was the longest two hours of my life. I found myself writing down my thoughts and feelings as I watched the hands on the clock move as if they were in slow motion. The writing while I waited helped push the clock hands forward. The relief we felt when we were told the scan was negative was more than words can describe, even two decades later.
We had to deal with Keith being diagnosed with cancer four separate times during a 12 year period. One of the ways I was able to be supportive to him during each of those episodes was to be his researcher. It was before the days of Google and was a formidable job. I was glad to do it as it was helpful to him medically and psychologically, as well as giving me a positive activity to channel my concerns into. The other role of support I took on was to be Keith’s communicator, at his request. So it fell on me to tell family and friends the diagnosis each time, though I always checked out with him as to who and when. But the rest was up to me…… not an easy task as you so well pointed out in yesterday’s blog. Who, When and How (a little differently for each person) …… and then to reassure and answer all the questions. Especially hard during the early days of each diagnosis when we had so many concerns and questions of our own.
I am so proud of the way you and Mark handled your huge medical curve ball. And I admire how you always, then and now, manage to include your sense of humor as you write about those times. As I write about my moments of hearing a serious diagnosis, and then the telling of it to others — especially our children, the vivid memories of those difficult times do return. They are never totally forgotten, but then neither are all the good and positive ones that ensued along the path of recovery.
Martha says
Mia — thank you so much for commenting on this post. Knowing how much experience you had in this area, I was hoping you would share your memories. I would love to see that essay you wrote 20 years ago if you find it one day. Writing was therapeutic for me as well, including by being able to communicate with far-flung friends via email (writing is always easier for me than talking, even though I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut at family dinners). Having married into the family in the midst of Keith’s series of cancer diagnoses, I am so grateful, almost 20 years later, that the two of you were able to win each and every battle. And it was a total team effort, not only his strength in enduring the various grueling treatments, but your support on the research, communication, logistics, and caregiving sides (including becoming an expert nutritionist who managed to avoid the need for a feeding tube by keeping his calorie intake high enough through smoothies, purees, and other food not requiring chewing when his saliva glands were being zapped by radiation). As a result (and it’s all about me, of course), my sons have had the best grandfather anyone could wish for. Not to mention that through your example your son was able to be the most supportive spouse one could wish for when cancer knocked on our door. Love you!
Lauren Crum says
Martha,
This email reminded me of a time when my mother was battling the return of her cancer…we were in an ABC store buying a bottle of vodka when she announced to the poor cashier (girl, 25ish) that she had a brain tumor. The whole situation was surreal to me…I wondered what possessed her to let this total stranger know she had a brain tumor?
Martha says
Wow, Lauren. I can imagine how bizarre that must have seemed to you. At the same time, I can relate to your mother. I may have done that a time or two, pulling the cancer card out of my back pocket just to get some shock value with it, especially at times when you were really sick of carrying the burden around (I really did come very close to outing myself with the guy helping me find the right athletic cup). It’s an odd sort of ammunition to have, depending on your frame of mind, a social experiment to see what peoples’ reactions are. I would have been freaked out in your shoes, as well. I wish I had known your mom, though–she had spirit, that one. Glad she passed it on to you.