Jo Ann’s Journal

After I spend the morning and early afternoon at home alone, deepening my education about details of breast cancer, Bob manages to get off work.  I am so glad today was a planned vacation day.  I had the freedom to curl up in my recliner with my laptop and do my research without feeling guilty.

It’s time to get on with the scheduled vacation day.  We finally get out of the city and head across country on the small state and county farm-to-market roads.  I always find it relaxing to take a ride in the country.  Bob and I have several hours together in the car.  I share with him from my notes the details about the disease of breast cancer, the treatments and the possible side effects of those treatments.  While breast cancer is the primary thing on my mind, there is only so much I can say about it without repeating myself.  I know so little about my personal situation and where I am going to fall in the breast cancer matrix.  Surprisingly, Bob and I move on to other topics, coming back occasionally to touch on breast cancer again.

We finally get to my Cousins’ Gathering about dusk, instead of noon as originally planned.  There are 27 of us at the gathering this year.  It is good to be surrounded by people I love and who have known me my whole life, however I am not ready to go public with my breast cancer.  I am afraid they will either make a big deal out the cancer and I’ll cry; or proclaim that I don’t have anything to worry about and then I will fee undervalued, even though I hope I really don’t have anything to worry about.  Sometimes I’m not really sure why I react the way I do, and if it makes sense.

 This side of my family does not have a history of breast cancer in our bloodline, but we have certainly been touched by it.   My cousin Cary is here this weekend.  He lost his wife Donna to breast cancer 3 years ago.  My cousin Paula is also present.  Her sister-in-law had a mastectomy earlier this year.   These people have been hit hard by breast cancer.   I fear how they will react to my news, so I take the chickens’ way out and only tell a couple of my cousins privately about my diagnosis.

My sister Janis gets to the gathering even later than I do.  I meet her in the parking lot and tell her my news with no one else around.   She hugs me and I see tears in her eyes.  I tell her that it appears to be an early find and probably isn’t anything to be concerned about.  (Did I just say I didn’t want people saying that? – Ha!)  She tells me in a hushed voice that she is scheduled for a diagnostic mammogram next week, after having had a questionable routine mammogram this week.  The reality of the possibility of cancer is hitting her.  I feel so bad to put fear in her like that.  I start thinking about the women in my life this will affect – my daughter, my sister, my mother, and my cousins.  They can no longer say that breast cancer is not in our bloodline.  It has raised its ugly head.

As Bob and I go to the room that night, our conversation is centered on my cousins and what is going on in their lives.  Just as in the car earlier in the day, we move in and out of mentioning the cancer as we talk about other things.  I realize that life goes on and this is good. 

I have made it through my first full day of knowing I have breast cancer.  I can’t say I have found that peace that passes understanding that the Lord promises yet, but I have started dealing with my cancer.  In 24 hours I have moved from a state of shock, through a denial surreal stage, to facing this is happening to me, and finally to uncertainty about how other people are going to feel about my cancer.  Boy, I wonder what tomorrow will be like.

I will survive! I will thrive! ~ Jo Ann