Chapter Two

Getting ready for bed one June evening in 2009, I felt a tiny lump, again in the left breast. I don’t think I slept at all that night and the next day I was in my doctor’s office. She performed a sonogram that day and although she saw “something”, I was told it was probably scar tissue.  I told her that “probably” was not good enough and followed up with two other doctors, who told me the same thing. Once again, there was something inside of me that was not buying their reassurances and I pushed for a biopsy.

The doctor who performed the biopsy remained convinced that it was scar tissue. In fact he said he would try to get the results back quickly so that I could stop this “needless worrying” and head off with my mother for a wellness retreat in New York.   I spent the weekend with my family and tried my best not to think of the tests that were being performed. Even as I ran through the sprinklers with my nieces and nephews, nothing could stop my mind from racing about the cancer. 

My mother and I arrived at the retreat Monday morning and we were unpacking the bags from the car when my cell phone rang. When I saw that it was my doctor’s number, I prayed that it would be his nurse on the other end (nurses can give the good news, doctors always had to give the bad news.) When I heard his voice on the other end, a wave of fear rushed through. All I remember are his words “I don’t know what to say – but the cancer is back” and then I collapsed into my mother’s arms. As I sobbed uncontrollably, I asked my mother “I just want to live happily ever after – is this too much to ask?”

We put the bags back in the car and headed back to DC. When I met with the surgeon the next day, he went over the options  – a double mastectomy being the most drastic.  Since this new tumor was so small – 4 mm - he did not believe that a mastectomy was necessary.  After reminding him that I had undergone radiation and medication for the past two years, I told him I was done playing it safe. Point blank, I asked,  “If I were your daughter, what would you recommend?”  He paused for a few moments, and then said  “a double mastectomy."  

That was the moment I made my decision. While it was a huge decision, I made it with conviction. Having just had an MRI two months earlier (which did not detect anything), I knew I needed to deal with this aggressively and asked to have the surgery performed as soon as possible. Nine days later, I was on the gurney about to go into the operating room, tears running down my face. One of the doctors took my hand, and said, “Don’t worry – you are going to live happily ever after.”

The surgery went well and a month later I was at Sloan Kettering to meet yet another specialist to discuss further treatment options. When the doctor entered the room, followed by his entourage of assistants, he introduced himself, “I am Dr. Andrew Seidman, I have reviewed all of your reports and I am here to tell you that you are going to live happily after." I couldn’t believe my ears and immediately started crying. Having these words come from two different doctors after what I had said to my mother! And for the first time, I actually had not only resolve, but hope.

Bottom of the Ninth

           

My father was my hero. Actually, he still is, even though he passed away six years ago today. He was a man of great character and integrity and had an incredible sense of humor, which he maintained right up to the very end of his life. Shortly before he died, he was in the final stages of emphysema and struggling to breathe, my mother tried to comfort him – “Joe, we are so lucky” she whispered (thinking of the 43 years of marriage they had shared) – he just looked up, and without missing a beat remarked “Yeah, if I could breathe, I’d be whistling….”

That was my father, Joe –quick-witted and always with a smile on his face. He could make me laugh at the drop of a hat – and our daily phone calls always consisting of lots of funny stories and lots of love.

It wasn’t always that way. Growing up as the only girl with three younger brothers, I found plenty to complain about. Our family life revolved around sports – particularly hockey and baseball. My father would make sure he made every Little League game and hockey practice for each of “the boys” and it seemed like our lives revolved around tryouts, practices and games. The missed dinners, the countless weekend afternoons spent on baseball fields and hockey rinks made me very resentful and jealous. I felt like the “odd girl out”. As a rebellious teenager who knew it all, I staged my own personal “baseball strike” – and stopped going to the games and would avoid family dinner time all together.

Eventually, somewhere a long the line, things between us improved. We began to get closer and even began talking, I mean really talking with each other. Growing up and maturing has a way of doing that. Or maybe it was when he stopped drinking. Maybe it was when I did. I sort of think it was a combination of it all.

One thing is for sure, the end of “our” drinking definitely played a huge role in this transformation.

As a young girl, my father’s drinking had an enormous affect on me. Although he didn’t drink every day, when he did, he would get drunk. I know it sounds terrible, but I was ashamed of my father’s drunken behavior. I grew up watching “The Brady Bunch” and Mike Brady certainly never behaved this way. Although I loved my father deeply, I couldn’t stand to be around him when he drank. Alcohol changed him and I didn’t like that change one bit.

And then he stopped drinking. To be honest, I do not remember the exact date when my father decided to stop or what events lead to it.  What I do remember is that all of sudden he was not drinking anymore. There were no proclamations, no intervention, no rehab – he just stopped. I guess enough had become enough. Although his decision was evidently a private one – it had a tremendous impact on my entire family. The embarrassment and shame was replaced with deep love, respect and affection. As a sober man, he was all that I could ever hope a father would be (and put Mike Brady to shame!)

Unfortunately, things had not gotten completely better – because I had started drinking. At first, it was just because all my friends were doing it, but pretty quickly it became apparent that I drank differently from my friends. I now know that I was born with this genetic predisposition to alcohol, but for years I just believed that I was just a girl who liked to “party hard”.  And boy did I ever. Over the next 20 something years, my drinking went from something I did socially, to loosen up and enjoy myself, to something I did to take the edge of it. It was no longer an option, but becoming a necessity.

In June of 2001 my father had a talk with me. He told me how concerned he was about my drinking and that I needed to stop. I felt numb – I couldn’t believe he had just addressed the “elephant” in the room. I thought I had hidden it so well from my family – obviously I hadn’t. And one of the most powerful moments during that conversation was the realization that here I was – the one who was so ashamed of him when he was drinking – having to face the reality that we had exchanged roles. I was filled with shame and remorse.

About a month later, on July 15, 2001, I made the decision that would change my life forever. I finally admitted to myself that I had a problem and that I had to do something about it. . And the first person I called that evening, was my father. I was crying, but also felt like a huge weight was off my shoulders. I will never forget his words “You don’t have to give me another birthday present for the rest of my life (his birthday had been the day before!)

Sobriety brought us even closer.  He would constantly tell me how proud he was of me (something I never remember from my childhood) and I can’t even count the number of times he said “You’ve come a long way, baby”! We were no longer hiding behind the alcohol – we were experiencing love, pure and simple – and it was because we were both sober.

Sobriety taught me many things – first and foremost, that alcoholism was indeed a disease – not a moral weakness. I also learned about compassion - that you could “love the person and not the disease”. I eventually realized that all those times I was embarrassed by my father’s drinking and behavior (and my own for that matter), it was actually the effects of the alcohol that I couldn’t stand – I had always loved the person underneath. 

In the fall of 2005, while I was visiting with my parents, my father told me he had a dream about his funeral – and that he had written the eulogy. When I asked him for details, he didn’t want to talk about it (we were still dancing around the whole death conversation). A few minutes later he said “Okay, I’ll tell you part of it – “My life has been like a baseball game – I had good innings, and bad innings, and I found God in the bottom of the ninth.”

 I was floored by this spiritual revelation from a man who did not attend church and never really talked about God.  It became apparent that as he moved closer to his own death, he had finally reached out and found what he needed to process this whole experience. Of course, what didn’t surprise me was the sports analogy – that was classic “Joe”.

My father passed a way a few weeks later. Losing “my hero” was devastating, but I found great comfort and solace in the fact that he had made a spiritual connection prior to his death. This helped immensely during the days and weeks that followed. Knowing that he had come to terms with his own mortality helped me in accepting it as well. It also helped me stay sober during this time. I had always thought that when my father died, I would have to get drunk. When that day did come six years ago today, I didn’t have the slightest desire to pick up a drink, which in itself was miraculous. I also knew that there wasn’t enough wine in California to take away the pain, and that drinking would just make it all worse.

 Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my father. Often I find it hard to believe that he has been gone this long – but I have so many wonderful memories of him, and they always bring a smile to my face.  I guess I have come to terms with his death, but I still miss him terribly. And I know it sounds funny coming from a girl who grew up hating sports, but oh what I wouldn’t give for a couple of extra innings with him…….

Chapter One....

“There is nothing the body suffers which the soul may not profit by” -George Meredith


I wish I could have breathed a sigh of relief as I walked out of my doctor's office that rainy spring afternoon in 2007, but I was still full of fear. I had gone in for a mammography after noticing a “dimpling” on my left breast. When I first saw this gathering of skin my reaction was: “Cellulite? On my breast? Do they have machines at the gym to deal with this?” However, after checking the Internet, I learned it was a sign of breast cancer. My thoughts started racing and in a state of panic I rushed in to see my doctor. Her words “everything on the mammography looks normal -you don’t have breast cancer” were empty to me, for somehow I knew deep inside that everything was not normal. The moment I got into my car I grabbed my cell phone, immediately dialing the number of another specialist for a second opinion. My fingers trembled, yet I was filled with determination.

The doctor I saw for a second opinion didn’t think anything was wrong either, but he did take the precaution of referring me for a sonogram. The next morning, I was lying on a table covered with white paper, the discomfort caused by the cold gel slathered on my breast was nothing compared to the fear in my heart. The doctor was scanning both breasts, but kept coming back to a certain quadrant. As she silently stared at the screen she said, “I see something” and immediately performed a needle biopsy. While I would have to wait a few days for the results, she basically told me that she believed it was cancer. She also sent me for an MRI – and wrote on the referral slip that the sonogram results were “highly suspicious of malignancy”.

As I walked to my car, I keep looking at the slip it and felt a wave of dizziness each time I read the word “malignancy”. If not for the fact that I had to drive home, I am sure I would have collapsed in the parking lot. It took a few minutes for it to actually sink in, then the tears came and my body felt numb. I drove home and tried to figure out how to break this news to my mother. I did not want to upset her, but knew that she was the one who would understand exactly what I was going through.

This whole situation was so eerily familiar to what she went through two years earlier. During the summer of 2005, she had visited several doctors complaining of a discomfort in her breast area, only to be repeatedly told, “everything was fine”. After taking it upon herself to check her symptoms on the Internet, she discovered that her symptoms matched those of IBC – inflammatory breast cancer – the most aggressive and deadly forms of breast cancer and this was confirmed by a biopsy. While her experience was shocking and horrific at the time, it also planted that seed inside my head that was pushing me forward. I knew that “everything is probably fine” was not a medical term that I could live with.

After my own diagnosis in 2007, the initial shock eventually wore off and a deep resolve set in. My vocabulary became full of terms I never even wanted to think about and I joined a support group I never wanted to be a member of. I reached out to others who had gone through this before me and I was determined to beat this. The surgery took place about two weeks later and the doctor was pleased with the results of the lumpectomy. Discussions then turned to treatment options – chemotherapy and/or radiation. I was overwhelmed with the choices, especially in light of the conflicting opinions I was receiving. In the end, I decided upon radiation and began six weeks of treatment and was put on a tamoxifen, a drug to prevent a recurrence of the cancer.

I followed up every six months with a mammography, sonogram or MRI and each time was given a clean bill of health. I was continuously reassured by all of my doctors that the cancer had been caught early and that I would be just fine. But I was skeptical, especially after what my mother and I had both gone through. On top of that, I had also just lost the man I loved to bladder cancer – he had been diagnosed in April of 2008 (and told “we got it early”), only to find out that it had spread to his adrenal glands. He died six months after his diagnosis. This disease not only made me skeptical, it scared the hell out of me.

November 5, 2011

Well, I have finally decided to make this dream a reality!

Welcome to my blog - or as I like to think of it - the path to my book.

I seem to spend half my time lately posting on FB and at the end of the day,
all those posts are usually just me spouting off my opinion on lots of issues that
really don't mean a lot to me. Sobriety and Breast Cancer - they mean a lot to me.
So in an effort to finally get to the heart of the matter (and to spare people from my Facebook rants)
I have decided to start this blog.

I am heading out to an 8 am meeting, but will write more later today. The point is - I started....

So, here I am 12 hours later and not even sure where to begin. I guess I should start by explaining my motivation for doing this. Quite simply, it is about sharing hope. For those of you who know my story (and those of you who will soon find out about it), it is clear that on paper it doesn't look much like a "charmed life" But the reality is that I truly believe that I have been blessed (many times) and I am living a life beyond my wildest dreams. Sobriety has turned my life around and has helped me in dealing with cancer diagnoses (two times) and a double mastectomy. Hence, "Make Mine a Double" as the title here!

Back in July of 2001, when I finally made the decision to stop drinking, I had no idea had profoundly it would change my life. To be honest, I thought life as I knew it was over. And in some ways that was true. On the outside, things seemed okay - but on the inside I was miserable and not even sure I could truly commit to staying sober. But I have (at least so far) and I can truly say that it was the best decision I ever made in my life. It has helped me cope with some of the most horrible events of my life: 9/11/01, a home invasion burglary, my father's death, my mother's cancer, Julian's death and my two cancer diagnoses and subsequent surgery. The good news is that I did not find it necessary to pick up a drink to "take the edge off" any of those events. What a found instead was a faith that pulled me through and a change in perspective that not even I saw coming.

When I learned that my cancer had returned in 2009, instead of "why me" it became "I am so lucky to have saved my life two times" (my doctors had missed it both times and I pushed for more tests and procedures in both 2007 and 2009). To be honest, the idea that the stars might even be aligned for me was not my initial reaction. But those were the words of a dear friend who I had called that day and those words have stayed with me ever since. This change of perspective has truly changed my thoughts on just about everything that has happened in my life so far.

So, I have a draft written of my story and I am going to try to figure out if I can post it. If not, I will just tell the story again. It fills me with gratitude each time I do, so maybe that's the way to go anyway!