No, I'm not a hero and something I will never understand is why people view this survival of a cancer diagnosis in such a manner. We aren't rock stars. We aren't heroes or even fucking heroes. We're just people who are trying to figure out what the hell to do next to try to make our lives being wrecked back into some semblance of...normality, functionality, and do what we can do move ourselves in that direction.
"But you're a hero!" (What the fuck would you say to someone who told you a family member died from this vile disease? "Oh, your family member is SUCH an epic failure!" I think the ever loving fuck all not, so please don't view people like me as heroes. Heroes are our military people and other people who serve and protect, not me.)
The only thing I did was survive being poisoned for a year. I had HER2+ invasive in ductal breast cancer, diagnosed at stage three, grade three in July of 2011. I did six months of chemo, had a bilateral mastectomy, and did six more months of chemo, the last dose being in August of 2012. There isn't "just" breast cancer, though. Unless someone has had to deal with it personally or watched a close friend or family member deal with it, most people don't know there are different kinds because of the brainwashing of the mass media. People do not go back to "normal" after what they are subjected to is over with, nor are many of us taught how to function after what has been done to us. Chemo induced neuropathy that may or may not go away affects many people like me. Secondary lymphedema is also a vile thing to have to deal with that affects so many of us at some point sooner or later, the degrees of severity just as varying as anything you could imagine. Severe nerve damage from surgery is also something that so many people like myself have to live with. None of this stuff is reversible, the degrees of severity vary from person to person. So much is not known or if it is, medical people refuse to discuss it.
More than once, I have had a woman tell me or I've observed someone saying that upon confronting a doctor about all the horrible effects of what was being done as "treatment" why were they not told ahead of time. You know what every one of those medical people replied? "If we told patients what lies ahead for them, many would not accept conventional treatment and would do something else." Well, excuse the ever loving fuck all out of me, how is that giving a patient enough accurate information to make an informed consent decision? It's not, not in any manner, yet those fuckers take those decisions out of the hands of their patients by deliberately keeping information from their patients. I hope every single one of them who has done that has a special place reserved for them in Gehenna and it's particularly miserable for them for a long fucking time, because you know, I'm a nice person that way.
One in eight women will have to deal with breast cancer in some manner. One in one thousand men will have to deal with breast cancer in some capacity. Yes, men can get it also. It's not a diagnosis that can be categorized into anything in particular as far as risk goes. (Yes, make a list of eight women you know. Include yourself. One of you will wind up experiencing some encounter with breast cancer. Isn't that one too many women or even men? Ridiculous thought even in this day and age, isn't it? Think I'm trying to be an alarmist here? Think again. I'm trying to make an impression.)
I had no family history of breast cancer. I tested negative for the genetic aspect of it anyway. I was not a smoker. I was not a drinker. I did not have any sort of hormone replacement therapy, nor was I ever on the pill for year and years and years to have been diagnosed. I breastfed my boys at least a year. I ate Kosher/pescetarian/organic with the occasional falling off the healthy eating wagon for a slice or two of bacon or small cheeseburger once in a blue moon. I was very active. No oncologist was ever able to tell me why or how this happened to me.
I have interacted with/observed women who were diagnosed with some form of breast cancer anywhere from their late teens, yes, you read that correctly--late TEENS, all the way up through their seventies, eighties, or even older. Some were married, some were single, some had children, some did not. Some breastfed their children, some did not. Some took birth control pills, some did not. Some smoked and/or drank alcohol on occasion, others were complete party monsters, and yet others were not. Some had a rampant family history of breast cancer and some did not. In spite of the family history, some did and some did not test positive for the genetic factor. Some were active, some were not. Some ate very well balanced dietary intake and some did not.
For some of us, there is no remission, yet there is no active treatment. We are in a limbo of sorts because of the kind of cancer we had. I am not considered "cured" or "fixed" unless I can make it to five years past my surgery date because the chemo is not what "cures" the kind of breast cancer I had, the surgery is what "fixes" it because it removes the breast with the tumor, the bilateral mastectomy part of it is removal of the second breast as a prophylactic move because the kind I was diagnosed with was/is notorious for moving to the second breast. I now have nothing on my entire upper third of my chest except skin over ribs. Nothing was spared so even if I wanted reconstruction, it is not possible without at least two years of multiple surgeries--no guarantee cannot be made regarding further nerve damage from said surgeries needed for reconstruction nor can any be made that the implants would "take" well or sit properly without causing even more damage. Recon is nothing I'm interested in because I'm now so terrified of doctors and nurses, I can't be in a room with medical people of any kind; Not to mention, chemo causes cancer, as do the scan processes people like me are subjected to all the damn time, but at least I didn't do radiation, which also causes cancer.
I've often joked that the reason chemo didn't kill me was because Lucifer wasn't equipped to deal with me yet. Having lived in The Deep South where the torturous year of the C word took place, people would look at me in an appalled manner and I'd find that so amusing. Just as amusing was telling them my religion was Jedi since anytime anything was done at the hospital, that religious information had to be updated. Why, I don't know. What I believe is my personal belief or lack thereof and not anyone else's business, hence my sass with the Jedi answer. I would rather have faced whatever "devil" than to have dealt with the life wrecking devastation of the "c" word. (And yes, religious people, I am more than fully aware of what that implies. No, after what I had deal with, I do not care that I am saying it because it is true.) For the record,I never begged any deity for anything when I was sick. I never had a change of "religious" perspective, either. This didn't make me a "better" person. (And if anyone thinks it should have made me "better," well, fuck that. There was nothing wrong with the "old" me. I was much more functional and normal and fun. This me is not. JS.)
Actually, I have told my husband I should get a Death Eater tattoo since I spent a year of my life very nearly dead from what doctors were doing to me. Chemo can turn on someone faster than Lord Voldemort and kill just as easily. (If you're not a Harry Potter fan, forget that last comment.) Radiation, I wouldn't know about. I refused it.
So, twenty five pounds overweight because of steroids and yes, I've tried everything to make the stupid weight go away, breastless and grossly disfigured and scarred, but by damn, at least I have halfway decent hair again.
Bottom line is, I did nothing more than survive being poisoned for a year. I am not a hero. For many, they have to deal with mets. (Look up Metavivor for more information.) These are good links also.
So many people make the mistake of thinking "Oh yay, pink ribbons and glitter and people's lives go all back to being normal after they're all cured!" because that's what they saw on tv or read in an article presented to them by various mass media sources and big name foundations "It's all about a cure! Do this or that and help with a cure!"
And when I say I am not pro-big name foundation/pink ribbon because there's really not a cure, then I get the whole, "But I saw on tv that Big Name Foundation is taking donations for a cure, surely there's a cure! Isn't there? If you're not cured, it's your fault, you must have done something wrong." No, that's just how it is with this nasty ass disease. This is how it works and so few people actually know that.
I am not any better than anyone else who has dealt with that vile disease and I'm sure as hell not any better than someone who died from what was done to them by doctors. So because I didn't die (yet?) from what was done to me, that makes me more of a hero, than say, someone who did die from what was done to her/him, who left a family, a husband and small children? No, that doesn't make them or myself any better. What about a child who was diagnosed and died? Would you say or think such a thing about them or their parents? To have that attitude that someone who is still alive for however long is "superior" to someone who died from an unasked for disease and/or "treatment" is a disgusting and dishonorable and shitty mentality for others to have toward them. There, I said it. People can be shitty.
(Honestly, I've had kids be nicer to me than adults about this stuff. Adults are shitty. Kids, even with their innocent gestures and comments, give me that any day of the week. That's for another post, though.)
I never expected anyone to shave their head because I shaved mine when it started falling out from one dose of chemo and nobody did shave their head for me. I didn't care if someone did that or not because it's just hair. What does hair being shaved have to do with anything to help me when I was so sick after one overdose of chemo that I dropped twenty pounds in a week, had severe dehydration, pancreatitis, and couldn't even keep half a teaspoon of water down? I can promise you, someone shaving their heads wouldn't have done a damn thing for me when I was that sick and I would have derived no comfort from it.
Personally, I liked my breasts. I worked hard breastfeeding three children at least a year and was fortunate enough to keep a little size after they were done, so my breasts were...well, mom breasts, but they were mine. I liked them and my husband liked them. I wouldn't be presumptuous enough to tell anyone anything about "Oh, well, it was JUST your ___(insert body part in comment.)" because I'm not that kind of person. I sure as hell wouldn't walk up to a man with a testicular cancer bracelet on or a port scar and ask what kind and say "Oh, well, it was JUST a testicle. Be glad that's all it was." Really? Some folks liked all their pieces parts in/on their bodies and didn't like having them cut out or chopped off, be it from a military injury, accident, congenital issue, or disease.
No, I'm not a hero. Please don't view me that way.
The hero is my husband and also our sons who did not walk away from me, and yes, that happens far more often than people want to admit. They are the heroes. Not me.
