Nancy White Kelly
Sometimes other people articulate our thoughts so well that it is an exercise in futility to try to say it better. A friend from North Carolina, who participates in our wonderful on-line support group for those with breast metastatic cancer, wrote a stirring piece. She gave me permission to share it.
“Sadie, Sadie, Dying
Lady.....Have I become Sadie? I spent a
good part of a morning asking myself that question last week. You know Sadie. We all do. Every family
has a Sadie. She is the woman who rolls
right from one physical problem to another.
If you dare to ask, "How are you", be prepared to cancel
anything else you had planned for the next hour or so. She can immediately recite every drug she
takes, every test result, the entire history of her ailments, and will
at the drop of a hat. She is the person
who, instead of simply declining a certain entrée when you eat out, will spend
20 minutes telling the waitress WHY she can't eat artichokes, rare meats or
whatever. When you meet her for
breakfast in the morning, she will line up her pills next to her plate, and
then tell you at length what each one does as she pops it into her mouth. She may be a hypochondriac...or, she may
have a debilitating disease. After a
while, it doesn't seem to matter. She
is so self-absorbed that you don't even care, no matter how much you love her.
For a long time, I, like
most family members, found our own Sadie to be amusing at best and tiresome at
her worst. Then something
happened. I got cancer. For seven years I have lived with the shadow
of cancer hanging over my head. During
that time, I have become obsessed with the importance of regularity, learned
that my normal body temperature is 96.7 and began to immediately interpret the
usual aches and pains that come with now being in my 50's as proof that the
cancer has returned with a vengeance. I
have been in and out of treatment that would bring a horse to it's knees
several times and heard the words "cured" and "remission"
tossed around, along with the less positive "aggressive" and
"rapid progression". I have discussed the seven drugs I tried for
chemo nausea and the five different stool softeners. I have learned to use terms like "mets" and actually
know the meaning of thorocentis. I have
also bored the hell out of family and friends.
I allowed something that should be a part of my life to entirely consume
my life or what is left of it. I was
becoming Sadie.
Don't misunderstand. I
believe in knowing everything there is to know about this disease. I believe it is my responsibility to
understand every possible treatment available and the medications I receive and
why they are right for me. That, along with the grace of God, is what helps to
keep me alive. I believe in
honesty. I especially believe your
family deserves to know exactly what is happening to you and why. But I also believe that many of us allow
ourselves to become a victim to cancer in more than just the physical
sense. We allow it to take over our
minds, our lives and our souls. We let
it kill the person we are deep down inside, long before it kills our actual
bodies. Instead of being a part of your
life, it becomes what defines you as a person.
I will continue to speak out
about my cancer and I will share my deepest feeling with my loved ones, but I
will save my lengthy discussions of diagnosis and treatment mainly for my
support group. We are in it together,
and a conversation about our own problems can turn into a life-saving solution
when we put our experiences together. We are the women who live with this
disease every second of every day. We are the women who see our sisters
disappear, one by one. I will still never stop pushing to have those of us with
metastatic breast cancer given the same recognition as newly diagnosed patients
and survivors. We are the ones who get
lost in the discussions of cures and statistics…the ones for whom the pink
ribbon is tarnished. We are the ones
who are hidden away in the rush to proclaim breast cancer a chronic illness
rather than the killer it truly is. But
I will also pray that my initial denial of this disease becomes the faith that
sustains me through the bad times, and hope my moments of acceptance will be
the force that drives me to seek treatment, to live each day as ME, not as a
survivor or a victim or a statistic.
What I will not do is allow
cancer to turn me into Sadie. I am not Cancer.
I am Sharon. I was born Sharon,
and I will die Sharon, whether from breast cancer or old age. Ask me how I am. I will tell you about my children. I will bore you with talk of
my garden. I will give you my favorite recipe.
I will ask you to lobby for more cancer research money. I will be the queen and wear my tiara to sip
tea with you. I will make you laugh and
expect the same in return. But what I will not do is give cancer the starring
role in my life without a fight. I am
still Sharon.”
Thanks, Sharon. And I am still Nancy, the Living Lady.
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nkelly@alltel.net www.angelfire.com/bc/nancykelly
