Breast Cancer

My girlfriend had a mastectomy today for breast CA. She's 35. I can't imagine being told that the pain you felt (and reported) for over a year, the mass that you felt on the underside of your breast was CA. The day she told me I was dropping off some fresh herbs from my garden (because who has the time to cook with fresh basil when you're chasing a toodler and a newborn?!?!). And she said, "I have some bad news. I have breast cancer." You could have knocked me over with a feather. Since I work at a cancer institute I was an instant team member in her new battle. I spoke with the docs, relayed information about intractable nausea, history, etc, called my co-workers in the recovery room and gave them a heads up. And I prayed. For what, I'm not exactly sure, but I thought about, and prayed about her for weeks.

I was praying for her in the middle of last night when I was breastfeeding, asking God for any amount of miracle that He would see fit to pass her way. I've thought several times about the special people I've known with CA. It dawned on me that I haven't known any of them before their diagnosis, only after, so the experiences, the changes and failing that I went through with them was not unexpected. This woman has only been healthy since I've known her ~ what would happen if I were to have to go through the deep waters with her? What if she was terminal? How would I feel about my calling then? I believe that I'm called to work with the dying and the suffering, but there's a safety in it when you minister to the one in the bed in the ICU, not an established friend on the outside who was blind-sided by CA. And for the first time in a long time, I felt my limits and I was afraid.

I ran up to see her once I thought she'd be out of surgery. She was in her room; I was her first visitor. She looked fantastic. She felt good ~ and her lymph nodes were negative! When she said that I threw my hand over my mouth and cried! All I could think was,"Thank you, God. Thank you, thank you." And then she grinned and said, "Hey, we can do Tamoxifen, right? No problem." And I was thinking, Friend, if radiation and chemo are all we have to go through, then you're right. No problem!