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Jeanne Mulligan
I don’t think about breast cancer every day anymore. It feels a little bit like it must have been somebody else. But every night when I look down, and every morning in the shower, there it is. It was me; it did happen to me. My body reminds me while the rest of me forgets.
When I think about breast cancer now, I think about the Other Woman. This is the woman who contacted me through a friend, the one asking me how she is supposed to do this breast cancer thing, the one asking me which doctors she should call. I think about this woman all the time. In fact, many of my survivor friends- and there are way too many of us- belong to what we should call The Worst Club. We are the women who watch out for new members of this lousy club. We answer our phones and stop everything when we know a new member is on the line. We talk about pathology reports, Dr. Susan Love, Adriamycin, and wire localizations. We talk about the wig lady in Pikesville and Ativan. We lend out housecoats with slits and pockets for drains, and we deliver casseroles. We calm women who are in temporary breast cancer hell, and we check to see how the 3rd day after chemo went.
I am a two-time survivor. I had a bilateral mastectomy and a bilateral DIEP flap reconstruction in 2007, which came after a lumpectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation in 2003. I really was clueless both times, believing that I would be in with the 85% of biopsies that are benign, but I am never in that group. At least my experience helps me to understand other women in this group. These are women who need to connect, and many survivors sense this need. We remember the initial difficulty in absorbing what has happened. We are here for those still in the cancer deeps, working to make it to the shore in safety. We have been there.
I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a teacher. Family, friends, colleagues, and students were with me all through the cancer ordeal. I have a wonderful, sweet husband who shaved his head before I lost my hair, and I have 2 sons who laughed with me and sat by my side. My closest friends showed me what true love is. I had breast cancer. I have the honor of helping my sister survivors.
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