Wednesday, October 30, 2002

Breast cancer awareness has a whole new meaning now

As I rode up the elevator to my 21st floor office, several savvy young professional women from Andersen stood chatting next to me. Andersen held three of the floors below mine. That day, I noticed that one of them had on a pink ribbon. I wanted to say, "You have on a ribbon for Breast Cancer Awareness Month." It was last October. And I never said anything. I would have had to follow up my dull statement with, "My mother has breast cancer," to express any relevance.

So I rode silently. Breast cancer wasn't something I could talk about last October.

In June my parents had rejoiced with my husband and me over my first pregnancy. With my unborn baby sapping my strength and giving me all-day morning sickness, it was more than I could handle to find out about my mother's breast cancer later that summer.

When we first found about about "the lump," I prayed away my fears, trusted in God through the tests.

The diagnosis was a bit harder to deal with. Already emotional with the hormones of pregnancy, I alternately cried and threw up the day my mother called me.

While they had caught it early through my mother's regular mammogram, and originally said "possibly just radiation," soon after the biopsy they changed their tune. It was a lament with choruses of "fast-growing" and "aggressive type."

My mother and I commisserated as her chemotherapy gave her nausea similar to mine.

By October 2001 she was already on her 2nd or 3rd chemo treatment. There were no pink ribbons for me. I didn't need any more "awareness."

A model of courage and hope, my mother never doubted that God would heal her. She always spoke of his goodness and mercy to her. She talked about how supportive the neighbors were, how this experience was strengthening her more than 30-year marriage to my dad, how the church she served as pastor would fill-in on the weekencs after her treatments.

She also spoke of the indignity of losing her hair and her struggle to work with side effectslike the particularly nasty "bone-breaking" feeling that one of her medicines gave after chemo.

In February, just three days after her last radiation treatment, my mother flew to Georgia from her home in Indiana to witness the birth of her first grandchild. She prayed with me through contractions during my 18-hour labor. She nearly fainted from exhaustion. (At one point the midwife asked, "Are you okay?" After I told her I was fine, I realized she'd been talking to Mom.) But just after 2 a.m. she was one of the first to hold newborn Joshua Caleb.

This October, things are different. I don't work downtown. and there are no elevators at The Citizen. The Andersen employees wouldn't be there to ride, even if I was. I'm told that their old offices are down to a skeleton crew. And my mother is in the clear from her cancer.

She and Dad visited recently, their fourth time to see little Joshua. Her hair and strenth have returned. By the grace of God, she is healthy. And happy to hold her grandson again.

I am so grateful for the gift of life, both my mother's and my son's. That's what I was aware of this October.

(Ellie White-Stevens is an account executive with The Citizen Newspapers.)