Thankful Thursday: Community

In my trav­els for busi­ness this week, I encoun­tered a gen­tle­man who shared with me that his 46 year old wife is dying of can­cer. It was first diag­nosed in her breast, but has now metas­ta­sized in her brain. It has also invaded her bones.

The can­cer was extremely fast-moving and chemother­apy failed to stop its progress. Because the doc­tors were pro­vided with erro­neous lab­o­ra­tory test results, the wrong type of chemother­apy was appar­ently used. Now that the can­cer has essen­tially taken over her whole body, it is too late for the doc­tors to pre­scribe the cor­rect type of chemother­apy — which might have pro­vided a cure or at least remis­sion for a sig­nif­i­cant period of time.

I asked him how he is doing and he brushed my inquiry aside, insist­ing that he will be all right. I also ques­tioned whether he has sought out a com­pe­tent coun­selor or ther­a­pist with whom he can con­fide and explore his feel­ings. He has not done that yet, but assured me that he will. He acknowl­edged that the stress is tak­ing a toll on his phys­i­cal health and is fol­low­ing his doctor’s direc­tives because he will be left to care for their chil­dren by himself.

As the hus­band fac­ing this cat­a­stro­phe con­tin­ued speak­ing with me, I stud­ied his eyes for fur­ther clues to his feel­ings. I expected to see anger, resent­ment, bit­ter­ness. I expected his speech to be punc­tu­ated by clues to his intense emo­tional strug­gle with the real­ity that he is los­ing his wife as a result of another human being’s mistake.

My search was in vain.

Instead, what I head him say in his quiet, soft spo­ken way, was this: “We have to rely upon our faith.” He also told me how sup­port­ive and help­ful his employer, cowork­ers, friends and grown chil­dren have all been. And added that he would not be able to carry on with all of them.

I doubt that he real­ized what a pow­er­ful wit­ness he was to me. Later that evening, by myself in my hotel room, I thought about Philip­pi­ans 4:6 and mar­veled how that gen­tle­man appeared to be liv­ing it.

Do not be anx­ious about any­thing, but in every­thing, by prayer and peti­tion, with thanks­giv­ing, present your requests to God. Philippians4:6

Serendip­i­tously, as I spent the evening click­ing from site to site, I hap­pened upon a blog dis­cussing the plight of another young woman is also bat­tling breast can­cer. In the case of “Why­Mommy,” how­ever, it is inflam­ma­tory breast can­cer that is the cul­prit. I had never heard of it and I’m guess­ing that many of you may not have, either.

It is for pre­cisely that rea­son that Why­Mommy opted to make her strug­gle pub­lic and has been writ­ing about her expe­ri­ences in her blog, Tod­dler Planet. On Sun­day, July 29, 2007, she wrote:

Women are hear­ing about the symp­toms, and — more often than not — say­ing “I didn’t know. Thanks.” I’ve even read sev­eral com­ments from women who HAVE one or more of the symp­toms and are going to their doc­tor this week. AWESOME. Early detec­tion is critical.

Her posts are not easy to read, but I encour­age you to do so. She describes her symp­toms, the ini­tial expla­na­tion pro­vided for them and what finally led her to her physi­cian for a check-up. She also details the agony process of under­go­ing tests, wait­ing for and then finally receiv­ing the dev­as­tat­ing diagnosis.

Why­mommy is now shar­ing the details of her expe­ri­ences fight­ing the dis­ease, jour­nal­ing about her fears (she has two very young chil­dren), hopes and deter­mi­na­tion not to lose this bat­tle for her life. Her can­dor ((She warned read­ers: “[Y]ou asked for hon­esty. Here it is. Raw and uncen­sored. I’m blog­ging every day until I’m cured. And then I may blog out of sheer joy.)) is some­times star­tling, jolt­ing and dif­fi­cult to bear but, as I was read­ing, I kept telling myself that if she can live and be coura­geous enough to write about the things that are hap­pen­ing to her mind and body, I must be strong enough to read and learn from her words. She makes clear that she does not “want to be a cause,” but is receiv­ing inquiries from the media is “reluc­tantly agree­ing to coöper­ate, because it will bring inflam­ma­tory breast can­cer aware­ness to more peo­ple, and more moms will know that it is a pos­si­bil­ity — that when they are told that it’s just mas­ti­tis ((Mas­titi is inflam­ma­tion of the breast.)) — but they know that some­thing else is wrong – that they’ll push for a sec­ond opin­ion, and maybe a biopsy, just in case.”

She has specif­i­cally asked blog­gers to share, ver­ba­tim, her post enti­tled Because I’m Not Ready to Move On:

We hear a lot about breast can­cer these days. One in eight women will be diag­nosed with breast can­cer in their life­times, and there are mil­lions liv­ing with it in the U.S. today alone. But did you know that there is more than one type of breast cancer?

I didn’t. I thought that breast can­cer was all the same. I fig­ured that if I did my monthly breast self-exams, and found no lump, I’d be fine.

Oops. It turns out that you don’t have to have a lump to have breast can­cer. Six weeks ago, I went to my OB/GYN because my breast felt funny. It was red, hot, inflamed, and the skin looked…funny. But there was no lump, so I wasn’t wor­ried. I should have been. After a round of antibi­otics didn’t clear up the inflam­ma­tion, my doc­tor sent me to a breast spe­cial­ist and did a skin punch biopsy. That test showed that I have inflam­ma­tory breast can­cer, a very aggres­sive can­cer that can be deadly.

Inflam­ma­tory breast can­cer is often mis­di­ag­nosed as mas­ti­tis because many doc­tors have never seen it before and con­sider it rare. “Rare” or not, there are over 100,000 women in the U.S. with this can­cer right now; only half will sur­vive five years. Please call your OB/GYN if you expe­ri­ence sev­eral of the fol­low­ing symp­toms in your breast, or any unusual changes: red­ness, rapid increase in size of one breast, per­sis­tent itch­ing of breast or nip­ple, thick­en­ing of breast tis­sue, stab­bing pain, sore­ness, swelling under the arm, dim­pling or ridg­ing (for exam­ple, when you take your bra off, the bra marks stay – for a while), flat­ten­ing or retract­ing of the nip­ple, or a tex­ture that looks or feels like an orange (called peau d’orange). Ask if your GYN is famil­iar with inflam­ma­tory breast can­cer, and tell her that you’re con­cerned and want to come in to rule it out.

There is more than one kind of breast can­cer. Inflam­ma­tory breast can­cer is the most aggres­sive form of breast can­cer out there, and early detec­tion is crit­i­cal. It’s not usu­ally detected by mam­mo­gram. It does not usu­ally present with a lump. It may be over­looked with all of the changes that our breasts undergo dur­ing the years when we’re preg­nant and/or nurs­ing our lit­tle ones. It’s impor­tant not to miss this one.

Inflam­ma­tory breast can­cer is detected by women and their doc­tors who notice a change in one of their breasts. If you notice a change, call your doc­tor today. Tell her about it. Tell her that you have a friend with this dis­ease, and it’s try­ing to kill her. Now you know what I wish I had known before six weeks ago.

You don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer.

A Wall of Sup­port has been erected at Don’t Take the Repeats and there is even a graphic you can add to your site to indi­cate that you are sup­port­ing Why­Mommy in her fight:

So I am thank­ful this week for the gen­tle­man I spoke with this week about his wife who served as an exam­ple of faith and belief. I am thank­ful for Why­Mommy who is coura­geous enough to share the details of her bat­tle with her read­ers in the hope that the infor­ma­tion will save another’s life.And I’m thank­ful for this vast and diverse com­mu­nity here in cyber­space of which we are all a part.

More than 120 blog­gers had re-posted WhyMommy’s cau­tion­ary tale as of Sun­day, July 29, 2007, and the num­ber is grow­ing every day. It is won­der­ful to know that blog­gers are will­ing to help and sup­port each other, using their voices and plat­forms to edu­cate their readers.

Take a moment to say “thank you” to your read­ers, as well as your loved ones for all the bless­ings that they bestow upon you each day. Most impor­tantly, say “thank you” to the Divine Cre­ator for the boun­ties in your life, espe­cially if good health is among them. Ask the Divine to send heal­ing and com­fort to my friend and his fam­ily, as well as Why­Mommy and hers, in addi­tion to all the other folks you know who are in need of solace and com­fort today.

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