Canfield Jack - Chicken Soup for the Breast Cancer Survivors Soul : Stories to Inspire, Support and Heal

Chicken Soup
for the Breast Cancer Survivors Soul

CHICKEN SOUP
FOR THE
BREAST CANCER
SURVIVORS SOUL

Jack Canfield
Mark Victor Hansen
Mary Olsen Kelly

Backlist, LLC, a unit of

Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC

Cos Cob, CT

Reprinted with permission of Charles Markman 2005.

Contents

Anthony Burton

Kathy Cawthon

Lori Misicka

Lowell Gere

Sharon Bomgaars

Barbara Curtis

Tina Wagner Mattern

Jennie Nash

Leah Cano

Ellen B. Leavitt

Jennie Nash

Kathy Vancura

Lolly Susi

Mary Olsen Kelly

Regina Dodson

Bonnie Seibert

Pandora Kurth

Maria McNaught

Susan Darke

Judy Hague

Karen Theis

Lorna Maxwell

Ruth Kotler

Ryan Matthew Landis

Leigh Anne Jasheway

Jacqueline M. Hickey

Mary Ellen Barney LaFavers

Denise Blunk

Pamela Shandel

Beverly Vote

Arlette Braman

Mary Olsen Kelly

Lolly Susi

Ron Lando-Brown

Kathy Cawthon

Sherrie Page Najarian

Pamela Pierce

Carol Ross Edmonston

Lillie Shockney

Heather Haldeman

Mary Olsen Kelly

Sue Caruso

Jennie Nash

Teri Reath DIgnazio

Mary Anne Breen

Diana von Welenetz Wentworth

Lori Misicka

Betsy Ludwig

Paula Young

John de Strakosch

Suzanne Metzger

Rhonda Richards-Cohen

Don Kelly

Lolly Susi

Myra Shostak

Kathy Cawthon

Donna St. Jean Conti

Jennie Nash

Michele V. Price

Susan R. Harris

Ellen Ann Callahan

Doug Manuel

Mary Olsen Kelly

Kathryn O. Sharr

Pam Arciero

Nancy Jaynes as told to Ida Chipman

Karen Thei

Donna Andres

Mary Olsen Kelly

Judy Averitt Hayes

Lori Misicka

Sally Fouch

Kathy Chamberlin

Lee Scheinman

Jami Bernard

Jennifer Basye Sander

Elaine Zalar

Nanci L. Stroupe

Joan Persky

Joni Rodgers

T. Suzanne Eller

Kathy Cawthon

Going through the experience of breast cancer is no picnic, but with loving support, helpful advice and the healing power of laughter, it can be achieved. It is our fondest hope that you will be encouraged, buoyed, uplifted and instructed by the stories contained in this book. Other breast-cancer survivors wrote them for you to bring you hope, to give you strength and courage.

Research has shown that those who attend support groups tend to have higher survival rates. Those who reach out to family and friends for love and support make it through the medical journey of breast cancer more successfully. We have so much to learn from each other as we face the challenges of healing ourselves; often someone who has gone through the journey before us shares the thing we need to learn.

We all have a story to tell. Our stories are healing and have power. We encourage you to tell your story, too. Who knows? Your story might encourage someone to go for a mammogram, even save someones life.

Melissa Etheridge talks about how she prepared for the journey of breast cancer by gathering her flashlights her friends and family members who would help her shine light into the fearful darkness.

This collection of stories can be one of those flashlights for youshining light and making your way easier, helping you to feel stronger, more filled with love and encouraged by the knowledge that youre not alone in your journey.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Senior year in high school: a time of college choices, graduations, proms and carefree friendships. Most kids were busy soaking up the last drop of the irresponsibility of high school before having to grow up in college. Most kids were making last-minute memories and losing them just as quickly. Most kids were having the time of their lives. Most kids didnt have a mother diagnosed with breast cancer. I wasnt like most kids.

I was on my way to a soccer team dinner with my friend, Bill. I opened the front door and saw my parents sitting at the kitchen table with their heads down. My mother turned to me with a tear-soaked face, and before I could ask what was wrong, she answered me.

I have breast cancer.

Are you going to be all right?

I hope so.

Confused, I walked down the hall into my bedroom. I looked at the walls covered with my favorite sports heroes and stared at each poster, looking for answers to the questions swimming in my head. What does she mean she has breast cancer? It was probably just a mistake, right? No one actually dies from that, right? Right?

I returned to the kitchen without the words to respond to what was going on, what I was feeling. I didnt know what I was feeling.

Can I go to the team dinner? I asked.

Of course, sweetheart, my mother replied.

I climbed back into the car with Bill, who noticed I was shaken. He asked me, Whats wrong?

My mother just told me she has breast cancer.

He asked if I wanted to stay, and I told him I didnt. I wanted to go away and come back laterwhen we could start this all over and my mother wouldnt be ill. She wasnt even fifty years old.

During my mothers bout with breast cancer, finding out she had the disease has remained the clearest scene in my mind. The following months I watched everything blur as she received a litany of radiation and chemotherapy treatments. She would struggle out of bed each day, burned from the radiation, only to get sick in the bathroom. Her hair began falling out, bags permanently hung under her eyes, and the color vanished from her face. This woman was looking less and less like my mother each day.

Then I looked at the picture of me with my parents taken in much happier times. We were all smiling without a care in the world, and I would have done anything to stay locked in that moment forever. Id look at my father in the photo and then to me, thinking another possibility: The next picture may just be the two of us. Tears welled up in my eyes as I thought about what it would be like going to college later that year without my mother to call. Things would get blurry all over again.

One night as I looked at that picture, I focused on my mothers face. She hadnt smiled like that in a long time. Her hair was long and thick, and her face was youthful and beaming, but it was her eyes I noticed the most. They illuminated the whole picture with their vibrancy and life. If eyes really are windows to the soul, then this womans soul was bright enough to light up the rest of us.

Are you doing all right, sweetheart? I heard from behind. I spun around to see my mother walking up to me in her robe. Her head was almost bald, her face was tired and worn, and her shoulders hung limp. But suddenly I felt in my heart that everything would be all right because when I saw her eyes, they were the same eyes that lit up that family picture. I saw that same bright soul shining through like the sun behind a set of gray clouds. I didnt say anything, but my mother could read what I was thinking. She just grabbed my hands and told me, Were going to get through this.

From that day on, Ive thought of my mother as nothing short of an angel. This woman conquered a disease inside her, one that was ripping away many of her physical attributes. It took away her hair; it took away her appetite; it took away her energy; it even took away her smile. But it never took away her soul, her spirit, for that remained where it belongedwith her familyand it was never cancers to take.