Here’s a powerful blog post from a friend of mine, and a reminder of why the work we do is so important.

Dear Friends,

I want to take this opportunity to share a bit about my journey with breast cancer and to let you know about my surgery this week.

I was diagnosed in October, treated with a mastectomy and after a long road of recovery and anticipation, I am headed in for a second mastectomy on May 7. This operation is scheduled to last approximately 12 hours. I will be
in hospital for 5 days and will spend the summer recovering. My long-term prognosis remains very good. This next round of surgery should ensure that is true.

I have so much appreciated all the good wishes and support flowing my way these past months. Yet I have felt strangely unable to communicate in return. I suppose I feel much like an animal hunkered down in my den waiting out a storm and I just so feel so vulnerable.

Now I want to write with an update for two reasons. Firstly, the network and web of good wishes and love that I feel from my friends, colleagues and community means the world to me. It is a deep energetic river that I draw on to get me through my hard days. I want to let you know how deeply it is appreciated.

Secondly, breast cancer is a virtual epidemic and I think we need to be able to talk about it and learn about it so that we can help other women in our lives that may encounter it.

It seems so strange to be writing about own body (does that mean you might look at my breasts next time you see me? I know I probably would when seeing someone I knew who had gone through this process).

It has been a long journey that started with a biopsy last June and a first operation in October.

November and December were learning about pain and recovery. January was for crying and grieving. Good to do. February was for hibernating and building my energy back up. March was for catching up with all turns the world had taken while my attention was focused solely on recovering. Much had changed. April was for deepening into my resolve of accepting the path I had chosen and all the consequences that had and will ensue, whatever they may be.

After my last operation, I lay in UBC hospital and the nurses talked to me about how other women did it, what the drill is for mastectomies, in a way that made me realize they do so many of these.

Too many. My surgeon told me she had done eight in one day the week before. She meant to show me that it was no big deal. I pictured long hallways full of women filing in and out and having their breasts cut off. It’s not far from the truth.

The madness of the situation was all I could see for a while. It seems as if we as a society have agreed that over here we will create lifestyles that will poison us but no worries because over here we have developed a factory farm to cut off the parts that get poisoned and replace them with plastic ones. There, good as new. Better even.

For women, this poison often lands in their breasts. One in nine women in Canada will get breast cancer in their lifetime and 24% of that number will die from it. I hope to count myself among the 76% who survive and every indication is that I will.

My cancer was caught early, thanks principally to a routine screening mammogram that I booked. While I was in the normal annual screening program, it seemed I hadn’t heard from them for some time. So I called and low and behold, I was 6 months past my check up time and they had
not sent the normal reminder letter. Off I went for the mammogram and because of this the cancer was caught early enough to give me the
best possible chance for survival. We all get old, we age, we decay, and we live in a toxic environment. I hope my story motivates you to look after yourself carefully and make sure you go to those check ups – no matter how much the world demands your attention on other things.

I am now scheduled for my third operation on May 7. It is a second mastectomy with bilateral reconstruction. I have chosen reconstruction because it is my understanding that this helps most women do better psychologically in the long run. Every woman makes her own choice. And I couldn’t see my way clear to putting plastic into my body so I am using my own belly fat. Yes, this is a small perk.

I have learned so much from this process already. Being unable to function by myself in a basic way and receiving so much help, love and attention, so much, and really needing it… this has been the biggest teacher. I feel like it has re-organized my DNA in some fundamental way that will only be revealed over time. I know it is this element, this learning to receive, that will ultimately be what reshapes me on the other side of this. Well that, and the plastic surgeon I suppose.

And I have had time at home, lots of time, for what feels like the first time in my life. I have learned to cook and even to garden.

I have a lot of grief, to be sure. But mostly what I have is gratitude. Gratitude for how lucky I am to be surrounded by the most amazing community of loving and engaged people that anyone could hope for. Grateful for the miracle of western medicine and my easy access to it. Grateful that somehow through my life, I acquired the skills to be able to weather this storm and see my way through to the other side. It is the gratitude that makes me cry.

Karen, Sunday May 2