My side

This is a paper I have recently written for a college course. I felt there would be no better place to share my story than here.

Survivor

            "Congratulations! The results of your mammogram are negative. You are now a breast cancer survivor."

     That statement led to the "pop" of a champagne bottle. This was definitely something to celebrate. For the last year, my mother has endured surgery, radiation and hormone therapy to battle ductal carcinoma in-situ, which is a cancer that is found inside the duct of a breast. A huge weight was lifted off of everyone's chest hearing the news that we can now call her a cancer survivor.

     On April 19^th, 2011 I returned to my parents' house from visiting a friend in the hospital. I walked into the kitchen to see my mother on the phone. We were waiting for results from her latest mammogram and I could tell from her pacing that the news was not going to be positive. After she ended the phone call, she sat down and I watched all of the color drain from her face. As she sighed she said "Its cancer." I tried my hardest to keep my emotions in, I tried to be strong,
instead, I immediately started to weep; big crocodile sized tears rolled down my face as my mother told me she would be meeting with an oncologist and a surgeon to find out what the best treatment would be. There was a mass of cancer in her
breast that they wanted to remove. I had to work the night shift that night; all I could think of was my mother. Just the year before my father found out that he had recovered from prostate cancer so hearing another cancer was in our
house was heart breaking.

      May 4^th, 2011, my mother, father and I woke up at 4:00 a.m. to go to the hospital by 5:30 a.m. for an outpatient surgery to remove the mass from her breast. We checked into the hospital just slightly before 5:30 a.m. and they sent her right away to Interventional Radiology. They were going to place a wire in her breast to help navigate the surgeon. My father and I waited in the waiting room while the procedure took place. We both tried to read our books to pass the time, but our minds were otherwise consumed. Soon they called us back into my mother's pre-surgical care room. They were running tests before they sent her to surgery and found that her potassium levels were very low and they would not be able to start the surgery until those levels were raised. The nurses started to pump the potassium into her body through an IV. As soon as the potassium hit her system she was in extreme pain. She described the feeling as fire going through her entire body. We alerted the nurses right away who did the best they could to combat the pain. I had never felt as helpless as I did at that moment. I wanted to end her pain but there was nothing I could do. Finally around 3:30 p.m. they
were able to send her back for surgery. The surgery wasn't nearly as long as we thought it was going to be and she was out of recovery and able to go home at 5:45 p.m.

     After the surgery she went for 5-6 weeks of radiation therapy and had intermittent CT scans and mammograms. She was also placed on a drug called Tamoxifen for the next five years as a "cancer blocker."  The process was exhausting for
her but because she is so strong, she made it look easy. When she finished all of her treatments, the nurses made her a certificate of completion. It was amazing what one piece of paper could do to lift our spirits. On April 17^th, 2012, my mother went in for another mammogram and we were all on pins and needles waiting to find out the results. This mammogram would let us know if she beat her cancer. We received the call on April 20^th that in fact, her mammogram was negative!

     Even before the cancer, my mother was my hero. She has been a friend, a mother and more to me. Not having children, I never knew the feeling of watching someone hurt and not being able to do anything for them; I felt that with my mother. Watching two parents beat cancer showed me that if you have the love of your family you can do anything! I have become very involved in the fight for breast cancer and take part in many charity walks and races. I am so thankful to be able to say that I walk for my mother, the breast cancer survivor.