Hope is a Powerful Thing

"Flipping the Script"

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, a coworker sent me a simple text: “I am a pretty private person who really doesn’t talk about my breast cancer with people at work, but if there is ever a time that you need to hear my story, just let me know.” 

At that time, I had been working with Pam for 8 years yet really knew very little about her. I knew she had cancer, her hair loss and gain over the years was rather evident, but I never really knew her. We barely shared simple information about our weekends or families let alone information regarding our health. And in terms of my health, I really had nothing to share.

I was rarely ever sick.

Yet, I will always remember 2016 as the most difficult year of my life.  Having been a public education teacher in Washington state for forever, I enjoyed my job. I appreciated the control I had in teaching. I planned, delivered and effectively orchestraed pretty much what happened in my classroom day in and day out.  I managed large groups of students effectively moving them from independent work to small and large group studies.  I found immense comfort in structured routines and predictability. 

And as with many yet-to-be-diagnosed people with cancer, I was not in any significant pain. EVER.  In fact, I had been getting yearly mammograms for years prior to my diagnosis, so the word cancer, or the possibility of me getting cancer, seemed improbable. Afterall, my yearly screenings were supposed to help me circumvent the likelihood of me ever landing where I did.

Yet, land I did. Hard and fast.

Throughout the staging of my diagnosis, I remember thinking the doctors were wrong. I remember thinking that they were accidentally reading someone else’s chart and delivering this horrific news completely in error. I even remember thinking how graciously I would offer my forgiveness to their mistake as long as it meant I could walk away from this mess more-or-less unscathed.

“Oh, you were wrong? What is that you say? I am the wrong Julie Wilson? Really… ahh. Okay. Well, no worries. Mistakes happen.” I fantasized escaping out of their office with no more than a backwards glance and a thumbs up sign motioned in their direction. But, nope. I was Alice falling down the rabbit hole - caught up in a swirling madness of confusion - plummeting down a bottomless pit of darkness.

I remember how quickly I moved from mammogram, to ultrasound, to another small room where I was lying on my back getting two areas in my breast and one area in my armpit biopsied.  Returning days later for my biopsy results, my jaw dropped as the radiologist entered the room, chart in hand stating, “I have really bad news.  The biopsy results came back positive in all areas for breast cancer.”

That is pretty much all I heard; I went numb. My life was no longer in my control.

My days became stress-filled and worrisome filled with visits for labs and being poked with needles, garnering ugly, scratchy gowns and loading myself into intimidating, noisy machines. All of the specialists and visits, medical terms and language were completely foreign and confusing.

Since then, I have learned a great deal about Pam. I have needed to hear her story

over

and over

and over again. 

She gives me advice.  She gives me courage. She gives me hope. When I gained the courage to speak out loud the statistic that became glued to me all those years ago, the one that states only 20% of patients diagnosed with advanced stages of breast cancer will live beyond 5 years. THAT statistic grew sharp claws and quickly fastened itself into the folds of my amyglada, and Pam was the one I reached for.

She was the one who flipped the toxic, endless cycle of worry and fear that looped in my head by simply asking, “Well, Julie. Someone has to be in the 20% so why not us?”

Why not us indeed.

I have been living with Stage IV breast cancer for over 8 years; Pam for over 31.  She has always comforted me. She has a way of flipping the script that sometimes circles in my head. She has a way of taking what seems bad and seeing the good in it. It IS possible to live for many years despite a horrendous, shocking diagnosis.  I have learned to move beyond the paralysis.  I have learned to come to terms with the understanding that my cancer is not curable. 

My cancer is treatable but not curable. 

Those are hard statements to swallow.

However, as Pam, and now my story proves, it is possible to live a quality life with cancer well beyond what the statistics say.

Hope.

Hope IS a powerful, social gift,

and sometimes it is just a matter of what I now think of as “flipping the script” just as Pam taught me to do years ago.