I was breastfeeding my 6 month old baby when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was thirty six years old. My eldest son was just 3 year and 2 month old and my marriage was not even 5 years long.
Yet, I wasn't too shocked when the doctor told me the result of the biopsy. Somehow I knew something was not right when we (my husband and I) discovered the big mass in my left breast. I did cry but not much. I knew I was strong enough to handle this.
On the next doctor visit, I told the doctor about a lump in my armpit so he ordered another biopsy on that site. I knew something else was going to come out. And yup the cancer had spread to the lymph node. After many more exhausting tests they said it was a stage 3C and the treatments would include 16 rounds of chemotherapy, mastectomy with axillary nodes dissection and 6 weeks of radiation.
The first thing my husband and I thought was how we would manage our life when I was going through the treatment. We're both more of practical persons, not really the emotional ones. Off course we were sad but we had a baby and a toddler to take care of so we're like let's work things out. Hence, the first thing in our mind was how should we do this? Who would take care of the children? All of our families were in Indonesia. We moved to the USA only less than 3 years ago. We didn't have lots of friends here. Asking them to temporarily take care of a toddler was sensible but a 6 month old baby? We knew that would be too much.
So we came to a decision that we had to send our baby back to Indonesia so our parents could take care of her. That's when my heart was broken. I was devastated. She was so little, so pure, so beautiful, why should she have to be separated from us, her parents? Why she couldn't be raised the same way her brother was? Why I couldn't kiss her chubby cheeks, smell her fragrant silky skin, hold and cuddle her anymore? The tears only stopped when our rationality took over the emotion. We believed she would be better off being under our parents' constant and stabil care than staying with us with uncertain condition.
From then on I was strong. The chemotherapy and everything that went with that was alright. Loosing my hair, eyebrows, eyelashes, having dark nails, nausea, vomitting, were ok. I was ready. The surgery went well. Loosing one of my breast, a whole bunch of lymp nodes, never really bothered me. The radiation was done and I was lucky my skin, eventhough became darker, was not painful. No blister whatsoever. I knew I was strong. I could take whatever it was to regain my health.
However yesterday when I read an article about living with cancer in the perspective of a boy whose father passed away because of cancer when he was just 11 year old, I was saddened. My heart sank. I never knew how children's life would be affected after seeing their parent dying in front of their own eyes. I never thought that it would be a terribly horribly frigthening endless nightmare. How scared they would be. How their once beautiful world would turn upside down. How painful it would be that it would leave a scar in their heart forever. I was saddened. I don't want my kids to experience that. I want them to feel secured, safe and happy. I want to watch them grow, be by their sides, share their dreams, be their rock. This time I know more than ever that I need to STAY STRONG.
