Amazing Grace

April 10 – Amazing Grace

I attended my support group last night. It’s a small group of ladies comprised of all different backgrounds, careers, religions, ethnicities and marital statuses with one huge thing in common – we are all breast cancer survivors. In this group, we share everything and anything. One of the members showed me her breasts in the bathroom the first meeting. I was kind of tentative when she asked if I wanted to see them, but I said yes and it was truly a wonderful thing to share.

 I will introduce you to these amazing women without the use of names. First, we have the woman who gives her time to facilitate the group. She is not a survivor, but she helps us with kind words, touches, and places to look for help. She is quiet, knowledgeable, and simply a lovely woman.

First to speak last night was a woman who had just arrived from the dentist’s office. She was holding a cup of ice to her cheek and apologizing for being such a baby about the pain. She wore pink cowboy boots and a beautiful shawl. I could tell she had lost her hair at one point because I recognize chemo curls and hers were touched with gray. She spoke about a retreat she attended where she spent 3 days not talking and she said it helped her relax a little.

A late arrival opened the door. She was on crutches sporting a pink cast on her leg and bicycle helmet on her head. This woman has been waiting to have her reconstruction surgery with the same doctor I am using, but she is having the flap surgery. She has Lymphodema and wears a compression sleeve. She had one breast removed along with chemo and radiation. Apparently, while doing housework, she fell and broke her leg. Then, about a week later, the dog got tangled up in her crutches and she fell straight backwards and hit her head on the tile. No concussion, but her husband bought her the helmet and makes her wear it all the time. She can’t have her breast reconstruction until 2 weeks after her cast is removed, so it will be postponed once again. All smiles and sparkling blue eyes, she just shrugged her shoulders and said that walking on crutches would give her better upper body strength.

Next to her sits a tiny woman who has just had her implant surgery completed. She is a physical therapist and works about 80 hours a week. She looks tired. She talks about the way her breasts look now with the second set of stitches and how much the expanders hurt because she could feel them rub against the inside of her breast. She is single, but is blessed with friends who have helped her before, after and during her surgeries. Her diagnosis was the same as mine. This may not be her last surgery because her scars have thickened and she will have to address that.

Next to her sits the sister of the woman with the pink cowboy boots. She has endured about 7 surgeries so far because her skin just doesn’t want to cooperate. She flies to Florida to have the new procedure done because there is only one doctor in the country who does this. First, she wears a machine that attaches to her breasts like big suction cups and stretches the skin. Then she undergoes surgery to take the fat out of various places on her body and have it put in her breasts. At the moment, one of her breasts is smaller than the other, so she has been experimenting with socks and dress forms to get the correct proportion. Unfortunately, the seatbelt causes her “stuffing” to move and she is sometimes very crooked. That doesn’t really bother her – she just adjusts and moves on. She asked if anyone wanted to touch them and one woman volunteered and said they felt so real. This may or may not be her last surgery, but she is fine with whatever decision is made.

In the corner of the couch is a woman who doesn’t talk about her breasts, she talks about her mother who is in the final stages of Alzheimer’s. She talks about how her mother lives in a different state and she can’t talk on the phone with her anymore because her mother can’t form words. She sends her cards and talks with her caregivers, but she wishes she were there. She cries for her mother and the loss she knows is coming and we are all silent.

I tell everyone about my surgery date and they all are happy for me.

Another woman with Lymphodema speaks about exercises and massages she has to do along with wearing the sleeve. She walked in the Komen walk and finished, although the last few steps were hard. She is genuinely happy and content. Her smile is contagious and she offers her phone number to me if I need to talk.

The last to speak is a woman who has been cancer free for 10 years. First, she had a lumpectomy. Then she found out she has the “gene” and had a double mastectomy, followed by the removal of her ovaries. Her reconstruction was a flap, but they took the muscle and fat from her back. At work, she would go up to someone and say that her back itched. When they asked her to turn around, she would say that her back was now on her front. They would laugh. She was the woman who showed me her breasts after my first visit. Her mother is in a home and has found a man with whom she is in love. This makes her happy and she says she will just sit and watch her mother and her beau for a long time and just be happy for them.

The evening is finished with a sort of prayer. I stop for a moment and look around at this small group of women who have endured so much. They talk about surgery and pain openly and with no tears or whining. It just is. Each one of us had a different diagnosis, a different treatment, different surgeries, and different outcomes, but we all had breast cancer and we survived. Each of us has a life, like everyone else, with a whole new set of normal problems to live with.

Each one of these ladies has something that a lot of people don’t possess – Grace. An amazing grace that lets them smile after countless surgeries and treatments. An amazing grace that allows them to walk among everyone else and make their worlds a little bit better for having known them.

I am so privileged to be enveloped by the grace of those women.