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In honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we asked them to read their breast cancer dayneys on Patch. This is Julia Blum's story:
In 1968, when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 46 and given a few months of survival, the word "breast" and "cancer" were rarely, if ever, spoken. Barely audible as they were at the time, the implication they had together was clear-so much so, that I can not remember the first time I did not hear them. That time was the day of my mother's surgery, and it began most long ago in the tranquil Long Island suburb where I grew up. As a shy 8-year-old tomboy with perpetual grass stains on my knees, I walk up the stairs to my split-level to my bedroom. The phone rang and my grandmother answered in the kitchen. My father was on the other end of the line. There was a moment of complete silence and then my grandmother began to weep unrestrained.
I opened the door of my door, I tried to make sense of what she was saying. Then she abandoned her English and spoke to my father in Italian. That's when I realized something was really wrong. After my grandmother hung up the phone, she took out the worn, black prayer book that she kept in her pocket and sat down. As she rocked the chair, she quietly reads from the book while absorbing the shock of learning that she's daughter-in-law was terminally ill with only months to live.
But my mother had other plans. With three young children to raise, she returns to her two boys in adulthood, and her youngest and only daughter graduate from college. Defying the odds stacked against her, she lived for 12 years, through Cobalt treatments, hospital stays and a multitude of operations that constantly tested her spirit and resilience. As a patient of pioneering physician Dr. Min Chiu Li, my mother became one of the first-ever recipients of a ground-breaking cancer treatment, chemotherapy.
Yet, breast cancer was still barely mentioned and there were no support groups, or pink ribbons – not just yet. To this day, I wonder how lonely it has been for my mother to confront this disease in such a solitary place. 12 years of survivorship, I have a daughter and caregiver, I have learned more about life through my mother's drive certainty to live, rather than her resigning to exist with the certainty of dying. One of her biggest concerns was that she would be stuck away and steal away my youth. She'd say, "Go out and have fun, this is your time." But the years passed and my mother's battle took place in the face of my youth, it shaped my perspective and gave me a lifetime appreciation of what was essential, real and honorable.
In the spring of 1981, my mother was 58, and I, a soon-to-be graduate college, when discussing about breast cancer was starting to be heard. My mother had achieved her wish to see her children, and was now approaching her end. Admitted to the hospital one final time, I commuted by Nassau Hospital in Minneola.
Two weeks before her passing, I was looking at the bedside window at the now familiar landscape, She told me how to live in my life, asserting that I always remain mindful of my physical well-being and to go for routine exams and screenings when the appropriate time cam. "If something's not right, do not ignore it and do nothing, hoping it will go away," she asserted. She then told me that I would go for regular exams and screenings when the time was appropriate. It was a promise that ultimately saved my life.
By 1994, I was married and had two daughters of my own and went for my first baseline mammogram at 35. Breast cancer was growing more prevalent and pink ribbons began to appear on posters, in doctor's offices and at check out counters. My then 6 year-old daughters learned about what they mean, along with light-hearted stories about their grandmother. After age 40, I went to annual screenings, most of which went well and a couple that required a "second look" and ultimately proved benign. In late November 2009, at age 50, my mammogram looked clear, but the ultrasound picked up something suspicious. After a subsequent biopsy my radiologist phoned me directly with the results saying,
"Julia, it's something."
"It is something?" I responded.
"Yes," he said, "it is."
It is now nearly nine years past that conversation. My breast cancer was detected early and surgically removed, but it was an aggressive, highly recurrent type and one that needed to be treated as such. Thus, the year 2010, the one that I prefer to forget, was made to be a candidate for that year. Nine years since, and just a couple of weeks shy of my 59th birthday, I'm thinking about those days at Sloan, lying down on a recliner in a corner nook on the second floor by a large window, swaddled in a warmed blanket.
In the midst of my year-long treatments, I began to write the preface to this story, to receive and practice therapies. As the IV flowed, I would look at the window beside me, admiring the pale and brilliant colors of the changing seasons, marveling about how far we come in awareness, research, modern medicine, and discussion. There lies the hope of the days and years of living with the thought of living for the day – and the bond between mother and daughter. It's been a long road, but I'm a survivor, and I do not have a stains on my knees, I know how to get down and fight. I learned how from my mother.
-Julia L. Blum
See more stories from other breast cancer survivors, fighters and supporters, here.
To learn more about breast cancer, visit the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
Image Credit: Julia L. Blum
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