Declaration
I make jokes. It's true. I like to entertain. But it's come to my attention recently that maybe those jokes serve to distract from my sincerest intentions to do something meaningful and to help people in a significant way. So no jokes today.
Instead, I'll tell you a story.
November 2000. I was sixth months out of college and living in a two bedroom apartment above an antique jewelry shop in West Hartford, CT. I worked part time as a waitress in a golf club restaurant frequented by rich old women who tipped no more than five percent and part time as an English tutor at my alma mater. I was broke, uninsured, directionless, a burden on my extremely supportive roommate and I drove a 1984 AMC Eagle, nick-named "The Death Trap" based on the diagnosis of a very concerned mechanic. This was when I found my lump.
It couldn't have been any earlier than 9 a.m. when I shuffled to the bathroom, robe in hand, to prepare for a day of volunteering at the University's Women's Center where it wasn't uncommon to hand out flavored condoms and encourage the inconsiderate groping of a pair of rubber demonstration breasts implanted with a imitation cancer cells that, when examined properly using the standard BSE procedure (pdf) simulated initial breast cancer detection. Mmmm, delicious irony.
It was that morning, as I waited for them old shower pipes to deliver any temperature other than arctic, that I put hand to breast and discovered the aberration, an alien on familiar landscape, that instigator of panic, that foreign object roughly the size and shape of a bb.
I honestly couldn't tell you my initial reaction. I remember getting in the shower. I remember going to the WC. I remember going on with my life.
And a month later, I remember telling Anne, the nurse practitioner, at my annual pelvic exam. She called it a "definite cause for concern" and advised an immediate mammogram. Oh but I'd done my homework. I knew that mammograms were rarely helpful in diagnosing breast cancer in young women because of the density of younger breasts. And if the futility of the action wasn't enough of a deterrent, then the extreme lack of health insurance to pay for it was. At the tender age of 22, I wasn't eligible for any of the programs that provided free mammograms for uninsured women.
For the next three months, I received periodic phone calls from Anne reminding me to take that next step. It was only after I read her the balance on my checking account statement that she realized what an obstacle that next step was. Like a champ, though, she campaigned for assistance. Eventually, she managed to secure me an appointment at the Women's Center of Southington whose beneficiaries were willing to bend their age limit to accommodate me.
The mammogram, of course, yielded inconclusive results. Step three: ultrasound.
Another three months passed before Anne came to my rescue yet again. In the meantime, I managed to convince myself that I had breast cancer, that I was going to die and that there was nothing I could do about it. I made jokes (and the pattern emerges), I verbally bequeathed my belongings to whomever was in my good graces and I even named my lump with the help of a friend. I oscillated between hopelessness and denial for three long months until finally, Anne made me an offer I couldn't refuse: $75 for an ultrasound at the Imaging Center of West Hartford. Don't ask how; just say yes.
To this day, I don't know who paid for the rest of that ultrasound but I remain eternally grateful. And when the doctor pointed at the screen and said, "See this? This is it. Just a cyst." I thanked every god and goddess whose name I could recall. I think I even made up a few.
So when, this past January, I was searching the internet for my next great adventure and came across the 3-DAY site, I stopped, I thought, I reflected and I felt certain that this was my mission:
Instead, I'll tell you a story.
November 2000. I was sixth months out of college and living in a two bedroom apartment above an antique jewelry shop in West Hartford, CT. I worked part time as a waitress in a golf club restaurant frequented by rich old women who tipped no more than five percent and part time as an English tutor at my alma mater. I was broke, uninsured, directionless, a burden on my extremely supportive roommate and I drove a 1984 AMC Eagle, nick-named "The Death Trap" based on the diagnosis of a very concerned mechanic. This was when I found my lump.
It couldn't have been any earlier than 9 a.m. when I shuffled to the bathroom, robe in hand, to prepare for a day of volunteering at the University's Women's Center where it wasn't uncommon to hand out flavored condoms and encourage the inconsiderate groping of a pair of rubber demonstration breasts implanted with a imitation cancer cells that, when examined properly using the standard BSE procedure (pdf) simulated initial breast cancer detection. Mmmm, delicious irony.
It was that morning, as I waited for them old shower pipes to deliver any temperature other than arctic, that I put hand to breast and discovered the aberration, an alien on familiar landscape, that instigator of panic, that foreign object roughly the size and shape of a bb.
I honestly couldn't tell you my initial reaction. I remember getting in the shower. I remember going to the WC. I remember going on with my life.
And a month later, I remember telling Anne, the nurse practitioner, at my annual pelvic exam. She called it a "definite cause for concern" and advised an immediate mammogram. Oh but I'd done my homework. I knew that mammograms were rarely helpful in diagnosing breast cancer in young women because of the density of younger breasts. And if the futility of the action wasn't enough of a deterrent, then the extreme lack of health insurance to pay for it was. At the tender age of 22, I wasn't eligible for any of the programs that provided free mammograms for uninsured women.
For the next three months, I received periodic phone calls from Anne reminding me to take that next step. It was only after I read her the balance on my checking account statement that she realized what an obstacle that next step was. Like a champ, though, she campaigned for assistance. Eventually, she managed to secure me an appointment at the Women's Center of Southington whose beneficiaries were willing to bend their age limit to accommodate me.
The mammogram, of course, yielded inconclusive results. Step three: ultrasound.
Another three months passed before Anne came to my rescue yet again. In the meantime, I managed to convince myself that I had breast cancer, that I was going to die and that there was nothing I could do about it. I made jokes (and the pattern emerges), I verbally bequeathed my belongings to whomever was in my good graces and I even named my lump with the help of a friend. I oscillated between hopelessness and denial for three long months until finally, Anne made me an offer I couldn't refuse: $75 for an ultrasound at the Imaging Center of West Hartford. Don't ask how; just say yes.
To this day, I don't know who paid for the rest of that ultrasound but I remain eternally grateful. And when the doctor pointed at the screen and said, "See this? This is it. Just a cyst." I thanked every god and goddess whose name I could recall. I think I even made up a few.
So when, this past January, I was searching the internet for my next great adventure and came across the 3-DAY site, I stopped, I thought, I reflected and I felt certain that this was my mission:
I didn’t have cancer. This summer, I’ll walk for those who do, and those who might,
in gratitude to those who helped me.
No joke. This is the most important thing I've ever done. I'm terrified. I'm excited. I'm concerned that I won't make my fundraising minimum. I'm certain that it'll hurt. But I'm doing it. I'm walking 60 miles.
posted by Wendy @ 9:32 PM
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