The doctor called me personally to tell me the news.
“Your biopsy confirms you have breast cancer,” she said on the phone. My worst fears were confirmed.
For 3 weeks, I had been hoping that lump in my breast was something else, something besides what I knew in my heart it was. I hadn’t even told my husband about the doctor’s appointment.
Yet there I was, at age 43, with a full-time medical practice and three kids still at home. My husband and I looked up survival statistics on my type of breast cancer at Stage 3. Apparently, I had only a 50% chance of surviving the next 5 years.
That was 16 years ago.
I tell this story because some of you may be facing the scary reality of breast cancer right now. I encourage you to reach out to your family, your friends, your co-workers, your church members. I did not get through that time in my life by going it alone. Some of my patients called and made appointments with me, not because they were sick, but because they wanted to check on me. I will be forever grateful for their encouragement and kind smiles, when I lost all my hair and looked and felt like a bowl of cold gravy. I called friends to go with me to my chemo treatments, my doctor’s appointments, to take my kids to their school activities, to cook meals for my family. I learned the true meaning of community and why we as humans need each other.
If you or someone you love is fighting cancer, reach out for help. Don’t go it alone.
This is Dr. Susan Nelson for Church Health.