Six weeks

What can happen in life in just a mere six weeks? You can see the beating of a newly formed baby in it's mother's womb by six weeks. You can be cleared to drive again after many surgeries in six weeks. You can take summer classes in six weeks. You can sign up for a slim in 6 program in six weeks and redefine your body.

In six weeks, I have been diagnosed with cancer, undergone a mastectomy, had my mother move in to care for me, and had a second surgery scheduled to fix my healthy breast so they match. I have had follow up appointments, drains removed, oncology appointments scheduled and my breast stared at by more Wash U pre med students and interns than ever before.

In six weeks I have relied on the prayers from others, the helpings of friends, the food from women who may not even know me well. I have received cards and emails and letters from survivors of breast cancer from all walks of life. I have had people lament with me over my ugly bras, cheer with me in returning to the gym, and continue their thanks for my health.

In six weeks I have strengthened my walk with God. Blindly I follow in the steps he asks of me and know that when I fall, He is there. Boldly, I will tell anyone I am healed through God's grace and the gifts he bestows upon others in my humanly life to heal and reconstruct. I am humbled by the ease of my cancer journey thus far. I feel unworthy to complain of any hardship. I asked for a chance to walk in God's grace. I was given it. And I hope I am walking as He would want me to. As He walks with me. Carrying me when necessary.

As live continues to get back to normal and the fear of my diagnosis and treatment dies down, I know that the real healing is only beginning within myself. For now, six weeks later, there is no big diagnosis. There is no big surgery scheduled. My December 30th surgery will be a molding and augmenting one to show off my plastic surgeon's art of forming one breast to look like the other non-breast. For those skills, I am thankful. There is no need for my mother to stay, to watch over my  healing. To pamper my children, to clean my home, to fold the laundry. Her daughter is healthy, on the mend, she can get on with her own life, with a breath of relief.

It is now that I find myself tearful for no reason. Now that the wind of the typhoon has blown over. Now in the quiet I sit and think. Oh My! Did that just happen to me? How did I endure that? How do I move on? How do I incorporate cancer survivor into my life? Into my psyche? Into my new limitations? In six short weeks I have gone from a cancer victim. To a cancer patient. To a cancer survivor. Even though I will still be a cancer patient. And I will still be a cancer victim, in a sense.

I look at a bracelet on my wrist that an over a decade friend gave to me. "Fight Like A Girl" Even though I have slowly shed all other outward, visible signs of my battle, this one bracelet remains. For it reminds me of what I have done in my life in six short weeks.

It reminds me that hopefully I have reached one other woman and encouraged her to have a mammogram. Or to get a physical. Or to have her blood drawn. Or see her doctor for an issue that has been nagging at her. It reminds me that prayerfully I have touched one soul who needed to see someone walk in a valley so that they could see God is always there. It reminds me that no matter where I am, God is there too. And so are my friends. So many of those! People who have always been there through every transition. In the spotlight, or on the sidelines, I am surrounded by people who have such compassion for others, and a passion for life, like I do.

Six weeks since my diagnosis. Tomorrow it will be four weeks since my mastectomy. Life sure can take some sharp twists and winding roads in a small amount of time. From fleeting heartbeats of a newly formed baby to the removal of a deadly cancer, God holds us all close. Even when things don't turn out like we expect. Never, like we expect, but somehow, better.

I'm relearning that bad situations can remind us of all that is good. Bad things can be the beginning of better things. And that six weeks, although it feels like an eternity, is not that long of a time.