You have a mass and by all appearance, it is malignant..you have cancer. As a health care provider, I had heard these words before. Usually I was standing next to the physician as he is delivered the report to the patient and family, ready to comfort and answer their questions. The last time I heard those words, I was sitting next to the radiologist, looking through tear-filled eyes at my own x-rays. What had started as a routine mammogram has changed the course of my life forever. 

The fall of 2000  had brought a mixture of emotions. Our oldest daughter returned to college for her 3rd year, our second daughter started her first year of college and was just settling in to dorm and college life. Our youngest was anxiously awaiting her drivers permit--a milestone of every teenagers life. My husband, Pete, and I had just celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary. Life was good! I was one semester away from completing my Bachelors Degree of Nursing--something I had been working on for 4 years while working full time. I was applying for graduate programs and finally could see my dream of teaching nursing becoming a reality.

Soon after this time, while opening my daytimer to check the weeks activities, out fell a small green paper. As I picked it up, I realized that it was the slip for a mammogram I had received at my last check up 6 months earlier. I remember tucking it away that day with all good intentions of scheduling an appointment. But as the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind! I really didn't worry about the time lapse--I had no family history, I was young, and previous mammograms had always been normal. I decided that maybe someone was giving me a message so I called to schedule an appointment, and wrote the appointment time and date on my calendar--2:30 pm on October 20th.

I remember joking with the mammography technician during the exam and talking about hospital news. From previous experience, I knew the exam would not take long--the longest part was waiting for her to come back to say everything looked good. When she came back into the room, she was carrying more x-ray plates--"Doctor sees a density he wants to get a better look at", she said. As she left the room for a second time, I began to worry. As the minutes stretched out, a sense of panic came over me and I began to do something that I was not use to doing often or doing well, I began to pray. The door opened and I could tell by LeAnn's face that I wasn't going to hear the words I had hoped for. The radiologist sat with me and began explaining what he was seeing--but I stopped hearing after the word cancer. How could it be that the same breast that 20 years earlier, to the day, had begun producing milk to nourish our first born, was the same breast that now produced a spidery demon threatening to take my life. 

Several weeks later, after exploring my options, I underwent a modified radical mastectomy with reconstruction. For me, I needed a mental healing as much as a physical healing. I needed to know I had done all I could do to give me the best odds for long term survival. I had dreams to fulfill and children to see into adulthood. One month after surgery, I began chemotherapy and completed my last treatment on March 7th. Now I begin the "after treatment" phase of cancer survival. As I told my oncologist, I feel like the training wheels are being removed from my bike and I am not ready to ride solo. 
Yet I know, in time, the worry will become less, the physical scars will fade, and the emotional scars become less raw.

This leads me to the question of what the Relay of Life means to me. My family and I have attended the Relay in the past in honor of my mother-in-law who had died after a very brief, but devastating battle with pancreatic cancer and for a friend who is also a breast cancer survivor. I remember watching the first survivors lap and the emotions of seeing bravery and courage at it's best. Never in my wildest of dreams would I have thought one day I would be walking that survivors lap. And who could forget the sight of the first luminary ceremony. So many lights for so many people.

The money raised from the Relay will continue the support and direction that early cancer detection will save lives. I consider myself a success story of early detection. Other funding helps provide information, support and resource referral to people with cancer, their families, and their communities. A significant portion of the money goes to further research in the area of cancer prevention, detection, and treatment. To me this means hope--hope that maybe my daughters will not be faced with this same disease, hope that I a may see my love for life perpetuated in my grandchildren, and hope that I may grow old along side my husband.

As the Relay for Life kicks off for the year 2001, I prepare to walk my first survivors lap. I will be walking with many other survivors--some that are long term survivors and others, like myself, that have just begun. And there will be those who are noticeably absent this year, having crossed the final finish line. As a cancer survivor, life will always be one continuous lap of survival. There will be days when I can walk briskly, jog, or maybe even sprint. And there will be days when I will be slowed by fatigue and fear. I plan to wear out many a pair of Reebok's and Nike's during my survival walk. And when I, too, cross that final finish line, I pray that it is as a tired, old woman and not as a young woman, pulled from the race far from the finish line.