Sunday notes

I got a call this morning from Dr. Howard Natenshon, an old friend who works as a radiologist at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, just down the road. When Jim was in grad school at UMASS, getting his MBA, I worked with my father on coordinating conferences that brought small businesses together with large corporate and public buyers. In between conferences, I needed cash, and Howie hired me to help him take care of his two sons, his house, and the logistics of being a single dad. Over the year, I got to know Howie and his kids very well, and have much affection for them to this day. It was Howie who was the radiologist who initially read my films and ordered retakes, and who was there the day I went in for an ultrasound, magnified retakes in hand, and was told me he was unable to "make the nodule go away." I can credit Howie for having the experience and good eye to catch the change in breast tissue on my mammogram, which put me on the road to not only finding out about the cancer, but making my way back to wellness as well. Since there was nothing palpable that anyone--not me, not my midwife who had just done an annual exam, and not Dr. Fox, the surgeon--could actually feel, I am grateful that Howie was able to see it, and insist on further examination.

Howie called to wish me well, to let me know he'd been thinking about me, but also to let me know he thought I had made the right decision--to go for the best possible treatment in Boston--and that meant a lot. So, I forge ahead feeling more positive and more settled about my decision.
Tomorrow, I meet with Dr. Pitts, the onco plastic surgeon, at her office at Faulkner Hospital in Jamaica Plain. I've been thinking a lot about the prospect of losing my breast; I am edging towards acceptance. But there's a lot of sadness there. It feels like the end of a beautiful part of motherhood for me--having babies, nursing, feeding and comforting my little ones. That was a joyous time for me, and although I have entertained the notion only once or twice of having another child (and usually this has been cured by a jolt of common sense, or a trip to the animal shelter to play with the kittens) in recent years, I suppose the possibility has always existed that I could have another child, even if I wasn't ever serious about it. I was still capable. And that meant something--youth? good health? I don't know. I do know that I still miss that time--the ease of being able to to tote around the best possible portable food on earth for my babies, to soothe an upset toddler by simply pulling him close, and offering him a breast, to provide food and comfort with an immediacy and perfection that has been so much harder to find as they've grown older. There's an essence of those early years infused in my breasts, and so much motherhood and womanhood--and so much of me--wrapped up in that little left breast of mine, that to lose it to a mastectomy feels a bit as if that lovely bit of early motherhood is being carved out of me along with the breast tissue. And it pushes forth the need to to exit this stage of my life, to move on, release my grip, much sooner than I expected I would have to--and it's filling me with a deep mama sadness. So, I just might have to get a puppy. Or, adopt that baby girl. Or, maybe the bearded dragon that Dominick wants to get will...or not. My dear old friend Natalie told me about an amazing photograph she saw of a lizard tattoo on a mastectomy scar. Now, that would be fitting, wouldn't it? ;)

I'll be in touch tomorrow evening after my visit with Dr. Pitts. Until then, I leave you with a prayer sent to me from my friend Jean:

"May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of His hand."

LOVE,
L.