110 degrees magazine - Index

110 degrees magazine - wlinks_may08 - Index

BLOOM I BY JOY BURSCH I PHOTOS BY RUSSELL BYRNE
RUNNING FOR
MY LIFE JOY DESCRIBES THE AGONIES AND THE
Nothing can prepare a person for being diagnosed
with cancer. I was an R.N. for 13 years and an oncology
nurse for that last four so I knew the signs of
cancer and was familiar with the processes of
diagnosing and treating the disease, plus I was
aware of the capabilities and limitations of the
medical field in providing cancer treatments.
I had been conducting self-exams too infrequently,
every 2-3 months rather than monthly.
During a self-exam I discovered a thick area inside
my right breast. It wasn’t hard like a walnut,
which would have been more suspicious, but was
a softer mass.
Three or four people at Walnut Creek Kaiser
examined me and they made an appointment
with a surgeon to have whatever it was removed.
They did a needle biopsy and found two lumps in
the same breast.
I was only 38. We were confident that the lumps
wouldn’t be cancerous. But they were! I was diagnosed
with ductile breast cancer, which medical
people call invasive ductile carcinoma — the most
common form of breast cancer.
COPING WITH CANCER
I wasn’t prepared to have cancer. None of my
training or contacts with numerous other women
80 www.110mag.com May/June 2008
ECSTASIES THAT BREAST CANCER HAS
BROUGHT INTO HER LIFE.
who had gone down that path before me
equipped me in any way for the shock of that
news. You spend your life hoping it doesn’t
happen to you, but there’s no way to prepare to
hear your name and “cancer” in the same
sentence without being shocked and dismayed.
I got the call confirming the diagnosis on a
beautiful March day in 2004 when the trees were
in blossom and the sun was shining. The event
had an unreal quality. It seemed much too
wonderful a day to be able to support such a terrible
truth. I needed storm clouds, thunder, and
driving rain to provide some physical congruity
for the hurricane that was suddenly blowing
through my spirit.
I went into work to finish up some paperwork,
then went into the bathroom and bawled again. I
told a co-worker what I had discovered, and she
was very kind and we both cried together.
Afterwards I drove to my husband’s job and
called him out to the van so we could be private
for a few moments. It was tough for both of us.
We bawled together for a few moments.
The worse thing was the terrible possibility that
my children, who at the time were two, four, and
eight years old, would grow up without a mother.
I found the possibility that I might not be around
to raise my kids an impossible burden. God made
moms and dads because kids need them.
My dad died when I was eight and I didn’t want
my children to experience that loss. How could I
possibly do to them what my father had done to
me?
We had just moved into our new home eight
months before.
A DOWNHILL SLOPE
The people at Kaiser Hospital were wonderful!
Misery really does love company and a lot of
women right here in Contra Costa County are in
this boat with me. Every day the staff at Kaiser
deals with people who have just learned their
diagnosis. They were wise and comforting. They
told us what to expect, described in detail would
happen during and after surgery, and gave us
contact numbers for support groups.
Surgery was scheduled several weeks following
the diagnosis. I went back to work and began
carrying on like nothing was happening. “Life goes
on,” they say, and miraculously it does.
But things weren’t going well. The surgeon felt
some lymph nodes under my arm and believed
that the cancer was spreading. He was right,
because during the surgery they removed 13 nodes