I’m
Rosa’s great-granddaughter, and I’m a survivor. Rosa had nine children at home
on the farm when she went to San Francisco for breast cancer treatments. My
grandmother Julia was nine when she watched her mother Rosa’s slow death.
Imagine Julia’s terror when she
discovered her own cancerous lump. She was fifty, a year older than her mother.
Julia had a radical mastectomy, stuffed her large empty bra with Kleenex, and
lived thirty more years.
My mom Alice, Julia’s daughter, knew something was wrong with her breast. Her doctor watched it for several years before performing her radical mastectomy, also at age fifty. She bore a zigzag scar down her chest, wore a prosthesis in her bra, and also lived thirty more years.
I’m
Judy, Rosa’s great-granddaughter. When I passed age fifty I thought I
was in the clear. I was cocky and smug. I was casual about breast self-exam. It wouldn’t
happen to me now. I was past the age. My stage-three diagnosis came at
sixty-three, missed by regular mammograms. After enduring a mastectomy,
chemotherapy and radiation, I had implants. I usually don’t wear a bra. My
husband encouraged me on the days I felt like letting go and leaving life
behind.
I
didn’t want to speak to you because I’m still in denial. I don’t want to be
defined by cancer. I don’t want to own it. I aim for health, and I expect to
live well into my eighties.
I’m
Judy. I’m Rosa’s great-granddaughter, and I’m a survivor.
 |
| Survivors Lap, Seattle University Relay for Life 24 May 2014 |
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