Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jane Rudden is an established writer in the field of literacy education. She holds an Ed.D. in curriculum and instruction with a concentration in reading. She is an author for Kendall/Hunt Publishing Group and Pearson Education Group. Jane divides her time between Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Fenwick Island, Delaware.

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If We Must Dance, Then I Will Lead

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

About the Author............................................................................ixForeword by Daleela Getsiv Dodge, MD........................................................xiIntroduction................................................................................xvChapter One We Interrupt This Life for Cancer-Discovery and Diagnosis.......................1Chapter Two Tunnel Vision-Preoperative Testing..............................................19Chapter Three Measure Twice, Cut Once-The Lumpectomy........................................33Chapter Four Elective Mastectomy-Not This Kid...............................................47Chapter Five Showered with Comfort-Siblings Hear the News...................................53Chapter Six You Look Maahvelous-Bald Is Temporary...........................................63Chapter Seven Supersize My Order of Antinausea Meds-Chemotherapy Begins.....................71Chapter Eight The Buzz Cut-Chemotherapy #2..................................................81Chapter Nine Take This Port and Shove It-Chemotherapy #3....................................89Chapter Ten Smile, You're on Lovenox-Chemotherapy #4........................................97Chapter Eleven Adios, Chemosabi-The Kindness of Taxol.......................................103Chapter Twelve The Unfair Flag, Long Does It Wave-The Mastectomy............................115Chapter Thirteen One Is the Loneliest Number-Radiation Therapy..............................123Chapter Fourteen Inflation Elation-Breast Reconstruction....................................131Chapter Fifteen Deflation Depression-A Failed Reconstruction................................139Chapter Sixteen Denouement-Not Every Memory Is Soaked in Sorrow.............................151Afterword...................................................................................157Acknowledgments.............................................................................161

Chapter One

Thursday, April 7, 2004-Monday, April 12, 2004

When the phone rang at midnight on the East Coast, I was already tucked in, exhausted from the sucker punch of the news that I had breast cancer.

"They've got the wrong girl!" said the caller.

My younger sister, Kate, the public defender, was calling from California. To say that Kate revels in finding justice for the common man would be a gross understatement. She once returned a ten-year-old skillet to a store for a refund because the bottom was warped and the grease puddled at the edges. The manager told her the store didn't carry that skillet any longer but would gladly exchange her old one for a different model. Now her days are spent in a courtroom negotiating jail time for felons, and her evenings, spent negotiating homework time, a jail of sorts, with her teenage son.

"Oh, Kate, you're too much," I mumbled in cottony half sleep. "I guess you talked with Christine and heard the news. I'm still reeling from the shock."

"You sound sleepy."

"It's midnight here, Kate."

"Well, I know, but I told myself this was a good enough reason to call so late."

I got up, threw on my robe, and went into the kitchen where I sat down at the table surrounded by all of my notes. The stove nightlight cast shadows on the wall as I reviewed the pathology with my sister and gave her some idea of what was next on the docket. Kate is the poster child for organization and generosity. She wasted no time with preliminaries.

"I'll get with Christine, and we'll figure out a travel schedule so somebody's with you for surgery and chemo. I can be there as soon as school is out." She further volunteered to get the word to the St. Louis family contingent and to my younger sister, Patti, who lived on the West Coast and kept in sporadic touch with family.

There are eleven siblings in my family-seven girls and four boys, most of them still living in the Midwest. Four of us, however, had roamed to the East and West Coasts, and the geographical distances between us, which had never mattered before, now came front and center. We had last circled the wagons of familial support at Mom's and at Dad's funerals. Mom died when she was fifty-eight years old from congestive heart failure. She'd also borne eleven surviving children, and her favorite snack was a Mounds bars chased down with Pepsi. Daddy died at seventy-three from lung cancer brought on by smoking no-filter cigarettes and rolling his own with Bull Durham. He'd set up shop at the head of the kitchen table and spread out the stock market page alongside a green glass ashtray. Bull Durham and a cup of reboiled coffee laced with Wilson's milk completed the tableau. If we'd had any guesses as to what would take us, we'd have put our money on Mom's heart condition.

My illness was an unexpected blow. I'd had my share of measles, mumps, chicken pox, and broken bones. Cancer had never been on the list of possible health setbacks. Daddy's cancer was self-imposed, after all. I'd gone through life believing I was the stalwart type, able to take on the challenges of sports, and later the challenges of balancing the stress of work with the rejuvenating effects of exercise. Someone else's bad news used to appear as a momentary blip on my screen, and I'd been grateful that their troubles hadn't been mine. I'd always taken my own health for granted-I had, but not anymore.

Only the week before I had sat in my doctor's office, legs dangling over the edge of the examination table, studying the circulatory system depicted on the oilcloth fellow mounted on the back of the door in an attempt to keep my mind off the purpose of my visit.

I had found the golf ball-size lump on April 1, 2004-no fooling-during a routine in-the-shower once-over. Soapy and slick made the perfect canvas for detection. Must be a pulled muscle, I thought. A knot, not a lump, from gardening, or maybe my overenthusiastic practicing of the routines from the "Dumbbells for Smart People" workshop. I thought, I'll give it the weekend to go away.

Lingering in the shower has always been an indulgence I savored. That day as the water streamed over me, I was lost in humming a tune resurrected from my unconscious. That's when I found it. Sensing the lump in my breast interrupted the chorus of "Crystal Blue Persuasion" and made my heart skip a beat. The abiding fear of the Big C closed my throat to any more humming.

* * *

The rustle of my chart being removed from the holder on the outside of the door signaled that my turn had come. Doctor Susan swept into the room and greeted me with her usual enthusiasm.

She put me through a series of poses to detect the lump. First, I sat up straight facing her, and she looked from breast to breast to detect any differences in size or shape. Then she gently moved her hand over my right breast, from top to bottom, feeling for the lump. I hopped off the table and bent over at the waist to let gravity take over. My breasts hung down like pendulums, and there, protruding from the top of my right breast, was the lump. The dimensions were startling.

"The good news, Jane, is it came on quickly and is free moving. You had a clear mammogram in June and a clear exam in...