I lost one of my childhood friends (and one of my first sweethearts) to cancer last year. Stupidly, he would not speak to me because of a POLITICAL disagreement. He always was absurdly rigid and stubborn, but of course I grieve for the boy he was, the boy who was my companion and friend at a time when I was a young girl who was 'different' and 'eccentric' and placed in a category in schools that instantly placed a target on my back... So there were many who never bothered to find out what sort of person I actually was, simply because I had been branded as 'gifted'.
We find out whether we are cowards or not when faced with our deepest fears... and it is not fear that makes one a coward but the act of trying to run from that fear rather than facing it. My daughter asked me to design a tattoo for her in calligraphy: Conquer Your Fears. She had it placed on her wrist precisely because she had a phobia about being cut on that part of her body. Brave warrior woman, my Freya.
Now, facing my worst fear, because my Mother had breast cancer when she was 42 and they stripped her of her flesh to the point where she could not stand the sight of her own body, while my sister and I witnessed her transformation and I know feared, both of us, that it was our own future there in front of our eyes....
Every one says it is a different world now, but I have been diagnosed with breast cancer and they say I will lose the breast... whatever they claim will or will not be at this point is simply speculation. It is only AFTER I go under and they cut me open that they will decide what can be saved and what must be lost. So yes, I am not calmed by the platitudes and positive affirmations from the medical profession because written beneath each claim is the uncertainty, the disclaimer that none of it can be guaranteed.
It is curious but I am more concerned about the mental welfare of my daughter now than anything else. Remembering how my Mum's fate affected me, casting a dark shadow over my very identity as a woman, any pleasure I might have had in being a woman, any joy in my femininity... I want my daughter to have a different vision. I want her to see that everything is, if not good, acceptable, viable... I want her to live outside this terrible spectre that darkened most of my adult life.
We can try to erase elements of our psyche, but our childhoods remain in the bone, as it were... it is not erasure, but methods of coping that have to be set into place.
What is 'Cancer' anyway? It is not one disease, but a thousand different diseases, and all have been gathered under the umbrella of the 'BIG C', an expression I absolutely loathe. The enemy is given strength and enhanced by this grouping, like the army of Sauron. Why do we do this? God only knows... When one is told one has cancer, one simply PANICS because many of these dreadful diseases are fatal. In fact, why isn't one told instantly what specific disease one has???
When I did a bit of research on Cancer long ago, I instantly recognised one aspect of it: It is not Death, but rather Life run Amok... it is the life in specific cells taking on greedy desire to grow, to multiply, to take over...
I have had less than a fortnight to come to grips with the enemy in my own body, with the interloper that is trying to possess and expand its territory. The great irony is that it is based on the very hormones that gave me the ability to have a child and nurse that beautiful child. If I had a choice now to make a deal with the Devil as it were: Don't have a child and you won't be inflicted with this Cancer! or 'Have your child and be inflicted with Cancer!'... I would not hesitate. Having my daughter was the most brilliant and magical experience of my life and being able to nurse her was incredibly beautiful and empowering for me.
The joy in being a woman ALWAYS was diminished by pain in my own life. I had a terrible cycle, punctuated by cluster migraine headaches twice monthly. I had endometriosis, cysts aplenty... I actually lost an ovary when I was younger than my daughter is today. At that point in time, I begged the surgeon to perform a total hysterectomy because being a woman was more grief and pain than pleasure. She refused adamantly... telling me I was too young and would change my mind. And indeed, she was right. It would have been a terrible loss if I had been unable to bring Freya into this world.
Nothing equals the power and magic of childbearing and nursing a child... NOTHING. And yet, I would never deny any woman the right to determine what happens within her own body. I do not believe ANY ONE and certainly not any male has the right to tell a woman she must have a child that somehow has been implanted against her wishes in her body. It is not a question of morality. It is simply that, it has to be the individual's ultimate right to determine... and that holds true as well for euthanasia. How dare any one else force a person to exist in agony when there is no hope of any reprieve? Dr. Kevorkian, to me, is one of the great men in history, a true hero.
Death is not the worst fate... living in intolerable pain is far worse.
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