Breast Cancer: So Not Convenient
I first got the bad news about the breast cancer at the end of September, but because I didn’t or couldn’t process the information, I didn’t realize that I actually had breast cancer until a week or two later. Mostly because I was walking around in a fog of disbelief and denial, like how you feel when a guy rear ends your car because he didn’t notice the red light. It’s just too ridiculous to believe.
Really, that’s how I felt. So, in a way, I ended up having my own Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It took a while, but now, I’m totally aware.
To be honest, my first reaction, once I’d accepted that the diagnosis was real and not just a really realistic bad dream, was shame. I felt embarrassed to have succumbed to this cliché, what with the ubiquitous and annoying pink ribbons and the road races and the fundraisers and the general brouhaha. I’d thought I’d be immune, for lots of reasons, most of them dumb.
I’ve been exercising almost every day for 35 years; I don’t drink much or do drugs of any kind, and I’m a healthy eater. I thought that taking care of myself would prevent breast cancer. (Wrong.) Also, I’m flat chested, so I thought the upside to having no boobs was no boob cancer. (Wrong again.) Plus, I’d been a chemo buddy for a close friend with breast cancer, thus innoculating me from getting it myself. (Wrong yet again.) And since I know a few women with breast cancer, I thought I was protected, statistically speaking: due to the one in seven rule. (Ditto.) Also, my mother and sister never had it. (Guess.) Plus, the timing was all wrong. I’d just been on the Today show, to promote my new book, and I was deep into trying to write an Op Ed piece for the New York Times that they’d be willing to publish, based on the superior wife syndrome, the central idea of my book, thus to make me an instant expert on the topic. (Didn’t happen; also didn’t prevent b.c.)
