Breast Cancer: Two Words No One Wants to Hear

It has been almost a year since Rachel's first surgery. That statement is hard to believe. What started as staining in a bra became a journey that has shaped us individually and collectively, and altered the course of our lives in unexpected ways. As a Licensed Professional Counselor and Marriage and Family Therapist, and more specifically as a Certified Sex Therapist, I have had a unique perspective upon which to draw as Rachel and I have walked this road, and though difficult (and ongoing!), ours has been a story of hope. We want to share that hope with those who may need it. Maybe you or someone you love is going through breast cancer or has been through breast cancer. Or maybe you have your own deeply personal trial you are living right now. Over the next few weeks, we invite you to join us as we approach walking through breast cancer (and in a broader sense, trials, grief, and loss in general) from different perspectives. Each person’s story is unique, but there are some things common to each of us as we stare our mortality in the face. There will be many voices  during the month of October championing awareness and a cure during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Many will write articles. Artists will create in their various mediums. Groups will gather to raise money for research. All are helpful and needed. We add our voice to the chorus and hope you will be encouraged as you get to know us, yourselves, and those in your life cancer has touched.

God never wastes our sorrows. This blog post has been in the background since some of the early days of our cancer journey because, in spite of the unknowns, we both knew the day would come for us to help others by sharing what we learned through suffering and declaring the good that we were confident the Lord would bring from it.  Through these 34 years of marriage, Rachel and I have often spoken at church events and taught marriage classes, and I have led many workshops for my professional peers. Through them all, we have decided to go first…to share personally from our lives with the hope that others might follow our lead and be more open and vulnerable in order to be known, accepted, and loved…three enemies of shame and three ingredients of intimacy. Though public sharing is certainly not the same as with trusted friends and family, in general shame lessens as the hidden is made known and relationships grow. Who can you share vulnerably with? I hope our sharing will encourage you to take the risk as well.
 
Though we decided months ago to blog about our experience during October, to be honest, I have put this off. Somehow choosing words now brings it all back…the shock, the disbelief, the fear, the questions, the known and unknown, and the tears…they are here again as I type. But why am I surprised? If anything, this journey tears at people, leaving us raw and bare. Tests, scans, labs, doctors and decisions. They are all essential, but each is a vulnerable reminder of the frailty of life. We were facing a new reality with many unknowns. This disease wasn't a choice, but we would have many choices in how we walked this path.

To talk about cancer is to talk about losses. Though they are similar, they are not the same. One can experience loss, but fail to grieve. For us, loss and grief started with the biopsy report, but at each stage, there were new unknowns to release and new losses to grieve. We reminded each other during those aching unknown waiting periods as results were being gathered not to assume the worst and take on burdens the Lord had not yet laid before us, but some of the losses we feared did in fact materialize. And yet now we stand here on the other side after some of the worst happened, and we look back with a strange mixture of grief and gratitude for the journey.

 I remember vividly sitting with Rachel in a surgeon's office as the doctor told us these tumors were not going to take Rachel’s life, but the entire breast had to go. It was a gut punch that left us breathless. We desperately wanted to save that special part of each woman’s breast that is so intimately unique and personal, and we searched diligently for alternatives, but to no avail. As the reality hit that what we feared was happening, the weight was so heavy that there were no words, and the only comfort we found was in lying in silence in each other’s embrace. Times of sexual intimacy were laced with tears over the loss we knew was inevitable.
 
Mastectomy. It is a harsh word…a word I knew, but didn't fully understand. A knife would cut away at a part of Rachel that was so personal and filled with meaning across her life from femininity and sexuality to cuddling and nursing our four children. A violent act for sure, but an act that offered the promise of life. With this surgery, we would likely obtain good margins of healthy tissue, with minimal chances for reoccurrence. Rachel’s life would be spared. More test results confirmed that the cancer had not spread, and together we stepped out toward a surgery filled with grief and loss and much unknown, but also the gift hope.
 
Spirituality offers hope to many experiencing cancer or other forms of suffering because we come to the end of ourselves and face our limits. We stare into our walks with God and think of Job and sometimes ask some of his questions. We long for answers, but hear that some things we face will not make sense…ever. Much like the hand of a parent leading their child into something hard that is necessary, but that the child doesn’t have the capacity to understand, Rachel and I also reached for God's hand, leaning into the One we had known over time to be trustworthy. We accepted a lack of understanding and strived to release control and take next steps of faith. We knew this would be an opportunity to grow.
 
If you know Rachel, you know her faith is the cornerstone of her being, so grief could never be the loudest voice. Instead hope, faith, and beauty pushed through grief like those pictures of the burned ground, black and charred, with fresh green shoots standing in contrast. We both returned again and again to our faith, determined to see something that God had for us today instead of insisting on knowing tomorrow. The future had to be His to hold. I heard Rachel's faith as she talked about times of prayer and scripture that spoke to her. Personally, I think I clung most to worship music, listening again and again to lyrics that spoke to my soul. Though each of us in times of suffering experiences faith differently, there is strength to be be found in the messy movement toward the One in whom we place our hope. And as we are willing to look, we find Him both in the expected and the unexpected.  I hope you will return later this month to hear from Rachel as she shares more about her journey of faith, and to reflect on ways your faith has brought you through your own times of suffering.
 
Some of you reading this right now know the words too well. You have had breast cancer or your wife has had breast cancer…or your mother or your daughter or your friend. So many of us have been touched by cancer of some type. You understand. You get it. It's like you could read ahead of me into next week's blog or the ones following and write it for me. These paths are ones you have walked. You know the places where you were too weary to move, so you just stopped and waited to catch your breath, pray, talk, and rest, and only then could you stand to take another step. The rules are different on cancer's path because you don't get to go back. You can only move forward stepping out toward the next curve but uncertain of what lies around the bend. The path is filled with various terrains. Some bring peace and some reveal weaknesses. Each step demands attention and energy in a way that sucks away life, leaving you panting for air. You naturally reach out for the hand of those that love you and are walking with you. This was certainly true for us.
 
Who we are as we step onto the path matters in how we walk it. Who we have with us also makes all the difference. It is paths such as cancer that remind us we were never meant to walk alone. Suffering ushers in that truth. Rachel and I needed other people, but it was our relationship with one another that would matter the most. We found ourselves often saying we were glad we had already worked on our relationship through the early years with therapy and long conversations toward numerous challenges along the way. This hard work had already broken down the sun-hardened soil and allowed it to become fertile ground for this next stretch…and we would need it. When to talk and when to listen. When to ask questions. When to share how we were struggling. When to admit how afraid we were and when to share the losses we felt. Physical limitations with recovery led to new ways for me to serve and offer care. There were so many ways we needed each other and the whole thing occasionally got messy. The mix of sadness, stress, physical needs, adjustments to loss, and weariness took its toll at times but in the end, we emerged more intimate and deeply connected as a couple than ever before. This journey has become another skillfully woven thread in the tapestry of our story, so beautifully crafted by the Master Weaver.
 
I would never presume to know your story or that you would know our story completely. None of our stories are the same and that certainly includes shared experiences of cancer. However, our stories are worth knowing. They are important and can portray a more complete picture of who we are if we are willing to share. Rachel and I were certainly impacted deeply in this journey by the stories of others who had gone before us. I hope you will consider sharing your story with someone you trust. We really do need each other.