Wonder mom takes surgery in stride
My mother came to my home in Aromas on Sunday, which was a
bigger event than you might think. You see, less than a week prior
to her visit, she had been in surgery.
Yet, there she was, 75 years old and moving just fine under her
own steam. She is a golfer, a tennis player, an avid bridge and
Scrabble player.
Wonder mom takes surgery in stride
My mother came to my home in Aromas on Sunday, which was a bigger event than you might think. You see, less than a week prior to her visit, she had been in surgery.
Yet, there she was, 75 years old and moving just fine under her own steam. She is a golfer, a tennis player, an avid bridge and Scrabble player.
She is also a cancer survivor.
This past April, she found a lump in her breast. It was biopsied and found to be cancerous. Thanks to early detection and treatment, she is fine now.
Her surgery last week was the last step in reconstruction after a double mastectomy. When she was first told that there was cancer, her reaction was to just go ahead and get rid of everything. Two of her sisters have had breast cancer, and she figured heck, why take chances – just take ’em off.
My mother has a kind of courage that I never dreamed she had. She’s always been my mother, but lately she’s become my hero.
I’ve even dubbed her “Wonder Woman.”
I was rather in awe on Sunday. If it had been me, I’m sure I would have been whining and hiding and asking for another Vicodin. But there she was, just zipping right along. She claimed to have no pain from her recent procedure: “I just get a little tired now and then.”
My mother has joined the ranks of breast cancer survivors, of which there are now more than 2.5 million in the United States.
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, with this year marking the 25th observance. In the past quarter-century, there’s been some remarkable progress in the treatment of breast cancer.
A recent report from the American Cancer Society contained a lot of good news on the subject.
Deaths in the United States from breast cancer have dropped more than 2 percent each year since 1990, thanks to earlier detection and better treatments. There are now mammography centers pretty much everywhere, and education is continuing to help women get those mammograms.
I get one every year, or at least, every year that I remember to. And now I have an added incentive: I know I have a family history of breast cancer, and I need to be vigilant.
But I know, too, I am one of the lucky ones. The type of cancer that seems to be genetically linked on my mother’s side doesn’t manifest until late in life, and then is very slow-growing and nonaggressive.
I know there are many families out there that have much more to worry about, with more virulent forms lurking in the DNA and early onset.
And that’s why it’s important to keep spreading the word. Early testing means early detection and better outcomes. Advances in surgery and chemotherapy have also made it possible for women (and a few men) to live longer and better.
Maybe in another 25 years, deaths from breast cancer will become unusual. We can only hope.
My mother is doing fine, and doesn’t understand why we fuss over her these days. Her surgeon got all the cancer, and the prognosis is very good.
It’s great having Wonder Woman for a mom.
