My Breasts, My Cure -- Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

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Business As Usual

         True, I feel fine, as though nothing has changed in my life. And I find this quite fascinating because I should not be feeling fine. In fact, I should be scared, distressed, and maybe even angry at something or someone (like me). But I do not.

         As if nothing happened, the past few weeks have been business as usual for me. I partied with friends, such as the Changs, in their beautiful new home in Ken Caryl. Born in China and immigrated to the U.S. twenty years ago, Mercy Chang, is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Colorado Food Factory, Inc., a multi-million dollar food manufacturing company. Her life is a success story that inspired a many articles about her. I helped my Aloha sisters of the Polynesia-Pacifica of the Rocky Mountains hand out leis to downtowners on the 16th Street Mall in celebration of Hawaii's Lei Day.

         I could not let my personal setback stop me from fulfilling my civic duties and humanitarian endeavors, such as seeking scholarship funds for the orphanages. And, of course, I continued my activities with the Amnesty International in our fight to gain freedom for the countless men and women held in police bondage and to expose the injustices of the brutal regimes that imprison them.

         I wrote, read, shopped, went to church, attended meetings, exercised, went to movies (including the Asian/Pacific Film Festival), tended to my plants, flowers and herbs, cooked, washed my car, my laundry, ironed, and other mundane chores. Same old stuff.

         Yes, nothing has changed. Except for the fact that recently, a routine medical examination showed that I have a life-threatening disease.

         I will never forget that phone call from my doctor: "Good news and bad news," he began. "Good news is, the cyst in your right breast is benign." The tone in his voice changed to give me the bad news, which I had already guessed before he said it. "The bad news is, the cyst in your right breast is a malignant cancer."

         Breast cancer. To many women, this nightmarish prognosis conjures up images of mortality, of leaving loved ones behind, as well as unachieved aspirations and dreams.

         I am no different from those women when I heard the news. I thought of death, my family and friends . . . and the mountains of unfinished projects. Geez! I haven't even finished the novel that I've been working on for years. Maybe now I can concentrate on completing them, and hope that at least one could get published in this lifetime. Ironically, here I am, writing another novel instead of finishing any of the ones that I've already started.

         Curiously, I reacted stoically to the news. No apprehension, no fear. I understood completely what the doctor had said: I have a malignant cancer, and I should get it removed as soon as possible. I do wonder, however, if perhaps the seriousness of the news is just now slowly easing into my consciousness and that eventually it would sink in and I'd fall apart. No. I am truly in complete control of my mental faculties and my emotions from the beginning, as though something has managed to demystify the disease for me to give me the strength to fight and the clear mind to plan the remainder of my life.

         Maybe it's all that research and all that reading that I've been doing. If only I had known what I know now, maybe I could have prevented the invasion of this disease in my body. But this is not the time to lament on what I could have done in the past. I have to look and think forward. Be proactive.

         One thing for sure, I believe this is God's latest assignment for me. Through my humanitarian efforts, I have helped hundreds of people in my life; now He wants me to help a special group of women--the breast cancer victims. Through my writing and otherwise, I will endeavor to educate as many as I can about breast cancer, and hopefully prevent the disease from attacking their bodies as well.

         This epiphany sends me talking to God.

         "God," I begin. "I will do whatever it is you want me to do. But, next time, could you please just send me an e-mail instead?"

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