Kate's Story: From Strong to Determined: How I Emerged From Breast Cancer
Kate Rosenblum, PhD is a member of the Breastcancer.org Virtual Meetups. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, with her wife, their children, two dogs, and two cats.
Green shoots push through skeletal leaves of last fall, leaving small clumps of soil tumbled to the side. They do not worry about “what ifs,” and, defying predictions of frost, their bulbs underground draw strength from warming soil.
I, too, am emerging. Two years since diagnosis, and the unfolding of scans, biopsies, infusions, radiation, and surgeries now behind me, I am faced with the possibility that I might be well.
When first diagnosed I was gifted a bracelet from a friend whose mother survived breast cancer. Small pink round stone beads, bound by elastic thread, framed little white cubes with the letters: s-t-r-e-n-g-t-h. “It helped my mother, and now you should have it.” The bracelet stretched around my hand and fit comfortably at my wrist. For weeks I wore it day and night, in bed, or on the crackly-paper-covered exam table in that awkward patient gown. Yet with each passing day, the bracelet fit less. Not in size. No, the elastic band remained ‘just right.’ But rather than inspiring strength, the black letters almost seemed to mock me: Be strong! Be strong! Be strong!
Strength was the little engine that could. But this is not what I felt. Instead, with fear, nausea, and exhaustion, I was emotionally bare as my head. “Strength” hearkened admonishments to “kick cancer’s butt,” a battle with winners and losers. Vulnerable and raw, and with treatment stretching ahead, I could only think about my next step.
I needed a new word, a mantra, a guide, chosen for myself. Now on my wrist, tiny hard grey-blue stones and ten white cubes: d-e-t-e-r-m-i-n-e-d.
Despite hope, another frost arrives. Small shoots exposed, their tips turn gray, and the single yellow blossom, heavy with frost, bends towards earth. Determined, it will stand again, petals less firm and worn, yet surviving
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