Jacquie's Story: Sweet Peaches: How I Got Through Three Diagnoses Over 50 Years
Jacquie Anderson is a Breastcancer.org Community member in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Can you imagine being pregnant and 28 years of age, in a relationship that had gone sour, two other children, and not knowing what you should do? I can still see myself sitting in that chair and the man that I thought was in love with me, and thought that were building a life. Then suddenly the bottom falls out of your life. I felt like I was in one of those movies, like those soap operas, searching for my tomorrow. No, but this one was true life.
I remember when the doctor spoke those words and I am sitting there with this man who is the father of my children — expecting him to embrace me, which never happened. My doctor came from around the desk and gave me a hug. I got up from the chair and from that moment I began to fight on every level of my life. I had no one to really hear me, not even my mother. My father had died, my sisters seem to be in a place and time of their own. So, you see, I had no physical person, I only had God!
I can't speak to folks about their beliefs, but for me I have always been a little different. I asked questions. I asked the doctors what were the chances for my baby? I made the decision to carry the child full term. I started with the lumpectomy — and this was back in the middle '70's. Things were changing all around, for women. Women of color were making steps. Jobs were opening up. I mean, we had just come out of an era of the civil rights movement. We were making steps to educate women in healthcare, and wellness was number one. I had two babies and one on the way.
I mean it was that time, which is why I use the term my mother alway uses when expressing the journeys of one's life. And my mother had the one that, to me, is the right words joined together to tell the sweetness of how the roads and vision that were injected into my life, truly: "A Sweet Peaches Journey." My story is no different than any woman or man who has heard the sound of your breath when [you hear] that one word, "cancer." It is as if the sound of your life jumps up and says,"Hello!" Trust me it does, even to this very day, it still makes me realize how blessed I am so many ways.
I can sit with some folks and we talk about the old mammogram machines, the cold basements, the drab offices, not many pamphlets on awareness — so many memories of those early years. I can remember some of my friends who died back then, the ugly scars of the surgery, the blank stares on women's faces of,"Is this my last?," or, "What do I do or what do I say? Someone please help me."
Poor little old me, I had no one but God. Having to take care of the children and newborn baby, I mean I had a lot. But I survived that first battle with breast cancer, and everything that came in that life package.
My story does not end with the first or second battles with cancer. I mean it would take, for example, journals of all my battles with this sickness. The battles that I helped so many women, and even men, that fought and some even died — they called Jacquie. I brought awareness to communities that believed in staying in darkness.
I can remember designing training programs back in the day for women of color who had been infected with HIV/AIDS. I got permission to bring cancer awareness into these trainings. I took these steps seriously. My doctors had me to talk with women from other parts of the United States, and other countries. The same steps that I took for my life, I wanted women to know.
I have never asked for any kind of flowers, I just simply say, "This is what love and kindness, and even sometimes the bitterness of life, can make one know that the 'Sweet Peaches' taste of life will get you through." Those falling down across the road, laying in the way and waiting for death. And yet you remain when the pains of life and folks you love hurt you because they can't understand how to cope.
I lived for those three daughters and I live to this day for those three. I have taken on so many souls of women and their families that points came in time that I forgot about me. I can hear folks becoming angry with me and saying that I never had cancer — I can recall having cancer returning after being in remission for 31 years. You would have thought that I was done. No darlings, the little monsters came back for the second and the third time. You see, I live because I love what God — who is the promise of my life — has allowed for me to give to others. I share my promise and my hope.
I do the clinical trials so that when I'm speaking to others they can understand what this medication, or treatment, can and will do for them. When I started with these, they did not have all these new drugs. Women were not asking questions. They did not have ultrasound screening. Yes, I am a dinosaur!
I saw a lot of women and friends die and I made a promise: I was not going to see another sister (no matter what her color, her whatever) — I was going to be there if she wanted me to be. Oh yeah, and men also get breast cancer.
I could go on and on but, if you need more, do like a lot of my friends and family and neighbors — they just call and ask me, "Could you talk with, or would you be willing to speak to. this group." I always come back with the only thing that I could ever do and that is say, "Yes, and when?" I try to make it so simple and easy and, yes, the "Sweet Peaches Journey Approach." This always makes me feel hopeful and I know that it helps the other person. I have had some who I spoke with only once — someone will call me and say, "They need your Sweet Peaches!"
I give because I remembered something grand that was given to me: That was love of truth and how the courage that I was given allowed me to be here to share the beauty of good hope. I am not done, there is more. Just contact me and we can give some "Sweet Peaches Journey" to somebody!
