Barbara's Story: What Bunnies and Carrots Taught Me About Healing
Barbara Savage is a Breastcancer.org Community member in Lewisville, Texas, USA.
There is nothing harder for a mother to endure than listening to her child in pain call for help, no matter what age or how grown up, being far away, and she can’t physically be there to hold them, to fix it.
When my son joined the armed forces, he was pursuing his lifelong dream. Just weeks into basic training he was seriously injured, and I got that dreaded call. He was in physical pain with both hips broken, a broken pelvis, and both legs with multiple fractures, but it was his emotional pain I knew was the worst. His planned career ended. His dream was over.
He came home and started his recovery. I would spend hours talking with him about his experience up to the accident and how much he had loved all of it. I learned a new language through him: hats were "covers," and everyone always had a "Battle Buddy" with them. This intrigued me. What was a Battle Buddy? He explained to me that a Battle Buddy wasn’t just a friend, it was someone that would watch your back, always find you, never leave you, you went everywhere as a team.
I became my son’s Battle Buddy while he recovered. During the hardest times I would tell him that everything happens for a reason, sometimes we just don’t know what that reason is. And then we do.
After his lengthy recovery he was looking forward to starting a new job. I was enthusiastic for him, it all looked bright.
One day I noticed something different in the mirror, and started the most intense fight of my life, for my life. I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I needed my husband to keep working so we didn’t lose the health insurance. My son quit his new job and became my Battle Buddy. He took me to every appointment and treatment, he advocated for me when I needed doctor’s help, and he comforted me when I was too tired to go on. And I beat it.
I was declared cancer free the day the COVID lockdowns started. I didn’t get to ring a bell or have a party. Following a very short and rushed survivorship meeting, a nurse gave me pamphlets and it felt like I was shoved out the door.
As the world nervously isolated, I worried about my risks. As the lockdowns dragged on, It really wasn’t hard to stay in the house, because following treatment, I suffered extreme fatigue that left me frozen in place. I read the pamphlets and searched online for advice, but found very little. I asked my primary care and medical team for help, so they ran several blood test, gave me vitamins, and told me to try to keep moving.
I felt abandoned in a way, after so much attention through treatment, it felt like I was pushed aside and my questions ignored. I was spiraling down into depression. I would lay on the couch day after day, and ruminate over how I should get up and work. I had abandoned all of my businesses, stopped interacting with friends, and continued spiraling down and down. I would try to go outside and walk, but after a few steps I would end up sitting on the sidewalk exhausted.
I was so afraid that I had lost all of my business opportunities. Was my chance to succeed gone? All my connections over? My dream of writing a book would never happen. I berated myself daily for my negative attitude. I had just beat cancer, I should be feeling overjoyed, brilliant, strong, and ready to conquer the world. Instead, I felt miserable and very depressed.
One day, after almost a year of suffering the lingering extreme fatigue and living on my couch island surrounded by an ocean of despair, my Battle Buddy suggested we should start planning that year’s garden. He thought we should start by surveying last year’s abandoned garden site. My son wasn’t overly excited, but I could feel his determination to get me off my couch.
I hadn’t tended the garden in over a year and a half. It was Spring, time to plant, and now I didn’t have the energy to even think about working in it. The last time I had tried to grow something was carrots. I had seeded and watered, as usual, and they had never sprouted — not one, which was surprising. I thought the seeds must have been defected.
We slowly walked to the overgrown mess that used to be my garden, and as I surveyed the tangled weeds, I noticed what looked like the top of a carrot. With my son’s help, I bent over I pulled, and up popped a beautiful, lovely carrot. How did this happen? My son and I were so surprised! And then I saw another smaller carrot top, I grabbed the hoe to clear away the weeds around it so it could grow better. Just as pulled the hoe through the weeds, a patch of dried brown grass right beside it shifted. At first I thought there must be a snake, so I pulled the hoe gently over that patch to frighten it away, but instead the dried grass pulled off and I got a big surprise — it was a nest of eight tiny little baby bunnies. The cottontails were so tightly balled up together they looked like one single thing, and eight little pairs of eyes looked up at me, blinking. I carefully placed the dried grass back over them, knowing that their mother would soon be back. And I started crying.
I cried because even while I worried and feared that my life and work had come to a halt because of breast cancer that was totally out of my control, unbeknownst to me, there was a constant gardener. I had planted those carrots, but they didn’t sprout and grow in my time frames. They grew exactly when they should, how they should, in divine timing. From such a tangled up, overgrown mess was the promise of new life, renewal, and continuation. It renewed my faith. Not just my spiritual faith, it renewed my faith in myself. Yes, my recovery took much longer than I had expected it would. Fatigue is horrible and depression robs one of hope. My business suffered and I wasn’t done having serious health problems, but I faced those, too. Things got very bad, but there were other things going on that I was unaware of, just like in my garden. All that was necessary was that I trust and believe, and take the advice of my Battle Buddy to start planning and get up and go survey.
No one provided me with a good roadmap for survivorship, but now, I’m feeling stronger and I’m finding my way with my medical teams help. I am filled with gratitude and looking forward to the future. I’m relaunching my business, and it feels wonderful to be helping my clients improve their lives. I’m writing again. I’m transforming, inspiring, and motivating others. And I have learned:
Everyone needs a Battle Buddy.
Carrots grow when they should.
Baby bunnies are inspiring.
And always trust and believe, start planning, and get up and go survey.
Oh, and all the bunnies grew up and come to visit us often!
