Ten years ago, right after my 50th birthday, I got a diagnosis that changed my life. A routine mammogram had found a "shadow" that turned out to be two small tumors in my left breast. I chose to have a mastectomy, and was fortunate in that there was no sign of the cancer metastasizing. I had radiation treatments, and then moved on.
For several years, I was a nervous wreck at every mammogram on my right breast, but eventually, my yearly check-up returned to a routine. My life, however, was anything but. In the year following my surgery, my father died in a fire, and my step-mother had a fatal stroke. Suddenly, I had nothing tying me to my home in Pennsylvania, so I made the bold step to take early retirement from my teaching job, sell my house, and move across the country to Los Angeles, where I've lived now since 2006.
Since then, I have had a magical life here in the land of "swimming pools, movie stars." I worked for Disney in their online division for four years, and I volunteered four times a year at an autograph show, meeting almost every celebrity I grew up loving and even becoming friends with many of them. I have a house in a beautiful area of the San Fernando Valley (rented, but I love it as my own), and I have a roommate who is a terrific friend, and I have a dog I adore. Life is good!
My message to anyone facing cancer is that it is NOT a the end of the world. Yes, it may be the end of life as you have known it. But if you embrace the change, allow yourself to learn the lessons that even catastrophic change can teach, you can rebuild a life beyond your dreams.
West Hills, CA
