CANCER CAN LEAVE BODY, LINGER IN YOUR SOUL

Editor’s note: October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the Chicago Sun- Times invited breast cancer survivors to share their stories. We kick off this series with Mary Mitchell’s story, and we’ll share others throughout the month here and at suntimes. com.

Chances are if you are a woman, one day you will wear a pink ribbon. You won’t wear it because pink is still your favorite color.

You will wear it because you’ve joined one of the largest sisterhoods in the U. S.

Last year, an estimated 232,340 women in the U. S. were told they had invasive breast cancer, and another 64,640 women were told they had non- invasive breast cancer.

Indeed, researchers predicted that 39,620 women would die from breast cancer in 2013.

And while white women are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer, black women are more likely to die from it.

While these stats, compiled by the American Cancer Society, are tragic, there is reason to take heart.

Because of early detection and advanced medical technology, more women are surviving the disease. Today, an estimated 3 million women nationwide are alive after receiving a cancer diagnosis of any kind.

October marks five years and six months since I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, and I’m still standing.

Thank God.

But I know I could walk into a doctor’s office next week and be told that I have a lump, or get a fateful call back aftermy annual mammogram.

Many survivors talk about their “cancer journey,” but I see breast cancer as a battlefield.

Although I am grateful to be among those who returned from the battle, I mourn for those who did not.

Like soldiers who are spared while their comrades fall all around them, survivors often struggle with survival guilt.

For instance, it has been 14 years since I lostmy beautiful niece, Asuntha, to this disease. At 30 years old, she was the first to be diagnosed with breast cancer in our family. We were shocked. Her fight lasted three long years and she left behind two young daughters.

I often wonder: Why me? Why am I here while someone with their whole life ahead of them has gone? Over the years, I’ve come to understand there is no good answer to that question.

What I know for sure is I didn’t survive because I was stronger than those who perished or because I had a greater will to live.

Yes, I have access to good health care, but that doesn’t explain it either, given that many of the women who did not make it had the same access.

Like many of you, I watched helplessly as women who fought fiercely succumbed to the disease.

I accept that survival is one of life’s mysteries that won’t be revealed until it no longer matters.

Meanwhile, those blessed with survival often focus on supporting breast cancer support organizations, or on personally helping other breast cancer victims get through what can be a debilitating treatment.

After all, very few of us are prepared for losing our hair and possibly our breasts at the same time.

Frankly, when I received my last chemo treatment in 2009, I thought I would turn cartwheels.

But instead of dancing in the aisles, I cried.

My oncologist later confided that for many breast cancer patients, the end of treatment marked the beginning of their new reality.

“You’re thinking, ‘ I had cancer’,” she said, miraculously reading my thoughts.

I would never again see myself as I did before the diagnosis because the disease is linked to me like a hashtag.

Having had breast cancer, I am also a nervous wreck when I go for mammograms.

But, oh, the joy when the radiologist comes back to me with a big smile and a clean bill of health. Still, I know the war rages on. Being a survivor, I believe I owe a debt to all of the sisters whose own struggles are now close to my heart.

It is for them that I fight on.