My New Year Prayer

Strength to manage

... fear
... anger
... worry
... pain
... dryness
... diet
... exercise

To be blessed with plethora of

... love
... enjoyment
... pleasure
... peace
... happiness

My Mother Has Breast Cancer

My mother was diagnosed having breast cancer some weeks ago and had a mastectomy done last Friday.

It has been one hell of a journey for all of us especially for me!

It started like this...I have always pestered my mother to do her breast-self examination regularly. I had always been warned by my doctors about the high risk my first degree relatives having breast cancer and mammography should be done annually. Immediate family members would only include my mother as I have no sisters.

Several weeks ago my mother told me that she felt a lump on her right breast. She was reluctant to go for a mammography as wanted to wait but I insisted on it. So with much trepidation and heavy heart we embarked on the journey of tests and discovery. As Dr Saunthari Somasundaram of National Cancer Society who is my aunt, we immediately went to NCSM to have ultra sound and mammogram done. With heartfelt thanks to my aunt, lightening speed arrangements were made to meet other medical professionals as a suspicious lump was found. We went to Subang Jaya Medical Centre to get the biopsy was done by Dr Sumithra Ranganathan. Later, the report confirmed that the lump was cancerous and 6mm in size. And finally Prof Yip Cheng Har of University Malay Medical Centre, the same surgeon who did my mastectomy also did my mother’s op.

I was in an emotional and mental topsy-turvy and this is the first time after my own treatment I have been in such a stage of affairs. Oh god! It was walking through the scenes of memory again, just that this time around there was no element of the unknown! I had the mastectomy last February and this December my mother is having hers. Life really sucked then! Why must the damn cancer hit my family again!

I…I had to break the news to my mother. She took it amazingly calmer than I did. Being a religious person her famous words are “ …if one has to go through it then one has to…that is karma”. I of course, was unduly worried for her and put myself in a terrible stress. My mother is 62 years of age, married with 3 children and the years have seasoned her to take each encounter with more strength and will power to over come it.

I sourced around for survivors where the daughter was diagnosed first then the mother but could not find any. I suppose my mother and I are exception to the general rule!

I sent emails to my fellow survivors about my mother having BC, the people who really could understood what I was going through. Some of them replied and some called and in all of them I found abundance words of encouragement, support, assurance and prayers for everything to go well.

I realized how I handled my BC is different from how my mother would want to handle hers. After all we are two different individuals. My mother did not even want her siblings to know about her condition until the last week of her surgery. She said that she being the eldest in the family she did not want the family to be worried about her. When the family got to know they were in shock! They could not believe that my mother who is a vegetarian, a homemaker and leads a healthy lifestyle could have BC. Of course after the breaking news, she received all their support and love.

The table has been turned for me from a care receiver to a care giver. I spent the night beside my mom at the medical centre after her surgery. She was there for me and I reciprocated it. My mother is really progressing well and is in high spirit. Thank god for that. Well now we have become the family of lopsided females. Ha!...Ha!...Ha…!

They say life is a balance of sorrow and happiness. In the midst of this turbulence, my brother was blessed with a second baby boy, 2 days after my mother’s surgery. The new born baby… a symbol of life, joy, hope and renewed strength!

Family History of Breast Cancer

I had no history of breast cancer in my family and now that I survived breast cancer, I have started the family history. Ha!...Ha! In away, it has increased the risk for my family members developing breast cancer so more my first degree and my second degree relatives. My first degree relative will only be my mother and my second degree relatives who be my grandmother, aunties, cousins and nieces.

I came across this on What are the Risk Factors for Breast Cancer posted by American Cancer Societyhttp://www.cancer.org/ which states “Breast cancer risk is higher among women whose close blood relatives have this disease….. Having 1 first-degree relative (mother, sister, or daughter) with breast cancer approximately doubles a woman's risk”.

I must strongly advocate breast cancer examination among my relatives and to the older family members mammography.