Breast cancer gets creative.

Currently featuring:
Terri Wingham
Sheila McWade
Cat Birch
Katie Evans
Zsolt Samson
Emily Dickinson

This issue is dedicated to Rachel Cheetham Moro and Susan Niebur

I Many Times Thought

by Emily  Dickinson

I many times thought peace had come
When peace was far away,
As wrecked men deem they sight the land
When far at sea they stay.

And struggle slacker, but to prove,
As hopelessly as I,
That many the fictitious shores
Before the harbor lie.

In memory of Rachel and Susan, whose peace has come. And for those of us who remain to strive toward the harbour, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with friendships formed and stories shared: Keep calling for the cure, keep carrying on the journey. There is land, there is a harbour to be reached. Together will overcome those fictitious shores.

Love, at least the ‘till death do us part’ kind, has eluded me for years.  Whenever it came around, I kept my shoes by the door and prepared to run like hell after it, should it threaten to disappear. Inevitably, I would soon myself in a chest-heaving, brow—dripping, red-faced sprint as I watched Love round the corner and disappear out of my life. I would sink to the curb, clutching the tattered edges of my heart, while I told myself that next time, IT would end differently. I would find someone who wouldn’t leave me; who would give my life purpose; and who would make me feel like I mattered. If I waited patiently enough, I would find the Big, Crazy Audacious Love that I deserved. But in October of 2009, I found cancer instead. The words 30 and single felt even more stifling when joined with the words breast cancer. Because I felt I had no other choice, I shelved my dream of a white wedding dress, a honeymoon in Florence, and three kids before the age of 38. Instead, with the support of my amazing friends, I settled into my new routine that included words like lymph node dissection, Docetaxel, and radical double mastectomy.   Eighteen months later, cancer finished chewing me up and spit me out. Thankfully, I could add survivor to the words single and now 32. But, lost in a post-treatment void that no-one warned me about, I searched for new words to reconnect me to something other than my age, my marital status, or my illness. After much thought, I settled on words to describe how I wanted to feel: healthy, loved, and inspired.  In search of inspiration, I quit my six-figure job and set off for a 6-week volunteer trip to Africa and ending up finding LOVE. This love surprised me, delighted me, and healed me from cancer in a way I hadn’t expected. You see, it arrived in the form of a 2 year old little boy with chocolate brown eyes, an impish smile, and a little hand that each morning would find its way into mine.   A beautiful little soul in the Townships of Cape Town taught me that love sometimes comes in a different package than we expect. He taught me that Real, Audacious, Crazy love has nothing to do with clingy attachment, proximity, or head over heels lust. Crazy, real, audacious love has no conditions. It means loving someone with your whole heart even if you may never see him again. It means loving someone regardless of how he feels about you. And it means, as hard as it might be, loving someone with no need for anything in return.  ___________________________________________________ To read more about how falling in love in Africa has inspired my current trip around the globe and my dream to help other cancer survivors volunteer internationally (and hopefully find their own love and healing), please come visit me at A Fresh Chapter and read more about My Adventure Of Hope. 

Love, at least the ‘till death do us part’ kind, has eluded me for years. 

Whenever it came around, I kept my shoes by the door and prepared to run like hell after it, should it threaten to disappear. Inevitably, I would soon myself in a chest-heaving, brow—dripping, red-faced sprint as I watched Love round the corner and disappear out of my life. I would sink to the curb, clutching the tattered edges of my heart, while I told myself that next time, IT would end differently. I would find someone who wouldn’t leave me; who would give my life purpose; and who would make me feel like I mattered. If I waited patiently enough, I would find the Big, Crazy Audacious Love that I deserved.

But in October of 2009, I found cancer instead. The words 30 and single felt even more stifling when joined with the words breast cancer. Because I felt I had no other choice, I shelved my dream of a white wedding dress, a honeymoon in Florence, and three kids before the age of 38. Instead, with the support of my amazing friends, I settled into my new routine that included words like lymph node dissection, Docetaxel, and radical double mastectomy.

 

Eighteen months later, cancer finished chewing me up and spit me out. Thankfully, I could add survivor to the words single and now 32. But, lost in a post-treatment void that no-one warned me about, I searched for new words to reconnect me to something other than my age, my marital status, or my illness. After much thought, I settled on words to describe how I wanted to feel: healthy, loved, and inspired. 

In search of inspiration, I quit my six-figure job and set off for a 6-week volunteer trip to Africa and ending up finding LOVE. This love surprised me, delighted me, and healed me from cancer in a way I hadn’t expected. You see, it arrived in the form of a 2 year old little boy with chocolate brown eyes, an impish smile, and a little hand that each morning would find its way into mine.  

A beautiful little soul in the Townships of Cape Town taught me that love sometimes comes in a different package than we expect. He taught me that Real, Audacious, Crazy love has nothing to do with clingy attachment, proximity, or head over heels lust. Crazy, real, audacious love has no conditions. It means loving someone with your whole heart even if you may never see him again. It means loving someone regardless of how he feels about you. And it means, as hard as it might be, loving someone with no need for anything in return. 

___________________________________________________

To read more about how falling in love in Africa has inspired my current trip around the globe and my dream to help other cancer survivors volunteer internationally (and hopefully find their own love and healing), please come visit me at A Fresh Chapter and read more about My Adventure Of Hope. 

You

by Shelia McWade


Check the door.  Go back and check the door. You did close it and lock it and it is secure but you’re running back to check.  Fool!  What were you thinking, actually thinking when you closed the door not a minute ago and turned the key in the lock to lock the door, lock the house?  See, it’s closed and it’s locked and the house is secure and you can go about your business now, please.  Please?  Car keys, now don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the car keys. No, they’re here.  Zipped in the upper pocket, right-hand side.  Well done.  Now first.  Where first?  Where do you want to go first?  What do you want to do first?  God, it’s cold.  Should  you go back for a heavier coat?  No!  Go!  Look, it’s good to be up and out and it’s good to be busy even though it’s early yet and it’s cold and really bed is the place to be at this hour but there’s no point in staying in bed because you didn’t sleep, did you?  And if you did at all it wasn’t much.  So easy does it now.  Take it gently ‘cause the concentration’s not so good when you haven’t had your sleep.  No one’s is.   This is a great car for it starts first time every time.  If only people were as reliable as this car.  Dependable.  You can depend on nobody these days.  Where are you going first?  Where?  Did you decide that?  No, you didn’t.   Let the engine heat up and open the glove compartment where you keep the cloth and dust down the dash and think.  Left sweeps, right sweeps, circle round the steering wheel, fold the cloth and put it back.  Recycling first, clear out the rubbish, that’s therapeutic and besides you don’t want those milk Tetrapaks stinking any longer in the boot than they have to.  Putrefying.  Disgusting.

       Music.  News.  Music or news.  Which is it to be?  Some days you can’t get enough of the news, depending on what the news is of course and if it’s of interest to you and even a bit of craic, and on other days you just can’t be bothered with it because it’s, well, it’s all too scunnering.  And you have to be in the mood for music.  What kind of music?  Loud or soft or classical or country or pop or whatever, decisions you can’t be bothered to make sometimes and now it’s a decision you just can’t make so you’ll have nothing.  You’ll settle for silence.  For to tell the truth you don’t know what you think about music or anything at all or should be thinking for that matter so it’s best not to think.
       How’re the lads?  Give them a wave there.  Hello!  They all think they know you now, waving you on through the barrier to the bottle banks, the paper banks, the Tetrapak bank.  Banks.  Banks!

 Crazy!  You love throwing the bottles, one after the other without pause smashing glass on glass and breaking into smithereens, shards, slivers of sharpness that can cut into your skin and release blood that bleeds out and empties the very innards of you.  Blood banks.  They have blood banks.  Where they keep blood.  But they don’t want your blood.  They can’t afford to have your blood.

       Damn milk.  Boot stinks.  That needs air freshener.  You should get this stuff.  It says on the can that it doesn’t just disguise the pong but it actually neutralises it.  They’ll say anything these days.  Give it a go.  And get some bleach, three for a pound, the good thick stuff.  Bargain.  And matches.  Batteries, sure why not?  This trolley is hopeless.  Should have taken a basket but you didn’t think and it’s too far now to go back for one and now you’re here you may as well get something edible.  Organic carrots, don’t have to peel them.  Healthier.  Yeah, healthy.  And organic and free-range chicken.  That’s supposed to be healthy too.  You’d like to think.  They say it’s never too late to be healthy.

       If you look after the car, the car will look after you.  Four tyres, thirty pounds of pressure per square inch, three down, one to go.  And bonnet up and water in and bonnet down.  And a fill of petrol and a paper and a Lottery ticket - a Lucky Dip because you couldn’t trust yourself to pick your nose let alone six winning numbers plus the bonus.  It’s all a lottery.  Now, are you seriously going to buy that paper you won’t read?  Don’t be daft, leave it back.  Have a packet of sweets instead.  Mints. The ones with the hole.  Better.  Suck.  Suck one.  Suck two.  Suck three, four all at the same time, swilling them about your mouth until your hot saliva melts them and your teeth crack them and you nibble them to tiny pieces and swallow.  In one.  Four more.  Suck.

       The traffic’s picking up now.  You follow it.  Red.  You stop.  Amber appears.  Green.  You go.  You obey the rules of the road.  All is done.  Nowhere to go.  Drive.  Drive at thirty.  Keep to thirty miles an hour.  It’s hard, isn’t it?  Especially when you want to put the boot down and tear up and down the road without looking backwards or forwards and feel the speed and the world-melting thrill of it.

       Text message.  ‘Where are you?’  You don’t want to know.  You drive on.  You drive further away.  You arrive at a car park on the outskirts of the city.  ‘Park and Ride’ says the sign.  You park.  You see a van selling teas, coffees, hot snacks.  A fat woman with hair scraped back from her face does not look at you as she points and says ‘Milk and sugar there.’  You are sweet enough.  You just add a tiny drop of milk and stir and stir as you stare at the girl who hates her job.

       Back in the car.  The phone rings.  You pull out the cup holder and set the scalding tea inside it.  You look at caller display.  You press receive.

       ‘Pat?  Pat, we need to start treatment as soon as possible.  I’m so sorry.’

       You open the car window and pour away the tea you did not want.  Then you open the car door and you step out.  And with the longest throw you can muster you throw away the cup.

________________________________________________________

A few words from Sheila:

“I lost my only sister Bridgheen to cancer in 2003.  She was an inspirational woman, dedicated to life and love.  In the months prior to her death, she married, went to Paris, came back, went to Lake Como, came back, bought a house, adopted a dog.  She loved life and led her beloved family and friends from the front to meet it head-on.  That is her legacy.  Life’s precious. Live it. Love it. Do with it what you love.  I am Sheila McWade from Belfast, Ireland. I’ve given up a successful acting career, and 17 years in a TV soap opera, to pursue my real passion, writing.  I’m now an MA student in Creative Writing at Queen’s University, Belfast.  I’m back at college - and I love it!” 

“In sickness and health” Photo shared by Cat Birch.

“In sickness and health”

Photo shared by Cat Birch.

Photo shared by Katie Evans, writer of ‘The Bald and the Beautiful’, also known as @LovlyKatieLumps via twitter.

Photo shared by Katie Evans, writer of ‘The Bald and the Beautiful’, also known as @LovlyKatieLumps via twitter.

Quote taken from Dr Zsolt Sámson’s doctorial thesis acknowledgements page. Diagnosed away from home. Away from family. But we had to stay. He had to finish his degree, write his thesis and graduate. I’d hear no arguments otherwise. Treatments came with a mastectomy; chemo with mid-night cold towels, change of sheets, washing of the bucket, coaxing of the food: radiation drives every morning; appointments upon appointments. Overwhelming fragility, frustration, and shock. He was my rock – without him it was too much.  I finished treatment. He finished school. And in his thesis dedication, before academics, family and the world: he thanks me for for the support? I guess true love is like a mirror, we shine it onto each other and it comes bouncing right back.  I helped him find the light … Even to this day, the idea makes me both smile and cry.

Quote taken from Dr Zsolt Sámson’s doctorial thesis acknowledgements page.


Diagnosed away from home. Away from family. But we had to stay. He had to finish his degree, write his thesis and graduate. I’d hear no arguments otherwise.

Treatments came with a mastectomy; chemo with mid-night cold towels, change of sheets, washing of the bucket, coaxing of the food: radiation drives every morning; appointments upon appointments. Overwhelming fragility, frustration, and shock. He was my rock – without him it was too much. 

I finished treatment. He finished school. And in his thesis dedication, before academics, family and the world: he thanks me for for the support? I guess true love is like a mirror, we shine it onto each other and it comes bouncing right back. 

I helped him find the light … Even to this day, the idea makes me both smile and cry.

Photo shared by Catherine Brunelle.

Photo shared by Catherine Brunelle.

Mastectomy Flirt.

Mastectomy Flirt.