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 August 2008 Post Book Essays Mothers and Daughters - August 15, 2008 Mothers and Daughters - August 15, 2008 I remember when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, ten years after my mother. I called her to tell her the news and she did something she rarely did: she swore. "Shit!" was her first response, then tears. She felt responsible. I tried to reassure her that I was sure that I was a sporadic case, just one of the many unlucky ones who are simply American and women and therefore at risk, without any genetic propensities for the disease. After all, she had been diagnosed in an unlikely circumstance at age 64, long after menopause. She had gone into Hopkins for a cardiac diagnostic procedure. One of the medical students who had done a history and physical on her had palpated her breasts and, with the care of someone new to the game, had found a one-centimeter tumor. Mama had a mastectomy (her preference) and had required no further treatment, end of story. When I found my lump at 42, my daughter Hollin had just turned 10. She is now 24. She has learned to live with the uncertainty of my life and with my chronic illness for nearly 60% of her life. We've forged a close relationship that has had the looming presence of breast cancer and its effects at its heart. We've come through some very difficult fractures in our relationship, the fault lines of which I can't help but think sat squarely on top of my illness. As I watch her leave her girlhood in the fading, hazy horizon of her long-gone adolescence, I feel a little fearful for her as she fully embraces womanhood, knowing my own history.
I wrote a piece that included the tattoo story ("Gestures of Love") and shared a photo of the tattoo. I received warm response from readers, several saying that they considered getting a tattoo like Hollin's. Then, one day, a wonderful surprise arrived in my email. Joan and Helen Eigenberg are a mother and daughter who have been through this journey, too. Joan has had the painful task of watching her daughter go through breast cancer. Their own story is a testimony to love that transcends physical distance and encourages and draws people closer through suffering and adversity. A university professor, Helen was only 39 when she was diagnosed with stage IIIB breast cancer. She had already gone through some of the testing a woman still has to endure in the male-dominated world of academia, including gender-based discrimination. Her breast cancer was in three sites: the breast, several lymph nodes, and the skin. Because of the skin involvement (the skin being rich in lymph circulation), she underwent a radical mastectomy. She had reconstruction that, unfortunately, resulted in a serious infection. Her medical troubles were compounded by a delay in diagnosis leading back to the implant as the source. She had moved to Chattanooga to take a position at the university here and was undergoing chemo and radiation, while adjusting to a new city and a new job. Tough cookie! Eventually, she underwent emergency surgery to remove the implant and had to fight off a life-threatening staph infection. Add a new diagnosis of diabetes to this challenging mix and you can appreciate all the hell that this mother and daughter went through together. Helen regained her strength and has been relatively healthy since. Her mom, Joan, said, "Through all this ordeal, Helen and I have been very, very close emotionally, although not always physically." Joan lives in Nebraska, two thirds of the way across the country, while Helen remains at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga. Joan visits several times a year and they talk on the phone at least once a day. Email has provided another way to stay connected, and each year in June since Helen's surgery, they go to Kure Beach, south of Wilmington, NC to celebrate Helen's life. This time together includes both Helen and Joan's birthdays, which are only two days apart. For the past two years, they have added a December trip to Riviera Maya, Mexico. They also walk in the Komen race together each year.
Joan reflects, saying, "I tell people that the experience with cancer has been 99% bad, but the 1% that is good is that you learn to appreciate life, to appreciate others and to say, 'I love you' more often. I credit Helen's survival to 1) good medical care, 2) her determination to live, and 3) prayer and God (although not particularly in order of importance)." I look at my own daughter and at her little daughters (ages five and one) and I pray that I don't ever have to watch them go through breast cancer. I think of all that Joan and Helen have been through and I am filled with admiration and also some righteous indignation that this damned disease still causes so much suffering. The bond between mothers and daughters is so tight that their pain is our pain and our pain is their pain. Helen just celebrated her 50th birthday. Joan says, "We did not think she would have a 50th birthday for many years. Each year, each day, each hour is truly a blessing." An old Irish saying goes, "A son is a son till he takes him a wife, a daughter is a daughter all of her life." And may it be a long, long life.
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Last
fall, just before the Komen Race for the Cure in our hometown,
my daughter got a tattoo that she had designed. It represented
the multiple layers of our history. First of all, she had it
placed over a tattoo she had done defiantly as a young adolescent,
thumbing her nose openly at me. This new tattoo was meant to
help erase that painful time. Secondly, she designed the tattoo
herself, inspired by a number of images she found on-line, but
that didn't quite tell the story. Finally, the image was beautiful,
a butterfly whose body was a pink ribbon. When she showed it
to me, she told me through our tears that it showed that neither
of us was a caterpillar any more. I felt that it was a powerful
recognition of her own beauty and how she had changed her life
and a symbol of her acceptance of my own choices and of the things
over which I have had no choice.
This
year marked Helen's ten-year anniversary since her cancer diagnosis.
Joan came to Chattanooga and they decided that this landmark
year deserved something extra special. Aha! The tattoo! Together,
they went to a tattoo artist in Chattanooga and each of them
got Hollin's tattoo. Joan's is on her upper right arm and Helen's
is on her upper left chest. Joan admits with some pleasure and
sheepishness that she may be one of the oldest clients that the
tattoo artist has had. "We did them to celebrate Helen's
ten years of survivorship," says Mom. What a cool pair these
two are!