Bitter Sweet40Turning

by Christine Boisvert

No one in my family had ever been diagnosed with cancer. Imagine my horror to find out that I would be the first, and breast cancer at that!

Thirteen years ago my life was changed forever.

When I arrived at the clinic for the mammogram, I was asked to take everything off the top and put on a robe.

After the mammogram, (which had horrible outcomes) the clinician asked me to stay in the robe just to be sure that she had clean and clear images.

My heart was racing as I waited, and I noticed that all the ladies there with me had light mauve colored robes. So then, why am I given a pink robe to wear? One by one ladies were leaving after their “squish” experience. But I did not leave, no, I was staying. Soon after woman’s voice softly called my name and motioned to me. I went with her and once seated in the little room she took me to she said she needed to try the test again. Now I was scared. I wanted to run out of the waiting area but was told with a much sterner voice this time, to “stay put.”

A young gal came out and motioned to me again, as a few more ladies came and left. On this adventure, we went to a completely different testing room. “We are going to do an ultrasound just so you don’t have to make another trip here.” I was watching the same visual they could see as the nurse was looking at the screen, I saw a dark shadow. I started to slowly come to the realization that the “pink robe” and having to stay for the second mammogram, and now the ultrasound meant that this was serious. I went home shaking in my boots. The next day the doctor called me. He asked me to come into the office and that I needed to bring my husband with me. I told him I already knew, this would be a team appointment.

My doctor said that he needed to speak to both of us when he delivered the news and that he would not tell me any more over the phone. I found out later that he had already made an appointment with a surgeon; it was that fast! What followed was the loss of one breast, chemotherapy, and radiation. I had no immune system left, and extreme hair loss. There would be no going back to work anytime soon, and this was just the beginning.

My self-esteem, body image, and sexuality took an all-time dive in destroying my ability to look at myself, much less love myself ever again. The recovery was very painful, on so many levels. My mind was racing and my body was in excruciating pain everywhere. Six months later whenever I looked in the mirror an eerie stranger was staring back at me. Once as I looked in the mirror and saw my reflection looking back at me, it had morphed into a stranger who was playing tricks on me, it had turned into a woman I could not identify, someone I did not know.

This woman was older than me, she looked exhausted and had no beautiful dark hair, like I used to have. This stranger living in my mirror, like a scene from some horror movie, was unrecognizable to me. I had never seen her before. She had no long eyelashes, no bushy unibrow that needed to get waxed; there were dark circles and wrinkles around her tired eyes. Expressionless, with a poker face she stared back at me, almost mocking me. This tragic image might have looked like me if I was in a time machine, and 10 or 15 years older. I dropped to my knees and I wailed in memory of the poor girl I remembered who once was so proud of how she looked and was comfortable in her skin.

From that point on, my mind began playing nasty tricks on me, I knew instinctively that the next step was to deal with the mental anguish that came with it all. I started the process and paid plenty of good money to see counselors. I wondered, how could they know what I knew, reconstruction was a joke. The scars are always there to remind me 24 hours a day. It’s always right there in my face, what I have gone through, what my body has gone through. Sadness, depression, and grief had taken me over, and the wonderful, positive, playful, me that I once knew had gone missing. She was nowhere to be found. Little did I know, another tragedy would be waiting for me after all of this horror in my life.

Soon after, I lost my pregnant daughter and her partner in a freak sledding accident; this crushing blow left me feeling both helpless and hopeless. Then I met Laurie Davis and the rest is history. Thirteen years later I do have my life back and I will be forever grateful for her process called Reclaiming My Self Worth. The workshops took me to step by step in the right direction to get my life back. I am living proof with the right kind of medical care, mindset, and support we can survive just about anything that life throws at us.