Mother/Cancer Patient

I had lunch the other day with a lovely woman, E., who is also a patient in the Kristine trial. She had just finished her neoadjuvant chemo and was preparing for her double mastectomy - exactly where I was eight months ago (only eight months? it feels like eight years!). We talked about everything, from the supplements I took to what tissue expanders feel like to hormone therapy. What I think was weighing on her most, however, was not knowing how her surgery and recovery would affect her young son.

I gave her my perspective, although I know a nine-month-old is very different from a three-year-old. I have felt grateful from the start that Ike was too young to understand what was happening to me. He loves me, of course, but he adjusted easily to my absence. At nine months, a child is still less than halfway to understanding object permanence - he still thinks that when something disappears, it no longer exists. By contrast, a three-year-old has the emotional capacity to miss someone, especially his mother - but is too young for empathy, and much too young to even begin to understand the technical aspects of surgery, the sutures, drains, narcotics, etc. But regardless of her child's age, my advice to any mother is to accept as much help as possible during recovery. Between the pain, the fatigue, the drowsiness from the pain medications, and the prohibition on lifting over ten pounds, you're not in prime condition for childcare. I really believe that every day after surgery that you aren't trying to take care of others will allow you to recover a day sooner.

E. also talked about something that I have felt too, which is how different it is to be a cancer patient who is also a mother, versus just being a cancer patient. If we weren't moms, we would devote every waking minute to our treatment, every thought would be about taking care of ourselves. We would put everything else aside and concentrate solely on beating our cancers. But we are mothers, so our children come first in our thoughts and our lives, no matter how we feel. Our primary focus, rather than being on our health, is on preventing our health from impacting our children.

I don't think that's a bad thing; in fact, I think that because I have had to put Ike first, I have fared much better through treatment than I would have otherwise. I can't know for sure what I would have felt without him, but I know that with him, I simply haven't had time for depression or self-pity. Every day, Ike has been my motivation to keep going.

The only time that my focus wasn't on Ike was the five days I spent in the hospital after my surgery. During that time, I had to focus on myself in order get well enough to get out of there. I remember another mother saying sadly to me, "Five days is so long not to see your baby!" - but it truly felt like a matter of survival for me. And I have no doubt that my confidence that Ike was being well taken care of by his daddy and grandparents was directly related to the speed of my recovery.