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Sisters’ Journey Celebrates – Rebecca Grant Jenkins
Read her inspiring story (thanks www.sistersjourney.org)
Thank God for Our Global Village….
We often don’t know how big our village is until there is a disaster. In 2013, disaster hit our house with a multipronged attack. On December 23, I found out I had breast cancer. That news was preceded by the death of my mother-in-law, an aunt, my grandmother, and two uncles.
My husband also had been in the hospital for three weeks when I got the news. I had been laid off from an organization I had been with for more than 10 years due to downsizing. A friend once said, “We all have our turns when it comes to hard times.” This was ours. Through this time of incredible suffering for our family, our village was there – with food, friendship, and most importantly, faith. I first felt the lump when I laid down on the bed, exhausted, after visiting my husband Juan in the hospital. I reached over to turn the light off and there it was. As someone who has had multiple family members die of cancer, and a grandmother who had been a 40+ year breast cancer survivor, I had usually been on top of monthly self-exams, mammograms, and routine check-ups. But in the midst of all the crazy and making sure others were tended to (you know how WE do!), I had not kept up with them.
The next morning, I made an appointment to see my OB/GYN. You know it’s bad when your doctor gets quiet and calls to make an appointment at the imaging center and schedules an appointment for a biopsy right after. I got the results on December 23. My kids, then ages 15, 13, and 10 were waiting for me in the car. After crying in my doctor’s office for a minute, I wiped away the tears and called my mother. Then I put my game face on and walked out to my car. My kids were none the wiser.
I love Christmas and was NOT going to ruin my favorite holiday with my biopsy results. My husband was still hospitalized, and we weren’t sure if he would be home for Christmas. I wasn’t going to add to the stress with my diagnosis and ruin the holiday season for their lifetimes. I also wanted to wait until I had the MRI done to have more information to share because I was certain they were going to have questions. I waited until January 3 to tell my family.
When my surgeon confirmed my breast cancer diagnosis, he told me I was not going to die from it. My faith and my recently deceased grandmother, a breast cancer survivor who had lived to be 97, made me believe his words. But I saw fear on the faces of my family. My husband, who by this time had made it home from the hospital, was still terribly ill. He was fearful that yet another one of his loved ones was going to die of cancer. My children were fearful they were going to lose both parents at the same time. I told them all to have faith in God’s plans. His plan for me at that moment was to survive, to fight.
I believe our children watch how we as parents handle setbacks and obstacles in our lives. It informs how they will respond to such situations later in their own lives. I said we all have jobs to do. My job for the foreseeable future – beat breast cancer, My husband’s job – get well. The kids’ job – keep going. The best way they could help was to go to school, do their best, and help out at home. And most important, our job was to have faith. In the meantime, I told my friends Susan, Angela, Marianna and Tonya – the Mamma Mafia. They all brought their skills and life experiences. Susan had recently completed cancer treatment, Angela was a nurse, Marianna handled food coordination and flow of information and Tonya had experience with Naval logistics. The Beat Cancer Brigade had begun.
Initially, I was told I wouldn’t need chemo, which I was excited about because of the horror stories I had seen and heard about its side effects. But all that changed when it was determined that I had triple-negative breast cancer which requires intense chemotherapy. Initially, I was upset and actually argued with my doctor about it. But God told me to breathe. And listen. I scheduled an appointment for my port.
As a Type-A person, not having a sense of control was difficult. I decided to get control of what I could and leave the rest to God and the doctors. If my hair was going to fall out, then I was going to color it hot pink before it did. We held a hair-dying party at a salon owned by a neighbor. My daughters, in solidarity, got their ends dyed with me. Marianna coordinated a chemo kick-off party with ladies from the neighborhood. Later when my hair started to really fall out, I let my kids shave my head.
As chemo began, I began to realize just how big our family village is. Marianna’s Meal-Train site quickly filled up with people not only from my neighborhood, but also from our church, from our Jack-N-Jill chapter, and from our school families; old friends and new ones. People who don’t cook supported us in other ways – walking the dog daily, housecleaning during treatment, transporting food and the kids. My family and I were truly humbled by the outpouring of kindness, generosity, prayer, and love from “My Village.”
At least one member of the Mamma Mafia was with me for every appointment and treatment. Sometimes we cried together. Sometimes we sat in silence.
Sometimes we laughed. Sometimes they held me up when I was weary. Always, they were there.
On November 13, 2014, I rang the bell after my final radiation and cancer treatment. That ringing wasn’t just for me; it was for everyone in our village: my husband and children, the Mamma Mafia, and our friends and family, near and far. Together our village beat my breast cancer with kindness, generosity, hope, faith, and love.
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