Like many of you, I listened to President Uchtdorf’s talk during General Conference in October and thought about how it applied to my situation as a wife, mother, Seminary teacher, sister, etc. I tried to limit the amount of time I spent every day preparing my Seminary lessons so I could create a home more conducive to the Spirit (i.e., cleaner) and planned how I should spend the hours my family was away so I could have more time to spend with them in conversation when they came home. Having checked that nicely off my list, I moved on to President Eyring’s talk about sustaining church officers.
Then on November 24, the day before Thanksgiving, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. When they first tell you something like that with no tests or proof to back it up, it doesn’t seem real. I went through the Thanksgiving holiday really pondering all my many blessings and, without a clearer prognosis, wondering how many of them I would continue to enjoy for any length of time. What a perfect time to get news like that! It really focused me on what is most important. When I realized that what I would really miss would be holding my grandchildren in my arms and seeing my daughters married in the temple, I was grateful that those blessings can be mine thanks to Jesus Christ. I can hold my grandchildren’s little resurrected bodies with my own arms and am already sealed to my beautiful daughters for eternity. He’s thought of everything.
Well, enough of morbid thoughts. All the news since that day (and there’s been a lot of it) has been very good. The cancer appears to be isolated and unambitious. After two biopsies, several mammograms and sonograms, bone scans, CT scans and a MUGA scan, I started chemotherapy December 16th. I’ll go through chemo every three weeks for six cycles, which will take me into April at which time I’ll have a mastectomy and then undergo radiation therapy. The prognosis is good and although life is very tired these days (I’m on day five of my first chemo session and never knew I could feel so tired and still be alive) I will recover and get to hold those grandbabies this side of the veil after all. (Bernice—promise me you won’t let Mario plan my girls’ weddings. I’m not sure even a temple sealing could survive that!)
I was released from Seminary yesterday—a great sadness to me since I have the cutest class on the planet—but they’ll be getting a great teacher and they won’t have to worry about me falling over on my face some morning when I didn’t get enough rest the day before.
Life is good. I am so blessed to have the time to stay home and recuperate well, the family support to get me where I need to be and pick up all the pieces behind me and the insurance to pay for a great deal of this very expensive treatment. Summer is doing well. She’s a little more stressed than I would like but as cheerful as ever. Mario has been enormously supportive and even went to chemo with me last week. (Any of you who know how he handles medical stuff will realize what an enormous sacrifice this constitutes. He did have to spend some time in the hall when they stuck the needle in my mediport but he did quite well over all.) I’m not sure how much Adam understands—he’s just Adam: calm, imperturbable and even keel.
I won’t keep a boring list of symptoms or side effects; really, who wants to hear all that? I am grateful for the prayers I know many of you have offered and will continue to offer on my behalf. I truly believe prayer makes a difference and that’s why this has turned out so well in the long run.
Have a Happy Christmas and hold your loved ones a little tighter this year.
