Grateful

While sitting in church one Sabbath, with my arms folded across my chest, I inadvertently brushed my thumb against my breast. I could feel a small lump where I had felt some tenderness for about a week but had not taken the time to investigate.

I now felt very curious about why my breast hurt.

I left the sanctuary and slipped into a stall in the women’s room.

I put my hand in my bra and felt my breast.

Yep! There was a lump in my left breast.

That discovery sent me off to get a mammogram.

When the technologist put my breast between the breast compression paddles and squeezed, blood squirted from the nipple onto the paddle.

I was horrified! “Oh, Jesus!” I groaned.

Next, I was in front of a surgeon who said, “It does not look like cancer, nor does it feel like cancer, but let us get a biopsy.” The bad news was that it was ductile carcinoma and required a mastectomy. The good news was that it was contained in the milk ducts. Back at church the next Sabbath, I threw my arms around a friend and cried, “I have breast cancer.” The surgery seemed simple enough. I got up as soon as possible and zoomed around the surgical ward, pushing the intravenous pole about, and I felt great.

The bandages camouflaged my loss.

However, when the doctor arrived, the moment of reckoning was upon me. He removed the bandage. Despair! It was gone! How would I live without my breast? It had served my femininity so well. I had nursed four beautiful babies. I cried, “Christ, please strengthen me!” I wore a breast prosthesis for thirteen years because I just did not want to face another surgery. Yet I never felt completely comfortable with only one breast.

I was in church exchanging notes with a friend who was experiencing challenges with her breast cancer situation. I explained my decision to wear a prosthesis was not so bad. I closed my left eye to demonstrate how my chest looked with one breast.

She responded, “Well, I do not want to look like that.” As I turned from the exchange, the comment caused me to ponder. Hmm, I do not want to look like that either. I chuckled and immediately moved forward to get a reconstructed breast and, years later, a tattooed nipple with a right-side lift. Jesus is good, my friends, and He gives His girls the strength to endure all of life’s challenges. Gratitude fills my heart.

Joan (Jo) Yelorda