Linda Barrett, National Bestselling Romance Author

May the FORCE be with you…and me…

A breast cancer diagnosis slams into you with the subtlety of a freight train. You can’t breathe. You can’t think. And you can’t believe it’s happening to you. But it is. It happened to me.

As women, we’ve been trained to get our yearly mammograms and do monthly self-examinations. If we’re conscientious, we follow those rules. As our fingers touch and examine , searching our breasts for the unusual, we pray they find nothing. In the radiology lab, we pray our mammos are clean. For one in seven, our prayers are not answered, and suddenly we are members of a sisterhood we didn’t ask to join.

I often wear this.

Although I’ve been part of that sisterhood for twelve years, I know relatively few “sisters” personally. That situation is changing. When I was first diagnosed in 2001, I was working a full-time day job which was integral to maintaining my sanity. Sticking to my familiar routines kept me rooted. When the ordeal ended, I continued to work, write, and pay attention to family and friends. In 2011, the diagnosis arrived in the midst of our moving to the Tampa area, a thousand miles from our home in Houston. The side effects of chemo knocked me on my keister, and I just wanted to get through each day. Keeping the house spic-and-span ready for potential buyers was all that I could manage–and I even needed help with that.

Now that I am once more healthy and strong, I’ve connected with a national non-profit group that coincidentally is headquartered in Tampa called FORCE which stands for Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered. This group is dedicated to improving the lives of individuals and families affected by hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.

Hereditary is the key word that makes this group different from other research foundations devoted to breast cancer. FORCE concentrates only on hereditary cancer. Have you heard of the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes? We all have them. For some ethnic groups, however, these genes have mutated and now cause big trouble–trouble such as breast and ovarian cancer. After being hit with a second tumor, I was tested for these mutations and learned that I carry the BRCA 1 gene mutation.

In two weeks, I’ll be attending a local get-together with other members of this sisterhood. I’m bringing Mike, my knight-in-shining tinfoil, with me. He’s been through it all. I hope I’m at the point where I can contribute to the strengthening of this force.

To learn more about hereditary breast and ovarian cancer: visit FORCE on Facebook or at their website: www.facingourrisk.org. .

CONTEST NEWS!! I’m thrilled to add a fabulous prize to this month’s drawing. Five authors from OnFireFiction are offering a five story romance package called: Love Me Some Cowboy. each story is a full novel from Lisa Mondello, Jean Brashear, Day Leclaire, Barbara McMahon and Ginger Chambers. I’m a proud member of OnFireFiction and am happy to provide this terrific prize in addition to a copy of Family Interrupted.

Post a comment and have your name added to this drawing. The contest runs through May 31st.

As always, thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you for the next edition of Starting Over.

Linda

I’m able to start over because cancer didn’t win. This enemy attacked not once, but twice. Yet I’m still here. So now it’s time to pick myself up and reclaim my normal activities–living, loving, writing, playing canasta and mah-jong and whatever else comes along. If I hide under the bed, I will have lost the battle despite being cancer free, and that is not acceptable.

It’s not that I’m stronger than anyone else. Really, I’m not. I’ve had wonderful support from family, friends, acquaintances and complete strangers. This breast cancer sisterhood is not isolated. It draws in brothers, sisters, husbands, co-workers, neighbors, everyone who knows you, everyone who cares about you and everyone who loves you. These are the allies. They were my allies. They shared their strength and offered help as well as hope.

In the end, however, women are the ones who sit in cotton gowns waiting for the mammogram report. It is a routine exam, but our hearts race as the technician walks over. When she smiles and says, “You’re free to go,” we know we’ve received another reprieve. Safe ’til next year.

Or not. In 2001, I found my first tumor myself six months after having had a mammogram. So my battle cry for you is: Vigilance. Self-exams. Mammograms. You’ve heard it before: early detection is the key to survival. The word’s out on television, news articles and in magazines. And yet…and yet…we too often hide.

Have you heard the joke about Cleopatra being Queen of “de-nial?” Well, too many of us qualify for that crown. Including me. I waited weeks before I could admit I was actually feeling something in my breast. Maybe it would go away tomorrow…or the next day… Maybe I’d walked into a wall and bruised myself…and the bruise swelled a bit… Yeah, yeah, the imagination is sometimes NOT a wonderful thing. (But don’t say that to writers of fiction 🙂

During my last bout with the disease – detected through a mammogram – I can across a website called No Surrender. How’s that for a catchy, uplifting name? Turns out, I not only liked the supportive tone, but I appreciated the layman’s presentation of their Breast Cancer 101 section. They covered the gamut from interpreting a diagnosis to what to expect for all possible treatments. I would recommend this website as a starting point for anyone with questions about breast cancer.

Now, I have a question for you: have you scheduled your mammogram for this year? If you have any questions for me, please comment below and enter to win a copy of Family Interrupted. Drawing at the end of the month.

Wishing you all the best of health. Hope to see you next time for another edition of Starting Over!

Linda

Tag Archives: mammograms

Starting Over ~ A Sisterhood No One Wanted to Join

Starting Over ~ Breast Cancer and Me