My Mom
Lacey J. Earnest
It was October 2001; I was a senior in high school, and looking forward to spring break, prom, and graduating. It was an evening after school around mid October when my mom called me down to the living room for a talk. I wasn’t sure what was going on but at 17 when your mom “wants to talk” I must have done something wrong. As I came down the step mom seemed very calm, I sat on the couch and I heard the words I never expected to hear out of my mom, “honey I have breast cancer”. Hearing those five words I went totally numb, I couldn’t think of anything but the anger that was quickly building in me. This is my mom she is not suppose to get sick, she is too young and has too much going for her. I stormed out of the house, mad that this was happening to my mom.
The next few days were filled with lots tears, and with the help of my very good friend Diane those tears were accepted and I was comforted with open arms. I didn’t want to face this, in my mind it wasn’t happening, but I had to face it and deal with it so I could be strong for my mom. I decided in the few days following the announcement that if my mom had to have chemo and lost her hair I was shaving my head. I didn’t care about senior prom, graduation, or any other special event that I was going to do whatever I could to support my mom.
A few weeks later after the shock wore off, I was able to sit and talk with my mom, and she was completely open to whatever questions I had. She answered those questions to the best of her ability and the ones she didn’t know she was very good about getting me the answers. The first big hurdle was I felt I needed to be home more to help with the house and just be there in case she needed me. I was able to leave school everyday around 10AM because I had all the classes I needed to graduate and there was a special program that I was accepted for that dealt with situations like this.
The next big hurdle was mom’s first surgery, I don’t like hospitals to begin with, and I really didn’t like seeing my mom in one. My friend Diane made sure to be there with me, she never left my side. While we waited in the waiting room she would tell me jokes, we would laugh about good memories, and she was just a strong support for me. When the doctor came out and told us the news that everything was fine, and he was pretty sure he got it all I felt a huge relief, I almost felt like collapsing because this was the best case scenario. Seeing my mom in a hospital bed still groggy from the medicine was scary but the fear went away when I saw that the doctor drew a little Mickey Mouse on her incision site, and she was wearing clown shoes. I knew from that day on that my mom was going to be fine, she was going to fight this, and it would change our lives forever and for the better.
Going through the cancer with my mom made me stronger, because I saw how it made her stronger. She was given the freedom to write a book, and make her own decisions in her healthcare. She never had to go through chemo luckily; she researched and chose an alternate treatment plan. It has been almost ten years I have seen all the positive things that came out of her cancer, she had met some amazing people, she has been involved with organizations that touch so many, and most importantly she has showed me how important family is. I have always been proud of my mom, but now I am more proud than I have ever been. I have been told that I light up and glow when I talk about her. I see a lot of my mom in me, and I hope that I always have the strength that she showed going through this experience, and it is something I carry with me forever.
I LOVE YOU TAMMY MILLER and I AM SO PROUD OF YOU!!!!!!
Lacey lives in Port Matilda, PA with her big fat cat, Tyke. She works full time at Penn State University, where she is also a recent graduate. In her spare time she enjoys bowling, pet sitting and hanging out with friends and family.
The “Pinky Swear”
Mary Rogers
I do not think anyone is completely prepared for how they will react when their friend tells them they were just diagnosed with cancer. That happened to me on a day in September, 2001 when my good friend Tammy (author of this book) came back from an appointment and told me she had cancer. I was scared and wasn’t sure if I knew how to support or help someone diagnosed with this disease.
Before I had much time to think about it, Tammy made me “pinky swear” that I would promise not to let her get depressed about it and would always stay positive. If you’re not familiar with the age old tradition of “pinky swear”, it comes from childhood game of locking pinky fingers and making a promise to each other about something really important. In childhood though, it was more along the lines of we wouldn’t tell our parents that we kissed a boy behind a tree in second grade. But, this one was a whole lot more important than that and I wasn’t sure if I was ready. I swore I would, but deep down I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to keep my promise.
When dealing with Tammy it wasn’t hard to keep my promise as she was more positive than anyone around her. It was easy for me to stay positive when wearing a clown nose and being in a kazoo band, or helping to organize a nipple send-off party. When around Tammy, everyone’s spirits were always high. I was amazed, because here’s Tammy the one going through all this and she was the real laughter leader. There were times that I was worried because I thought she was hiding her true feelings and eventually would crash…and crash hard.
I only saw a small glimmer of that once, Tammy called and said she was feeling a little down. It was after one of her surgeries and she was to stay in bed and rest, the weather was a little gloomy. Anyone who knows Tammy knows that she is always on the go and loves the sunshine. So bed-ridden and gloomy are not in her vocabulary. I showed up at her house with a ray of sunshine. It was a paper mache sun which was actually a piñata. I figured she could pretend the sun was out or take out her frustrations and beat it with a stick. That day was the first time I saw concern in Tammy’s face. The topic that was bothering her was what she could eat. She was always a healthy eater and felt she took good care of her body and couldn’t understand why something like this would happen to her. Since her cancer was estrogen receptor positive, and some foods create estrogen naturally, she was reading that she should stay away from certain foods that she considered healthy and was afraid to put anything in her mouth. In retrospect, we both think it had more to do with the hormonal changes in her body from her surgeries, as she broke down in tears, but at the time she was upset about what she should be doing. And, I wasn’t sure what I should be doing either! This was the first time that I really questioned whether I was doing enough to support her. I guess because there weren’t any clown noses, kazoos or boas. It was just me and a friend talking about feelings…real feelings. I was there with an ear and a shoulder to cry on and we made it through with smiles on our faces. But, it was after that day that I really questioned whether I was doing enough.
Fortunately, this incident was one of the very few times I witnessed Tammy without a smile on her face or doing some crazy antic, and I have since found out that there were a few grey times for Tammy during this journey but she never let them get her down. She made my pinky swear promise so easy to keep because she never let the grey times get the best of her. It wasn’t me keeping her up and positive it was her keeping me up. I just had to be a good friend. There to listen, there to cry with, there to laugh with and someone always willing to go along with her crazy ideas.
Tammy asked me what I would tell someone who just had a good friend diagnosed with cancer, or any type of serious illness. It is vitally important to just “be there” for someone, and sometimes that is to stand back for a little bit to see how a person is going to respond and what THEY need. Everyone deals with these situations differently, and by making yourself available to help with the smallest of tasks to the biggest, just being there to let them know you are there.
Tammy has a tendency to try and deal with all situations with humor. I know this isn’t always the way people approach it, but I have found through reading the stories she has collected here, and the interviews she has done with people that
