The Brave One

The chairs in today's writing workshop all had labels on them.  We were asked to sit in the chair with the label that best represented us:  Seeker, Wild Card, Ms. Gloomy, etc.  Third to arrive, with two options claimed, I chose The Brave One.  Our last exercise for the day was to write about why we chose the chair we sat in.

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I only know how to have cancer one way.  That's because it's happening to me for the first time.

A screening mammogram in August resulted in a call-back in September and now -- seven months, three mammograms, four ultrasounds, three biopsies, two MRIs and two surgeries later -- I'm four weeks from my last surgery and ten from the start of radiation.

But it's my friends who think I'm the brave one.  I yam what I yam, as Popeye said.  This cancer business has been an inconvenience, and an occasional downer, but not -- at least for me -- a life-changing experience.

If I'm brave, it isn't breast cancer that made me that way.

As a kid, I moved halfway 'round the world with my family.  At 27, I quit my job and went back to school.  At 34, I divorced my abusive husband.  At 43, I made the biggest mistake of my professional life.

So, cancer?  Cancer's just the current canvas on which I paint the bravery I already have.