The diagnosis: 'I have breast cancer'
I doubt I'll read anything today more powerful than Xeni Jardin's BoingBoing post about discovering that she has cancer:
"I have breast cancer. A week ago, I had breast cancer, and the week before that, and the week before that. Maybe five, eight, even ten years ago, the first bad cell split inside me, secretly. But I didn't know. This is how I arrived at knowing."
Jardin went for a mammogram as an act of solidarity with two friends who recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. But she's also been aware "of a funny stiffness in a spot on my own body." After the mammogram, Jardin was asked to come back in a few hours to see a doctor:
" 'The first thing you're going to learn about working with me is that I'm a straight shooter,' Dr. Funk said. Her voice was steady and reassuring.
'That's how you know you can trust me. I'm going to tell you everything, and I'm going to tell it to you like it is.'
I forget the rest of what she said, but it added up to this: the crater was cancer."
Jardin is a straight shooter, too. Her piece is a remarkable account of hearing those dreaded and scary words, and may be both helpful and comforting to other women who've just received a diagnosis, and to the people who love them.
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