Monday, December 13, 2010

I am sad -- and conflicted about my grief -- about Elizabeth Edwards


The news of Elizabeth Edwards’s passing hit me unexpectedly hard. Like a gut punch hard. Which I know is a bit dramatic, considering I’ve never met the woman, though I feel as if I know her intimately.

When news broke last Monday that Edwards’s breast cancer had spread to her liver, I was saddened but not surprised. After all, this was a woman with terminal cancer who had publicly acknowledged that she was dying and promised to live with grace the last of her allotted days. But following so soon thereafter the news of her death—-just one day--later, I felt deeply aggrieved, like she was cheated out of some valuable remaining days and I the closure with which to process her demise.

It’s sad when someone dies, especially someone so unobjectionably nice and good and gracious as Edwards. A cheated-upon wife, the mother of young children, a woman who has known more loss than most, Edwards was a sympathetic figure. I felt a connection to her, a connection facilitated by the very disease that killed her. We had that in common--breast cancer. But how silly that sounds. I never had breast cancer; she died from it. And yet--she is the reason I chose to do something so radical about my risk. We forget too often that breast cancer is a deadly disease, that it comes back once it’s “cured” and often with a vengeance. We forget this because the smiling Elizabeth, the healthy Elizabeth, the optimistic Elizabeth in the photographs that accompanied her obituary were not depictions of the woman she likely was at the end--ravaged by the disease, perhaps bald, perhaps wasting. The face we see was a woman living with terminal cancer, not the woman as she died. Not that we should see that--that’s private, of course. But it adds to the public sanitation of the disease. “But she looked so good! How could this have happened?” we ask. “I didn’t realize things were so bad. She seemed the picture of health and acceptance.”

When I cried over Edwards’s death, I cried about the insidiousness of cancer, its mercilessness, its ceaseless appetite. I cried for her young kids. I cried for the days she wouldn’t live to see, the people in her life that would have to find a way to go on without her. But I also cried because, in some ways, I felt guilty. That I had a chance that she did not. That I got a get-of-jail-free card and she didn’t. That I most likely won’t have to go through what she did.

Which leads me to another point. This time last year, with the countdown to surgery reaching single digits, I was still terrified of breast cancer--terrified that they’d open me and have to sew me up again, my breast too full of tumors and black goo and all that to make any difference. This time last year, I was actively afraid of breast cancer. My risk weighed on me. If Elizabeth Edwards had died on December 7, 2009, I would have had only one thought: that’s going to be me.

And yet, as I approach the one-year anniversary of my risk reducing surgery, I realize how precipitously my fear of breast cancer has also dropped. Not only did I greatly lessen my chance of getting breast cancer, I’ve all but eliminated the fear of it, too. And that’s incredible. I can read news of Edwards’s death and not be afraid. I can be sad, but I’m not afraid.

3 comments:

  1. I can completly relate to you!
    I have at times felt I got a 'get out of jail free' card...and how is it right for me to have the chance to avoid such a fatal disease, but so many other women will never get that chance. But, I also find myself when reading about stories of young women my age who have died from breast cancer, I begin to cry...because one I feel guilty, but two...I am no longer fearful that that will be my fate, that I no longer read these stories and think that could be me one day soon...I know now chances are in my favor it wont be me...and I am so thankful for having the knowledge of the gene and being able to prevent it as much as I could.
    I just turned 25...and its amazing because unlike the last 5 yrs going to MRI's and Mammograms everyy 6 months worrying, and waiting...this year is a fresh start no more fear, anxiety, no more bloody MRI's or Mammograms! It truly is an amazing feeling! :)
    So I think it's better to be sad, but not be afraid anymore!

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  2. I am 29 years old and have been diagnosed with breast cancer, ease of treatment and a similar story, except for my first acceptance as a rejection of herbal medicine. I was not part of the Perseid movement and did not really build relationships with any of them, I just believed in their operation. I say this because it was during the use of Dr. Itua herbal medicine that I now attest that herbal medicine is real, the phytotherapy Dr. Itua heal my breast cancer which I suffered for 2 years. Dr. Itua herbal medicine is made of natural herbs, with no side effects, and easy to drink. If you have the same breast cancer or any type of human illness, including HIV / AIDS, herpes cancer,Ovarian Cancer,Pancratics cancers, bladder cancer, bladder cancer, prostate cancer, kidney cancer, lung cancer, skin cancer, skin cancer and skin cancer.testicular Cancer, , LEUKEMIA, VIRUSES, HEPATITIS, INFERTILITY WOMEN / MAN, LOT OF LOVE, LOTTERY. ITS CONTACT EMAIL / WHATSAPP: info@drituaherbalcenter.com Or drituaherbalcenter@gmail.com/ +2348149277967

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