MY STORY: Kris Lyons It IS Something

Don’t worry about it. It’s probably nothing.”

Take a test. Test comes back.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s probably nothing.”

That is what the medical personnel keep saying. Take another test. Test comes back.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s probably nothing.”

Take still another test. Test comes back. Well, they are wrong, all wrong.

It IS something!

We have had no breast cancer on my mother’s side, I wasn’t really worried. Then words in the doctor’s office are thrown about, such as, “fine needle biopsy,” “get clean margins,” “ductal carcinoma in situ,” “estrogen receptor positive,” and more mention by doctors of types of “-opsies” and “-ectomies” until the overload on the brain is about to erupt like a huge volcano.

I know many women journal every moment what happened and how they felt with this life-changing news. I didn’t have a clue as to any concrete thoughts, just rolling emotions or disbelief. I was stunned and mortified and frightened. My best friend Trudi and I used to joke about who was losing body parts faster: a gall bladder here, some knee cartilage there, crack a tooth, crown a tooth...whatever.

We’d have a little contest and goad one another about losses, all in good humor. This was different. This would be an actual body part I see and is attached and now: cut sliced, diced, and gone! It wasn’t so humorous anymore. I really didn’t want to lose this particular contest, not this way. We don’t play that contest anymore.

How could this happen? I guess it had to do with the following: I had a complete hysterectomy a year earlier and was prescribed estrogen. Lots of women do that. I also remember when, as an umpire, I was hit in the chest by a pitch in girls fastpitch softball when the catcher didn’t even attempt to put her glove up to catch the ball. Of course, I was not wearing a chest protector. Umpires just didn’t at that time. I was blue and deep purple and later green and yellow in the whole breast area and beyond. Blunt trauma force was probably not good for the bod either.

Sometimes women who have been in car accidents and have hit dashboards with their chests later have breast cancer diagnoses, too. I would guess this trauma is similar. The point is, life happens.

A cyst was originally spotted on my yearly mammogram. We were going to take a biopsy to be sure what it was. The medical woman accidentally ran the guide wire into the cyst. The cyst was gone! I had to wait another six months to see if it would return. This was the first time those bit. Next she pulled her blouse away from her body and simply peaked down the front of the blouse at her breasts.

“Aw, hell. I can’t remember any more which one I lost unless I really think about it.” reassuring words were stated, “Don’t worry about it. It’s probably nothing.” The cyst did return. So whether the sun, the moon and the stars all lined up with positive receptors, blunt force trauma, genetics, no genetics, I got the bad news. It was cancer!

We did it all: a biopsy, a lumpectomy, and a mastectomy. I was diagnosed with ductal carcinoma situ that was sprayed out like a shotgun into the breast. I sobbed. It’s funny how one gets attached to body parts even if one just takes them for granted. Options were given. Decisions had to be made.

It was summer and I was golfing in a morning Proctor league with Marilyn who was in her late 70s. We were in a very open area with a public view from the clubhouse. She all of a sudden stopped and released the handle of her golf cart. She abruptly grabbed her right breast and shook it a little bit. Then she grabbed her left breast and shook that a little

I started to giggle and then belly laugh and guffaw at her incredible actions on the golf course. She did the same. Marilyn shared her story with me. She told how difficult it was in the late 1960s with chemo and radiation. She had young sons at the time, too. She said medical techniques and treatment are way better today. I would be just fine and she meant it. From that point on, I knew I would be successful in beating this beast because of Marilyn’s uninhibited actions on a golf course one day. It was her unselfishness in sharing a cancer story that got me through the acceptance of my own cancer, treating it, and moving on to face whatever the future would hold. I had come to terms with the C word. I would face it as others have before me and will after me until it’s cured. A shared story can really help survivors on their journey.

Thanks, Marilyn. Incidentally, I have lived well over a decade of a cancer-free life.