Olga Tomaszewski

Survivor

How I made it through & How I coped with a breast cancer diagnosis.

It was February 1998, and my life was filled with hockey games, school lunches, after school birthday parties and chaperoning school outings. I just gave birth to my my 4th Son, and I am consumed with a busy life raising my boys. They range between 10 years old to a newborn. My days are filled from morning until night with all that goes with managing a home . The last thing I could have ever imagined was what was coming at the years end.

The months that followed the birth of my 4th son was filled with adjust ing to another person to care for. Some days were challenging because I was learning how to get organized between running my 8 and 10 year old to school, sports, and school projects that kept me filled with a pretty intensely busy schedule. I had 2 children in diaper’s and 2 that are filled with many activities.

I learned how to adjust to lack of sleep from all those midnight feedings. My baby had acid reflux, which meant mostly restless nights, and then early mornings that were filled with making breakfast, lunches, and driving the boys to school, which meant packing up a 2 year old and a newborn to get my 2 older ones to school. But, life was great, I was living my dream. Months passed and it’s now the end of November of 1998, I had a routine doctor appointment to my OB, and he discovered the lump.

I was 38 years old, and this is actually when my life changed. After seeing a surgeon he did a biopsy, but I was told and reassured it was most likely nothing to get to worried about. Since I had a clean mammogram when I was 35, also I was pretty young and breast cancer does not run in my family history. So my days didn’t change much after the biopsy and the day’s waiting for the results did concern me, but I still continued to fill my mornings until night with my usual routine. Trying to not think to much about it, because I believed the lump had to do with not breastfeeding or my hormones from my recent pregnancy, but, I was wrong!

It was December 21, and my plans for this day was chaperoning a school outing to the Disney movie “The Prince of Egypt “, not knowing that the song “When You Believe” by Mariah Carey, and Whitney Houston would be a song that would stay with me for days, and months, and years to follow, and remind me of the day my world stopped.

I received the call in the afternoon when I returned from the movies. The older boys were still in school and the little ones were at my moms, because she babysat while I went to the outing.
I can still feel my reaction when the doctors phone call Said “ it is cancer”, and will need a mastectomy, and start chemotherapy. In the next moments I lost control of myself and collapsed, fell crying to the floor. How could this be happening to me when I have so much responsibility and couldn’t imagine working around a illness and how to survive when I was already at what I thought was as stretched out as could be. All I could think of was how much I had wanted to be a mom more than anything, and how I would I ever cope with the possibility of not being here for them. I fell into a shocked state of mind, and felt myself filled with a fear I’ve never before felt. So strange when I think back of what I was fearing at that very moment, and how will I be able to tell anyone, I guess that would make it a reality. So I called My aunt who was the closest person to me and was the one I called, for she was my best friend and the person I trusted most in my life, and she came over quickly and tried to help me clear my mind and gain control, but I only felt like my life was coming to a end.

Once I shared the news with the rest of my loved ones, I found it in me to let my older boys in on it , because from here on out there was no hiding what our lives were heading for. Everything I said to them felt like I was playing a role in a movie, that I rehearsed the best that I could for this role that I’ve been cast to play. I felt for the first time as their mother that I was saying words to them, that I didn’t believe myself, as I reassured them that I would be fine and didn’t want them to worry about it. Yet, at that time I didn’t believe what I was saying to them, but I only wanted to hang on to the life we had, but, back to our “Normal “ was far off.

This was all happening just days before Christmas , and although the lights were lit on the Christmas tree and the gifts were all wrapped Christmas morning, I never felt totally present. I only functioned for the sake of them, every move I made and as I prepared our clothes we were going to wear to church on Christmas morning, I was in a constant daze, drifting off to the thoughts of the nightmare that I was now in. This was my baby’s first Christmas and all I could think about was will he actually get to know me. That was my biggest fear, what would this do to them if they lose me. I worked harder at covering my feelings from my two oldest sons for they knew how everything had suddenly changed from our life prior to this. My little ones didn’t have any idea what was happening and it was easier to be around them because I didn’t have to cover up my thoughts because they were really too young to know, even though there was nothing normal about it.

I was in the hospital by New Year’s Eve, and recovering from my double mastectomy , not how I ever imagined the start of 1999 would be. This year’s celebration just didn’t happen for us, since we weren’t all together as we usually are on new years, and all I wanted was them to have the memories that I had as a child, where there was laughter, and celebrations, holiday food and security that the new year will be a good one. But, in those moments, I couldn’t see past the present situation I was in and that was undergoing a double mastectomy the following day. As I am writing right now, I’m just aware that none of my feelings had to do with the loss of my breasts, I try to think back and wonder why my thoughts have never been about that loss, rather it only about the loss of what my family was missing, and that was our life before cancer.
I don’t really remember how long I was waiting to hear the results from the pathologist, but I didn’t expect the oncologist that entered my room that day to give me such grim results, I actually could hear his voice fade once he began to tell me that it didn’t look like it was a good diagnosis. The cancer was in 20 of my lymph nodes, which made it very hard to be hopeful at that time. I was told the next 6 months my life would be filled with doctors appointments, chemotherapy, radiation every day, which made it very challenging to keep life as normal as possible, for them, myself and everyone around me.

There was a point after the surgery and my prognosis, which was the lowest point of my life, I felt confused, hopeless and afraid in my waking hours. I remember how hard it was getting through the day and how numb I began to feel, and not present to whatever else I was facing in the day. I even learned to block my hearing when a doctor would speak to me, because I was so afraid to hear anything more. My husband became my ears and he would explain it to me once we were home. I began selective hearing , no longer hearing anyone’s full sentence when they spoke to me, I would end up drifting off into a stare , a place that I would try to block off my reality.

It wasn’t until I walk into that oncologist office that day, and I believe it to this day , that this doctor that I was meeting for the first time, was the one and only who brought me back to life.
When I walked into his office I was with my husband and my parents at my side, I was numb with fear, and as he answered the many questions my husband and parents asked, I stayed silent and barely heard anything until He looked directly at me, and asked me this question, I knew in that moment, that I now had to speak because he directed it to me, and that was “ What do you want?” A simple question, but it was so unexpected and completely different than anything any other doctor had asked. I found the words in myself to answer his one question, by reaching deep into my heart to get my answer, which was, “to see my kids graduate.” That was all I wanted! It felt like I was making a wish, and after that visit I felt like I was filled with some hope, and the possibility to get through it all.

I began to fight back the negative feelings, by trying positive thinking, and every time a fearful thought came to my mind I would replace it with a positive one, and usually the positive one felt like I was playing make believe, going against what was actually happening, which was the nightmare I was living. When the chemo started I remember feeling some sadness when my hair began falling out, but I found a powerful inner strength in shaving my head, I thought that I would rather watch it grow back later, rather than giving into how sad it was to watch it fall out. I even found myself believing that if my hair falls out I knew the chemo was actually working , because chemo was strong enough to kill this cancer.

I began to practice meditation after my chemo days, I would use visualizations to get rid of the cancer and I would hold in my minds eye, and imagine a packman game, the chemo was the packman eating up the dots, the cancer. I felt more in powered and became stronger than I ever felt in my life. But that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t constantly battling the negative thoughts that so easily would enter my head.

I picked my chemo day to be on Fridays, every 2 weeks, and I allowed myself to rest in bed on each Friday of chemo, but no matter how I felt, Monday morning I made myself get up and get going , and drive the kids to school and continue moving toward a normal day. The thoughts that I worried about we’re always the same , and always there, wondering how much time will I have with my kids. I did eventually gain control over my emotions and chose to be hopeful and not let the negative thinking take over. I look back now and realize clearly that the battle when fighting cancer is the fight for the negative and fearful thoughts that come when you are trying to regain a normal life without cancer. I believed that positive thinking had to win, ever time a negative thought entered my mind, no matter what, I thought up a positive one to counter act the negative one. Positive had to win!

Anxiety was always with me, and mostly because I had thoughts about how much life will I see. I knew all the special moments ahead that children bring parents when raising a family, and my thoughts were always on the amount of time we would share and how many things that I will be able to instill or have a influence on my children. But I somehow found a inner strength within myself that helped me endure my life and the challenges that I faced. I tried to focus only the each present moment, rather than the future ones. The months ahead were filled with doctor’s appointments, radiologists, oncologists, surgeons, for reconstruction, and my oncologist recommended a therapist as part of my treatment . With the help of so many we were able to keep all the schedules on track, and a new routine continued. As the time passed, and my treatments were over, I continued to take a drug called tamoxifen , another form of prevention for the next 5 years to prevent cancer recurrence. I still had my regular visits and blood work for many, many years after.

As I moved forward with my passing days, I wondered when will I feel free from the word cancer. But it took so long for me to become more than that one word , cancer! It was such a process of learning who I was before breast cancer, and finding my way through who I was becoming, because of the cancer. I felt a surge of inspiration and I wanted to experience all that I could. I enjoyed my children and all their special moments, I appreciated everything and everyday away from doctor appointments and surgeries. I appreciated all that I could experience large or small , and I thanked God for my answered prayers. Most of my surgeries for the next 10 years had to do with reconstructive surgery due to the loss of tissue because of the radiation on the one breast, the implants were replaced 4 times within the first 7 years. Because I had radiation, the loss of tissue would never allow my tissue to expand and survive with the implant, and for that reason I eventually had to have a surgery which involved taking the muscle from my back and graft it into my breast so that tissue would survive holding the implant.

But time did pass and as the days , weeks, months, and years went by I found myself putting cancer somewhat behind me, never disappearing completely, I always feel it lurking, but I found myself less likely to worry that a normal toothache, or a neck pain was cancer. I learned how to live past the terrifying memories of that early diagnosis and the doubtful fears that I would miss raising my children to the realization that life is so unpredictable and at times unmanageable, not always able to have control in the direction we want to go. Sometimes there are detours along the the way, and for whatever reasons they are, when we don’t choose the sudden stops and crashes, we get behind that wheel and continue driving towards the direction of our life.

My boys are all grow up now, my oldest the 10 year old at the time of my diagnosis Mitchel is 35 years old he’s married with 3 children of his own. Aaron was 8, he’s turning 33 he is married and enjoys life, Luke was 2, and he is turning 28 he’s married and life is great, and Evan, my baby who was 8 months old at the time turned 25, he just moved out of the house and into his own house. They all live within a half hour from me, and we enjoy our large wonderful family. I was fortunate enough to watch them grow up, see them graduate, dance at their weddings, hold and cherish my grandchildren, and love my daughter in-laws. Although my boys somewhat know the trauma we went through 25 years ago, they tell me today how we sheltered them from it, and how they had a wonderful childhood growing up. My husband and I are now empty nesters and finding a new chapter in our lives. My memories are filled with so much love and happiness, I am humbled and I never take anything for granted, the bad memories of the past are now just imprints of my footsteps throughout my life that I may not always think about often, but every year as the holidays seem to come even faster, i always remember, and find happiness in making each Christmas, and I look forward to making it the very best one ever!

Believe in hope and never lose it!