"You have breast cancer." The dreaded words fell on my ears, and paralysis of my mind and body immediately set in. I could not hear anything after that. The doctor began to explain my options and what the next steps would be, but I remained frozen.

"You have breast cancer," continued ringing in my ears as my friend Marge helped me collect all the brochures and information the doctor was giving me to help me make a decision about a treatment plan. Everything felt unreal to me. This just could not be happening to me.

This cancer: the word, the disease, was like someone pointing a gun at me and threatening to pull the trigger. I was afraid that I was dying and that I had no control over the ravages of the disease, just like I had no control over the person with the gun pointed at me.

But this was happening to me. The year before, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and had undergone treatment just the way she does everything in life: with complete surrender, trust, and humor. She told all seven of us children that she wasn’t ready to go and we could just stop worrying. It hardly seemed possible that only one year later I was facing the same challenge. And, unlike my mother, I was filled with fear and dread. I was not convinced that I was going to live.

I spent most of that dark day crying. I cried for my fears: fear of the unknown, fear of pain, fear of dying, fear of loss of control, fear of disfigurement, fear, fear, fear, and more fear. I cried, too, for the anticipated loss of my breast, what I thought was a betrayal by my body, the confirmation that I was old and unworthy, all worn out and with no where to go in my life. Was this the end for me? Is this all that I had come to? I was more scared for myself than I had ever been in my life.

That same evening, my dear friend Jahn said something to me that was a catalyst to begin looking beyond my fears. She talked about possibilities that might come from my experience of cancer, that this might be an opportunity for me to be healthy. I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. How could I be healthy when I had cancer? What did I have to look forward to? How much control and input did I have on the outcome of this chapter in my life? Did I have any control? She was suggesting that cancer was here in my life as an opportunity to live as opposed to a sentence to die.

As I look back on that day and the ones that followed, I know I did not fully understand and appreciate my friend’s suggestion until months later. But she planted the thought, and I never forgot it as I began my cancer treatment process. Her words gave me some hope. And little did I know that my cancer treatment was the beginning of a journey that was a life treatment process!

To overcome my paralysis and avoid thinking too much about having cancer, I began doing what is standard operating procedure for me when facing a crisis: I got busy doing things. In this case I started researching for information to become knowledgeable about breast cancer. Oh, sure, I knew a good deal about it from my mother’s experience the year before. But this was my breast cancer, and I wanted to know more.

I talked at length with my mother about her experience. Unlike my cancer, hers was a fast-growing cancer that was detected early through her annual mammogram. Mine had already spread from the duct into the surrounding area. My mother elected to have a lumpectomy followed by radiation treatment. I knew that she had experienced a great deal of fatigue and some burns during radiation. When I asked her about the lumpectomy, she told me that if she had to do it again she would select a mastectomy. She felt disfigured with the lumpectomy.

Other friends, survivors of breast cancer, shared their experiences with me while at the same time I was reading as much as I could process about the disease, treatments, and outcomes. A friend recommended Dr. Susan Love’s The Breast Book, a virtual encyclopedia of information on the breast and all of its phases and functions. Two of my dearest friends whisked me off to Ocean City, Maryland where I would rest and read to make up my mind about what I wanted to do: lumpectomy or mastectomy, radiation or no. Chemotherapy could be decided later. I had less than a week to decide because the doctor suggested that there was no time to waste.

At the same time I was looking at my choices to determine the best options, I shared with others the challenge I was facing. I have never been very good at hiding my feelings from other people, but that was not the reason I decided to disclose my breast cancer to the people I was closest to. I shared because I knew I needed all the support I could get. I don’t mean day to day functional support. This was a matter of life and death. I needed emotional and spiritual support.

Spiritual support was paramount. Up until this time I had been taking my life for granted, believing I could continue indefinitely my unhealthy life style of smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, hardly sleeping, working 80 hours a week, and pretending that I didn’t need anyone. I loved my work and being needed—teaching, community organizing, political campaigns, volunteer director of an HIV/AIDS organization, and the source of support for my family.

I had spent the better part of my life being a savior of the world so-to-speak. I gave little attention to myself and my lifestyle. There was little time for me. I was so busy serving others, doing, doing, doing, that I wouldn’t have a clue about what I needed, if I had ever thought about it -- which I didn’t. This was where I was when I was diagnosed with cancer.

As I shared my challenge with breast cancer, I experienced something I had never taken in. I felt the depth of my family and friends’ caring. My boss, a doctor and CEO of an HIV/AIDS agency, cried when I told him. My mother, brothers and sisters, and many of my friends, wept. They, too, were afraid that I would die. I could see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices. And they offered to assist and support me in countless ways. But most important to me, everyone prayed for me.

For the first time in my life, I felt love and support from everywhere and everyone. The day I went to the hospital to undergo my mastectomy, I floated on prayers and good wishes for my survival. It was one of the most amazing feelings of my life: love and total support surrounded me. It had always been there for me. It’s just that up until that time I had never sensed the depth of people’s love and caring for me the way I did at that moment.

As I went to the hospital a week after hearing the cancer diagnosis, I was getting a glimmer of the "opportunity" Jahn had revealed that evening. This life-threatening challenge was not just about physical healing. This was an opportunity to grow emotionally and spiritually in ways I never imagined. It was a hint of what was to come for me in my personal transformation: I knew for the first time in my life that I wanted to live.

I mourned the loss of my breast. It was very similar to losing my uterus to a hysterectomy in my 40s. Yet there were also some distinct differences. The loss of my uterus was not visible and I no longer needed it for childbearing. It had outlived its function. Once I got used to the idea of losing it, I liked the idea of no longer experiencing difficult and profuse menstrual periods. I loved the idea, too, that I could no longer get pregnant. As I was moving through various affairs with men, it was something I did not have to worry about.

Losing my breast was very different. I loved my breasts and imagined that I would feel bereft, like half a woman. Yes, I was sacrificing my breast in order to save my life, but my breasts symbolized my femininity, they were a sexual turn-on, the outward manifestation of my womanhood. I was not only losing a breast, but I would be scarred, disfigured. I couldn’t hide the loss of my breast like I could hide the loss of my uterus.

Once I chose to have a mastectomy, I waited anxiously to hear what the doctor found during my surgery, and then even longer to find out the lab results on my lymph nodes.

Regardless of those lab results, I was told that I must stop hormone replacement therapy. Aargh! I had so loved HRT. I no longer suffered from the feeling I was on fire, even in the middle of winter, and sweating to the point that even the calves of my legs were dripping moisture! With HRT I had stopped waking in the middle of the night with night sweats that forced me to change my nightgown and sheets, and caused me to be constantly irritable and fatigued during my waking hours. Oh, how I hated giving up HRT.

My doctor said the lab results revealed my cancer was positive to estrogen. Rather than chemotherapy, the doctor placed me on Tamoxifen instead. Not only did I have to give up HRT, but Tamoxifen assured that I’d get my hot flashes back because its job is to get rid of estrogen in the body.

Thus began my regression into the world of hot flashes, life filled with the inexplicable moments of turning red for no apparent reason. Beware of combustible woman! Those were not fun days, but when I was most irritable about the hot flashes, I got to remember to be thankful I was alive. I was recovering from the surgery. Now I was on my way! But to what?

During the months following my surgery, I experienced fear and anxiety, bordering on panic, whenever I felt a pain in any part of my body. I was sure the cancer had spread somewhere else. This is not a simple matter when you consider all the aches and pains of osteoarthritis, bad knees, weak ankles, headaches, indigestion, and gassy stomachs. All these perfectly normal ailments for the over-fifty set suddenly became possible new cancers.

After my scar healed, I was fitted for my first prosthesis and bras made for that purpose. I missed my cleavage terribly and had to make some adjustments in my wardrobe. The funniest thing that happened to me was when my prosthesis fell out of my bra when I bent over. I was trying out one of those wonderful push-up bras under a sweater. It looked good, a bit less matronly and much perkier. But alas, push-up bras aren’t made to contain prostheses! Losing a boob in public can be quite embarrassing.

I also finally broke down and admitted that I wanted to be in a relationship, but secretly I was worried about how I would deal with my missing breast and the very apparent scar on my chest. Not to mention that I hadn’t even been on a date in nearly ten years.

Like most women, no matter our age, I had had issues about my body and how it looked. I could never imagine how anyone would find it desirable. But now I was afraid I would truly horrify the poor man who ever dared to think of bedding me. While all these scary thoughts were racing through my mind every time I thought about the prospect of a relationship, newly found friends in Washington were urging me to date.

Nearly a year later, I met Andy, the man who became my lover and partner for five years. And wouldn’t you know it, he was a breast man!

After several dates with Andy, we were necking in the car, trying to say good night, when I became aware that he was fondling my breast. I say that I became aware because I couldn’t really feel anything. He didn’t know that I had prosthesis, so he thought he was fondling my breast. The situation was so funny to me that I burst out laughing. I imagine many men might be insulted at such a reaction, but not Andy. I explained that he was fondling a silicone prosthesis, which I’m sure feels like the real thing to the uninitiated. I assured him it did not turn me on.

When we finally made the date to make love for the first time, I was more than nervous. I wanted this man to enjoy me and me him. The funny thing is that my attempts to cover my scar lasted for about two minutes. In complete abandon, I let it all hang out. Later, Andy wanted to know what the big deal was. He said the scar wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I made it out to be. But best of all, he said that my breast was so beautiful, the loveliest he had ever seen, and that one breast was better than most of the pairs of breasts he had seen! Andy confirmed for me that I was sexy and desirable, even with one breast. (Even if Andy was exaggerating a bit.)

It was pretty amazing to me all this stuff I was discovering about myself in the process of being in an intimate relationship. I was over 50 years old but feeling like I was 20 and in love.

There was a time, not too long after my mastectomy, that I thought I should get the other one amputated to prevent cancer from coming again. My doctor talked me out of that. And now I know that I would never want to give up this one remaining breast. I’m very attached to it! It gives me great pleasure.

Nothing changed and everything changed when I lost my left breast to cancer. I am still a woman filled with lust and desire, enjoying my body more than ever. I am filled with joy. I am whole. Nothing is missing. I am complete.

I got to treat my life in the process of treating my cancer. I happily traded a breast for an entire life. It was the best trade I ever made.