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I
always thought that nightmares had one thing going for them.
You woke up. Safe.
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With
the reassuring reality of daylight, you sigh with relief and
snuggle deeper into the blankets while your heartbeat slows
to normal. This is the way nightmares are supposed to progress:
first the nightmare, then the waking, and finally the comfortable
feeling that the really b-a-d things happen to you only in dreams.
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At
least that's the way nightmares happened with me until the day
20 years ago when I woke up in the recovery room at Duke University
Medical Center, to see my husband, George, bending over me.
I had asked him to tell me the truth as soon as I opened my
eyes. I couldn't bear having to look to see if all of me was
still there, if my "twin peaks" were still familiarly
in place. To see if I was still "whole." George said,
"I love you," and then said, "It was malignant."
I remember lying on that gurney, flinging my head back and forth
on the pillow and screaming, "No!" with all the strength
that the waning anesthesia allowed. And I remember thinking,
this is a nightmare – and I am awake!
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What
I had was breast cancer, and it changed my life. Suddenly and
completely. Irretrievably and forever. I was not safe. Not anymore.
Never again.
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As
I lay in my hospital room that day, only dimly aware of the
numbing flurry of activity around me, I watched with despair
as my lifelong sense of security just floated out the window.
Here, in addition to the cancer and the mastectomy, was the
nightmare that would never fade: no more security – ever.
At first, fear colored every aspect of my life, including my
language: with the increasing anxiety, even my sentences became
jerky and choppy.
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Friends
and family surrounded me on that Friday, bringing me hugs and
prayers and flowers, and, best of all, themselves. It was wonderfully
distracting.
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But
then Friday night came (as Friday nights always do) and everybody
went home. There I was, all by myself. As all of us ultimately
are. I lay there in the little white hospital room, in the little
white hospital bed, staring up at the little white hospital
ceiling…having just swallowed a little white hospital pill
that was not working! And my mind drifted back to my unusual
parents. My college professor father and my teacher mother never
chose the well-worn paths. Every time I had a problem, faced
a crisis, or ran into the various and sundry brick walls that
are always a part of growing up, one or the other of them would
exclaim: "Isn't that fascinating! I wonder how many ways
you can deal with this?" And off we would go, exploring
possibilities and turning problems into adventures.
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Thus,
with the terror of a life-threatening and body-altering disease,
began the fascination of how to deal with it. Of how to face
this new challenge. I started hesitantly to confront my new
self and the new view that others would have of me.
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My
doctor during this time at Duke was, without question, the most
unapproachable man I had ever met. He looked like a Russian
czar, massive and dramatic, with a lion's mane of flowing white
hair. Everywhere he went, a worshipful, white-coated entourage
trotted behind, notebooks in hand, writing down every word he
uttered. I would have sworn that even the plants in my room
stood straighter when he strode in! He was brusque, all business,
always in a hurry. My stomach-turning panic was that this man,
in charge of my health – my life – scared me to tears.
In an abnormal situation, with a desperate need for a reassuring
hand on my shaking shoulder and I was totally intimidated by
this imposing, intimidating doctor. I began thinking about what
I could do to get him to see me as an individual and not just
a number on a hospital room door, somehow sensing that such
a bond might enhance my chances of recovery.
(How fascinating — what are my options?) I got permission
to leave the hospital with George, and we went to a T-shirt
shop where I spent $7.99 having a T-shirt made for him: a dark
green one with big white letters across the front that said:
ONE OF AMERICA'S 10 BEST BREAST MEN.
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I
almost didn't give it to him. The whole thing was beginning
to feel so silly. But, after all, I had spent $7.99 and didn't
want to throw money away. You can only begin to imagine the
lump-in-the-throat nervousness with which I presented this so-silly
shirt to Duke's most not-silly surgeon. He took one look at
it, laughed, and said with quiet astonishment, "You…did
this…for me?"
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And
one more time it hit me: We are all alike in that, whatever
our role, whatever our profession, whatever our lot in life
– all of us are looking for someone to make us feel important.
That T-shirt made my brilliant, world-renowned surgeon feel
important. Imagine that!
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The
honest facing of reality and the effort to deal with it creatively
started affecting other areas of my life. My family relationships
became closer and more open. Two weeks after the mastectomy,
my ten-year-old son and several of his friends burst into the
kitchen. They looked at me searchingly, and son Joe blurted
out, "Are you wearing your artificial breast today?"
"No" – I laughed – "I left it in the
bedroom." And off they went outside to play. My visiting
mother asked, "Are you sure you want your son and his friends
discussing your breast?" "He's having to face the
fact that he might lose his mother," I responded. "If
he needs to take me to school for show-and-tell in order to
deal with this, I'll go. Now, there," I said to her, remembering
all the times she had said it to me, "is a fascinating
idea!"
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Marvelous
things began to happen. I entered upon a speaking career, which
has plunged me into the business community and into the fields
of medicine, education, technology, insurance, sales, travel,
finance, and government. Fortune 500 companies fill my client
list. My presentations are not about cancer, just because of
cancer. (Fascinating! I wonder how many ways there are to deal
with each day's celebration of new possibilities, with each
day's new and unique audience, with each day's wonder at what
lies ahead.) Rejoice in your own willingness to step out and
you'll see new doors opening for you where once there were only
blank walls.
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Having
had cancer has freed me forever from what I call the Scarlett
O'Hara syndrome of: "I can make a new friend…tomorrow.
I can make an impact…tomorrow. I can write a book…tomorrow…I
can start a new business…tomorrow. I can take more risks
…tomorrow." I've had a smack-in-the-face realization
that there may not be three score and ten cards in my deck.
Because I am not guaranteed a tomorrow, my life has taken a
unique and enriching direction. Today.
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Isn't
that…fascinating? I'd always thought that life was about
building security. And then a great teacher – cancer –
taught me that this is not what life is all about at all. It
taught me that nightmares can become springboards.
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How
much difference does it make to step outside the bounds of the
expected and the ordinary? Five years after finishing the prescribed
therapy, I read in the paper that the "doctor from Duke"
was coming to Charlotte to do a symposium on breast cancer.
As I stepped into the back of the auditorium to hear him speak,
he saw me and called out "Emory! Emory Austin!" Five
years later, five thousand patients later, he remembered me.
"My goodness," I thought – this truly is fascinating."
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[And
so, dear reader, because I've had cancer, I no longer have any
security that is based on guarantees of time. Wherever you are,
just raise your hand if you believe you have any more of that
kind of security than I do. All of us want to live. All of us
want to believe that a dream can come true. Each of us can make
at least one dream come true. And doing that might set a brave
new pattern! If you want to do what you were put here to do,
it's essential to get on with it today.]
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Sometimes
we face monsters who have names – disease, fear, age, job
security, financial hurdles, addictions, cruelty. Conquering
these monsters will depend (to some extent) on the patterns
we have developed for ourselves in the past and continue to
develop today. Celebrate patterns that will bless you!
–Emory Austin
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