Thanks for the Mammogram! by Laura Jensen Walker

Author:Laura Jensen Walker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Women's Health;­Breast—­Cancer—­Patients—­United States—­Biography;HEA024000
ISBN: 9781493426775
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2020-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

Ten

Single Women, Single Breasts

The unique challenges single women face after “losing” one (or both) breasts.

In peace I will lie down and sleep,

for you alone, LORD,

make me dwell in safety.

—Psalm 4:8

When Lynda Duncan went to her twenty-fifth high school reunion as a single woman, she preferred to hear about her classmates’ lives rather than talk about hers.

But after two and a half decades, her classmates wanted an update.

So she’d say, “You want to hear about what I do for a living, what I do for personal fulfillment, my conversion to Christianity, my topless video, or my seven tattoos?”

Then Lynda would look at her friends with a total deadpan expression and easily turn the conversation back to them.

If pressed for an explanation, however, she’d answer, “Uncle Sam pays the bills because I work for the government; I work with high school students for personal fulfillment; my conversion was in 1979; the topless video was because I came through radiation so well that the doctors wanted to do a topless and headless video to visually demonstrate the lack of negative impact of the radiation—no burning or scarring; and the seven tattoos were for radiation treatment.”

Lynda is a breast cancer survivor.

So is Janis Whipple, who was thirty-four and also single when she was diagnosed. Although her cancer was discovered in only one breast, due to its aggressive nature, Janis opted for a bilateral mastectomy followed by immediate reconstructive surgery.

When her plastic surgeon came in to check on her the day after her surgery, he asked, “Is there anything I can get for you?”

Without missing a beat, Janis replied, “Yeah, a cute young doctor would be nice.”

Some men are a little intimidated to ask this book editor and former public relations director with a master of arts from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for a date. “You add the Big C to that, especially breast cancer, and it kind of made me feel like here’s another big dating strike against me,” she said.

“In fact,” Janis added with a laugh, “two strikes.”

But now she doesn’t think it will be an issue with a man she would date at this time in her life. “The idea of having to deal with that still sometimes scares me,” she said, “but I also believe that it’s not fair of me to prejudge someone whom I haven’t even met yet.”

Beverly Ann, who was forty-one when she was diagnosed, said going through breast cancer as a single person didn’t bother her. “I know a lot of married people feel sorry for us single women,” she said. “They think we must have it difficult, when in fact it is probably easier for us to make decisions about treatments when we’re single.”

When Beverly was home and didn’t feel well, she would just lie down.

She didn’t cook.

She didn’t clean.

She didn’t talk.

I was neck-and-neck with her on the first two out of three.

But not talking? That’s like asking me not to breathe.

“I was very blessed during my treatment,” Beverly recalls. “The Lord and my mom were always there for me.

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