How I found peace

I have had a couple days of that wonderful post-decision state - a couple days to let it sink in, and worry that I'm suddenly going to say, "What was I thinking??" Thankfully, the post-decision freak-out hasn't happened. I continue to have peace about the decision.

How can that be, so suddenly, after all that agonizing? I have thought about that, and wanted to share my thoughts with you.

First of all, I find it interesting and consoling that the decision I finally rested on was almost identical to what Michael and I both left Dr. Skinner's offer feeling at our first appointment after I was diagnosed. I didn't really realize that until after I had come back to it and made it official. That's a good sign that it is right - it was my first gut feeling, and my last gut feeling.

I talked with a friend and mentor about Ignatian spirituality's approach to decision making. One of the ways to come to a decision is to look at the least appealing option, and sit with it and pray about it for several days. See how it feels. Imagine how you would explain it to someone else. Consider how you feel at each point of its outcome. I'm not very familiar with Ignatian spirituality, but it seems this is what I was doing! I made my way through several options, sitting with each one and discerning how it made me feel. In the end, I needed someone else to suggest an idea I had already sat with to see how I would really react to the idea! Dr. Skinner's suggestion got me out of myself and consequently (and counter-intuitively) helped me realize how I really felt.

Sort of along those lines, I've also thought a lot about Dr. Skinner's comment that I need to feel peace about my decision. I've thought a lot about what peace feels like. I thought about how I felt waking up after my lumpectomy last fall. I thought, "It's done. The cancer is gone. I'm good, and life can go on." Peace and relief. Now, when I imagine waking up after another lumpectomy, I imagine thinking, "That cancer is gone, but I feel unsatisfied and anxious." Cancer is gone, but the fear remains. Is there other cancer already there somewhere? Is there cancer starting to grow? No peace. When I imagine waking up after a bilateral mastectomy, I feel sad and anxious, and I imagine I would cry. I feel loss, and no joy. The feeling of grief over losing both breasts is greater than the feeling of joy over no cancer. No peace.

When I imagine waking up after a single mastectomy, one breast gone and one breast still healthy, I feel sad but relieved, a bit scared and grumpy, but ultimately, I have a sense of acceptance. "The cancer is gone, and so is most of the fear." I think that is the key to peace. Peace doesn't mean happiness. Rather, it is acceptance - not resignation, but positive acceptance. My life is not how it was, nor how I want it to be, but it is still life, and I accept the loss that had to happen to let me keep that life. A cancerous breast that keeps making more cancer is not life-giving or life-enhancing. On the other hand, a breast that is healthy and could feed our children someday IS life-giving. So when we are able to choose life, I'd say acceptance - and hence, peace - follows close behind.

¹⁹I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, ²⁰loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live...  (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)