Forty four years of age.
5'8" fit and with a good build.
Her face beams with a gorgeous smile positively affecting all in her presence.
On the outside you cannot tell that she is a breast cancer survivor, but it took some time for her to realize it.
This brief description describes me, Denise.
I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 38, and yes, it's true, it took a devastating turn of events for me to truly realize that I am a survivor and what that means for me.
Initially, my doctor, a woman argued with me about getting a follow up mammogram.
I'd already had one four months prior and it was clean.
Nothing was there.
My doctor reassured me that I was too young to have breast cancer and after I kept asking her to write me a referral anyway, she insisted that the insurance would not pay for a second mammogram so close to the previous one.
At first I listened to her, after all she was my doctor and she knew a lot about insurance and percentages and probabilities.
But I knew me, and my gut simply would not let up, so I persisted and won, I had another test.
When I received the news, the shock was more than numbing, "I'm sorry, but it looks like you do have breast cancer.
" My thoughts raced around tumbling over each other: "But I'm in the best shape of my life, running 5 miles, 5 times a week, eating healthy and taking care of my mental and spiritual health.
What is going on? What...
is going on? Why?" Throughout months of testing, followed by a 6 hour mastectomy surgery, followed by two 5 hour reconstruction surgeries, I would have good days and many not so good ones.
Oftentimes my attitude would become flippant - "Nothing matters anymore, so I'll eat whatever I want;" or, "Why save money, nothing matters anyway.
" - I felt enormously cheated as I pondered over what I could have done to have something like this happen to me.
I'd have those inevitable days when I'd argue with God and lose, which served me right, he is sovereign after all.
Through it all, my mother was my rock.
She flew from Nebraska and cared for me like only another woman knows how to care.
We played scrabble, watched Jeopardy, she cooked, made me laugh and let me cry.
Over the next few months I slowly began to heal, figuring out my new life, my new self.
A body without a breast is most definitely a body to be adjusted to, if for no other reason than you've had it for 25 years and now it's gone.
Vanity and thoughts of "I am more than my sexually situated breasts!" weren't really a part of the grieving equation.
Plainly put, I just missed her, my breast.
I began to sort through that part of the self that asks: "Why am I still here?" "Why did I survive?" Then one day, 5 months after I'd been told "You have breast cancer," I got a phone call delivering the worst imaginable news, my mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer and it was advanced and aggressive.
I didn't really get the lesson that breast cancer is survivable until the next thing I knew, there we all were, gathered round, burying my mother next to hers.
That's when it really hit me.
I was a survivor.
I survived.
Many do not.
It wasn't until my mother lost her life to this insidious disease that it became crystal clear that I'd better get on with the things that matter to the living; things like experiencing and spreading joy, happiness, love, friendship, family, trust, and peace, standing up for truth, helping others, and making meaning that would last long after I too was gone.
I learned to live my life like there might not be a tomorrow.
Once again, my mother taught me one of the most valuable lessons: No matter what life hands you don't cheat yourself.
Life in all of its unevenness is a gift.
Your responsibility is to live it like it really matters, for one day soon it shall come to an end.
In memory of my mother I founded my company, Words to Live By Tees which creates 'wearable motivation for your soul!' I designed the "Resilient" tee shirt to honor those of us who survived and still fight on.
I wear mine in honor of myself, I survived; and my mother, Donna, she did not.