Anne Marie Bennett

• Is your mind is reeling with the impossibility of the journey that lies before you?
• Are you worried about losing your hair, or the other side effects of chemotherapy?
• Is it difficult to believe that you actually have breast cancer?

You’ve come to the right place.

I know what you are going through. I’ve been there myself.  From the shock of the initial diagnosis, through the surgeries, myriad pathways of chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and the tumultuous emotions that all of these bring, I have been there before you.

The journey that you’re facing (or maybe you’re actually in the middle of it already) is not a pretty one.  It’s full of twists and turns, potholes and detours that no one prepared you for.

I wrote Bright Side of the Road so that women with breast cancer would not have to face this bewildering, chaotic journey alone.

You really are not alone!  There is a community of friends and family surrounding you, supporting you, loving you.  There is an unseen entourage of Divine guides and beings who are as close as your very breath.  And there is your own bright being, accompanying you on this journey.

I hope that some of these passages from my book will make you feel less alone as you travel the bright side road to healing.

Chapter 3: Unfolding the Map (Diagnosis)

When Dr. Karp comes back, he sits at the little table beside us and
pulls out a notebook with written information and an erasable page for him
to draw on. He uses it frequently as he explains what infiltrating ductal cancer
really is. I notice that he’s using words we can understand, and yet I don’t
feel like he’s talking down to us.

My own notebook is in my lap, a daily organizer covered with a beautiful
dark tapestry design. I’m trying to write down everything he says. When
I bought it a few weeks ago, I had visions of filling it with other things: plans
for selling my collage note cards, ideas for stories to write, colorful quotes,
dreams. I would never have expected to be sitting here in a doctor’s office
filling it with notes on the type of cancer I’ve been told I have.

I’ve always found note-taking easy, but today it’s much more difficult.
Perhaps because I’ve not heard or used many of these words before. Cancer.
IDC. Precancerous cells. Lymph nodes. Lumpectomy. Sentinel node
biopsy. I used to love taking French and Spanish classes in high school and
college. I excelled in these classes. But this is different. The foreign language
that is cancer is not a lesson I signed up for.

Chapter 6: The Road Less Traveled (First Surgery)

I had thought I’d be able to maintain an illusion of control, but I see
now how ridiculous this is. There is no more illusion. I have absolutely no
control. I’m lying pretty much naked on a gurney in a hospital hallway with
an IV attached to my right hand. I can’t get up and take a walk. I can’t even
go to the bathroom without help. It’s impossible to turn around and see
what’s going on behind me. I feel like a prisoner. I feel very alone. I’m close
to tears now, as this powerlessness invades my idea of who I am. But I’m not
going to give in to the fears and the loneliness. I concentrate once more on
my breathing. I picture the circle of family and friends surrounding me, feel
their warmth and love. This powerful image takes the edge off of my isolation,
takes the panic away from my fear.

Chapter 9: One Step At A Time (Second Surgery)

I’ve been thinking about courage a lot lately. Several people have commented
on how courageously I’m handling all of this. One friend even ended
her email with I admire your courage. Another friend told me she admires me
because I’m not responding to the cancer like a victim. All of this is interesting
feedback. But I wonder….. am I really that courageous? It’s not like
I’ve chosen any of this. I have a microscopic cancerous tumor on one of my
lymph nodes, and there are precancer cells inside my left breast. This surgery
is not optional.

I’ve read that courage is feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Well,
that’s true. I am definitely feeling the fear but I’m having the surgery anyway.

And what am I afraid of exactly? Not waking up from the anesthesia,
for one thing. For another thing, the pain I most likely will feel afterwards.
Also, the results of the pathology report. How many lymph nodes are positive
for cancer? I’m hoping, praying, that none of them are. Less than four
would be the next best alternative. But I can’t control any of these results. I
can only take one step at a time, put one foot in front of me, and then the
other, and on and on. This is the only way I can continue the journey.

So then, is courage something I can consciously choose? I wake up,
I shower, I dress, I decide to be courageous today and go to surgery? No, I
don’t think that’s how it is. The courage lives somewhere deep inside of me,
in every one of us. It just takes different situations to activate it.

What I consciously choose is to accept the fear, to take deep breaths
and remain centered no matter what happens, to scan my thoughts continually
in order to transform any negativity lurking there into thoughts of a more
positive nature.

A few days ago I was able to slow down enough to actually hear these
pessimistic thoughts. Oh dear God, I don’t want to have another surgery. This is
awful. There is more cancer inside of me. This is so much worse than I thought.

But because I was able to identify them as destructive, I was able to
replace them with some more hopeful thoughts: Thank God my doctor took
out two nodes instead of just the first one. The tumor is microscopic; I’m glad it’s
not full-sized. The cells in my breast are precancerous; I’m glad they’re not cancerous.

It’s a good thing we found this early and that I have such a good doctor. And
besides all that, I get to have an extra week off from work!

I don’t know if changing my thinking patterns takes courage. Maybe it
does. But I do know it’s healthier for me. I do know that I feel better physically
and emotionally when I do it. It’s like choosing what to eat based on
how you’ll feel afterwards, rather than the taste of it right now.

Chapter 12: Rest Stops Along the Way (Chemotherapy)

An email from a theatre friend leads me to think more about visualization.
I told him I have been visualizing the drugs that will be flowing through
my body as clear potent healing energy, and I will continue to do that. But
now I feel challenged to do more of it, and more intensely, more consciously.
I used visualization to lower my anxiety before my first surgery when I imagined
everyone I know who loved me surrounding me in the O.R. that day.
And now I’m thinking that I can do the same during my chemo treatments.

I email Elizabeth and ask her if she used visualization during her journey.
Tonight I receive a reply from her that encourages me to continue what
I’ve started. She says that the most powerful visualization that she uses to this
day is the image of herself as an old woman, surrounded by grandchildren,
laughing with joy and hugging them with delight. I love this image! And
I’m intrigued by the thought of imagining myself an old woman, and what a
powerful message that image will send to my spirit and my inner healer.

Chapter 16: The Scenic Route (Fear)

Once in a while, though, I do think of it. Death. What if the cancer
returns and I have to go through this all over again? What if it metastasizes
and gets out of control, takes over my body?

There are so many what ifs in my life now. And somehow I have to
content myself with the knowledge that I have no answers….that there are
no guarantees. None. From my doctors, from God, from anyone. I have to
become comfortable with the assumption that I’m going to live a long and
healthy life. I must focus on that and believe it, otherwise the worry and fear
will always gain the upper hand.

Chapter 16: The Scenic Route (More Fear)

I climb into bed before 9:00 tonight, and within ten minutes of closing
my eyes, I feel the beginnings of a very bad headache. I haven’t had one
in several months, and the strangeness of it scares me. I’m immediately wideawake
and alert, my heart pounding in my chest. The headache brings with
it a tangible fear.

Ordinarily I would go to the bathroom, flick on the light, swallow
some ibuprofen with water and head back to the shelter of sleep. But now,
with the words breast cancer shading everything that happens to me, I find
myself panicking in the darkness, certain that the cancer has metastasized to
my brain, certain that I have a brain tumor. My mind spins these thoughts
round and round until they are whirling out of control. Should I call the
doctor? But which doctor should I call? Should I call now or should I wait
until morning? Maybe I should just go right now to the Emergency Room.
Do people actually go to the Emergency Room for headaches?

There is some level of sanity left in my muddled brain, because I’m
aware of the craziness of my thoughts, and in this awareness I resolve to calm
down. I take a few deep breaths, rub my head, look fear in the face and decide
to take action. I get up and look at myself in the bathroom mirror. I
look okay, in spite of the fact that my hair is gone, my eyebrows are ragged,
and there are dark shadows under my eyes. I whisper I love you to the face in
the mirror, fill a clear blue glass with water, feel its coolness sliding down my
throat along with three small ibuprofen pills. I murmur comforting words
to myself on the way back to bed, like a mother soothing a crying child.
There, there. You’re going to be okay. The medicine will start to work in a few
minutes.

And indeed, it does.

Chapter 17: Souvenirs to Take Home (Looking Back)

I’m filled with gratitude for being able to devote these months to my
healing, my art, my writing. It’s like the breast cancer diagnosis (and the subsequent
time off ), has given me a respite from who I thought I was. It’s like
I’ve been given a lift out of a rut that I didn’t even know I was in.

I feel like I’m being given an intimate, valuable gift: the perspective
that this time off is a resting place, an oasis located between Who I Was and
Who I’m Going To Be. I am inhabiting a sanctuary on a journey between
my self-perceived, self-defined concept of myself as failure (as a stepmother
mostly), and my new self-declared concept of myself as success (as artist and
writer and survivor of a deadly disease). I’m like an insect, quiescent in my
cocoon (the haven that is allowing me to remember who I am at my deepest
core) before I burst forth with rainbows of color and my wings spread wide.

I feel like there is no end to the possibilities before me. No end to
what I can create, what I will create. No end to the inner discoveries that
await me.

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