Biopsy

My pre-cancer life might have been sans the physical manifestation of biological cancer, yet life had been quite cancerous to me since my very early formative years. For 46 years, I spent a lifetime overcoming, pressing through, staying the course, proving naysayers wrong at every turn. I had made it thus far by nose-to-the-ground sheer force through my life. I'm quite literally the most physical form of a Taurus - if you believe in that, which I do. Just work and grind and win by force.

Had it worn on me? I don't think I even stopped to think about it. When minutes, hours, days, and years fly by with family and job and everything else, who has time to think about the wear and tear and pain and trauma? Not me. The moment you stop is the moment things start to fall apart. And who has time for the rebuild? I didn't build it - how would I know how to rebuild it?

I had a saying that's still partially true: "Motion is Lotion." It keeps things moving, yes. But what if it's not the right direction?

Come 2020, the motion would slow to a stop. Things would begin to unravel. To say "2020" to anyone, they'll probably ignore you and any reference to how your life fell apart, because everyone's world broke in that year.

When the world came to a halt, I had just lost my job. I mean, no one was at a job during this time. But jobless, without a paycheck, with no one able to hire - that was the worst. I felt raw and angered by being let go at the most inopportune time, but my mind shifted into survival mode: I'd come out of this period stronger, more resilient. This too shall pass, just like every other traumatic event. I was going to build the life I'd really wanted all this time but never had the space to create.

I started NASM, preparing to enter the fitness realm. Because what else do I do best but be STRONG? It was what I'd come to be known for. Lean into it fully, right?

By December 2020, I found a work-from-home bookkeeping job. I was well on my way to jumpstarting my new life. New Year, New Me.

2021 rolled around. I finally was able to see the doctor, get my annual exam that everyone had been unable to do for a full year. I felt like I'd been shut in for twelve months with no contact with the world, no people, nada. Things should be a-ok.

And then, in rapid succession, my life became a series of clinical pronouncements:

"Hey Michele, there's a lump here that I'm concerned about. I need you to get this looked at by an oncologist."

"Michele, we're working with Stage 2 Her-2 Positive ductal breast cancer. Our options are mastectomy and removal of the surrounding lymph nodes. You may opt for a double - it's a personal choice, as I cannot ensure the cancer won't show in the left breast."

"Michele, the mastectomy was a success. We've captured all regions and there are no indicators of movement into any other areas. You should heal just fine. You can work with a plastic surgeon in 3-6 months for the tissue expanders."

"The scar is healing very well. We can do the implants now - it's a simple process. After, you can go to a specialized artist to have an areola tattooed, if that suits you."

"Make sure you make each week of your chemo appointments for 6 months. You can do it. The meds and the chemo will knock you down, but be gentle with yourself."

"Michele, you've completed your treatment protocol. Today you can ring the bell."

November 14, 2021, I rang the bell. Everyone smiled. I went back to life.

I went back to proving it was just a blip, another thing I was stronger than. Every last trauma, every last setback - I had survived them all. This would be no different.

Except it was.

I quickly returned to trying to get my weakened body back in form, the way it was before. But nothing was quite the same. The lifts felt heavier, the skating more laborious, the wind in my lungs faint, the beat of my heart slightly slowed. Was it solely the effects of chemotherapy's ravishment, or was it more? Was it that I had expended the stores of life adrenaline I'd been magically replenishing all this time? Regardless of the shift, I told no one. God no, I told no one I was changed. I had become weaker.

I stopped momentarily to think about the fact that I had gone through the entire ordeal alone. No one was at home with me when I came home from treatments. I drove myself there and back, even after treatment. I still cooked for myself. No one was allowed at the treatment center because we were still in quasi-lockdown, "distancing." When I think back to that time - pre and during - all I remember is loads of flowers, which are not recommended for people going through chemo. No one had thought to research that. They also told me, "You'll get through this. You're so strong."

There was no way I would let on that I was weaker, not the same person I was before. In fact, I beat cancer - I was stronger, right?

I pressed on, went back to skating hard within my roller derby league. People were amazed at the "bounce-back." Some even said something had changed in my game. I pressed and persisted. Until during one practice, we were scrimmaging, and I faltered, fell - something, I can't even remember - but I was hurt and didn't pop back up. The game went on. The skaters went on. The ref with whistle in hand looked and went on. The skaters had almost come back through the track and I was still down, and no one had even taken note.

I broke into tears at that moment. And finally, a person recognized my humanity. She is not invincible. She can be hurt. And we can recognize that without diminishing her person.

Yet this was a chip in my exterior that I kept momentarily mending, and I kept pushing through the season. I met many moments where people tested and put pressure on the weakened spot. Yet I would not yield. But by season's end, I recognized I'd had enough of not being recognized for the hurt, the transgressions against my person - both physical and mental. I was done proving my worth and value. I did recognize I was grappling with something greater, though at least there was an acknowledgment of the crack. Although torn, I retired from derby post-season.

The full realization of that something greater wouldn't come until 2025, nearly three years later.

August 1, 3am: "Hey there, checking in on you while I can. It's been a minute since our last conversation. I was hesitant to reach out to you... I had 2 seizures at work Friday. I've been hospitalized since. Scans show several masses, lesions in my occipital and parietal lobes. Waiting on the biopsy. I'm in limbo at the moment."

August 2, 10am: "Well Michele, you made it to the 4th year. No more 6-month check-ups. I'll see you next year for the 5th and final time."

India, August 3: "This is gonna be the toughest job I have ever had in my life. I'm up for the challenge. I just don't know how to do it yet. I've never died before."

Just days after I got my fourth clear, I learned a friend would not make it past her diagnosis. I kept asking her to fight, although we'd been given the prognosis. I refused it. I asked her to do the chemo, although I knew it would fucking suck. Because we are stronger than what life gives us, right?

I sat and held a bucket to catch her vomit. Listened as her speech slurred in conversation. Saw her fall into psychosis and fight nurses at the hospital because she didn't know where she was. But I stayed. And when she became lucid again, I broke. But this time I broke with the need to push Strength as the end-all-be-all to life's ails.

She fought for me because I said she could, because I felt that was what brought me through. She leaned on me because of my experience of feigned strength. Yet I had to finally come to the realization that the very thing I thought had gotten me through my own experience - through all the past traumatic events - that strength was not at all what brought me through. It was endurance and acceptance of what was. Living the experience through.

For the sake of brevity, one of the last texts she was ever able to respond to, I told her I respected her choice to cease chemo treatments and go into hospice.

"I asked God and the Universe what I needed to learn here, because it fucking sucks to see you go through this, and it came to me: You need to learn that your Strong will is not His/Hers/theirs or another person's. You need to learn to Let Go. When it is time to Let Go, as much as it hurts, you have to. Know that I support you and love you as my fellow Stardust Sister. I will be here for you."

I sat with her and ate on the last day she would see daylight, where she ate until she could not eat anymore, happily. We laughed and prayed, even though I knew they were last rites. She said she felt full and at peace and ready. After that day, she would not wake again.

September 14, 10:55am: "She has passed."

Whereas you may expect a breast cancer survivor to talk about what it felt like to lose a breast, or a piece of themselves through the ordeal - some may grapple with their femininity being marred, hair loss, forced menopause, the change in their person, retained memory loss, or other effects from chemo, and of course the psychological effects of going through such an event.

These may all be things that take a toll on our bodies, yet we overcome them as we adapt and move on. The thing that was taking a toll on me even prior to the occurrence of cancer - that thing that supposedly helped me deal with the effects of living a harsh life and cancer - wasn't really a loss but a gain. It wasn't until I had to deal full-face with mortality that I realized I had lost my need for strength, demonstrated or otherwise. Because it is not strength that gets you through life, but the "lived" experience in every waking and fleeting moment.

Today I unpinned her chat. I leave this with the words she left me:

"This cancer is teaching me lessons I wish I had learned years ago, but I'm learning now and this is what counts."

Me baring it all during this photo shoot was a culmination of all that had become. A true farewell to a boob that while I didn't realize it would teach me so much. Thanks for making me write this Cassidy.

Best, Michele Burke