Jean McDowall | An Independent Action Oriented Lady
For Jean McDowall the discovery of a lump in her breast was the hardest blow in what had already been a difficult time.
Only a week earlier she learned she would not get the job she desperately wanted. Then her father died after a long illness. It was on Palm Sunday, just three days after her father's funeral when Jean lay down to do a yoga practice that her hand felt a rock-hard lump in her breast.
"I knew immediately it was cancer," she remembers. At a women's health retreat a few years earlier, participants had used a breast model to see if they could identify suspicious lumps, and this lump was exactly the same. Still, the realization was a shock. Her yearly mammograms had shown nothing except for fibrocystic breast disease. Nor was there any history of breast cancer in her family, though, as she would learn later, only ten percent of breast cancers have a genetic component.
A week later after a mammogram, ultrasound, and a phone call from her doctor had confirmed the diagnosis, she had surgery to take a biopsy. Surgeons then found another cancer hidden behind the first. More surgery followed, along with radiation and months of estrogen- blocking drugs.
"It was an especially hard time because I was dealing with so many things in my life,” Jean said. "I was living on my own and stuck at a difficult job. My oldest daughter in Boston was expecting her first child, and another daughter was getting married in the fall. I was completing my last semester of grad school and planning a trip to Tuscany in the fall. Cancer disrupted all my plans.
"Nothing about that time was easy but the amazing thing was how many people rallied around and supported me. My doctors, the nurse navigator, good friends and of course, my daughters were all wonderful.
"In the end and despite everything that happened, it was okay. I was able to fly to Boston and hold my granddaughter a week after her birth. I took part in my daughter's beach wedding, completed my degree and went to Italy.
"Almost 20 years later and cancer free, I look back and realize how lucky I was."
What did she learn from cancer?
"I learned that not everyone who wants to help you will be the kind of help you need.
“Support can come from the most unlikely places and from the people you least expect. The opposite is also true, that some of those you thought you could count on, for whatever reason, will fall away, and that's okay.
"You don't have to be positive-- or be a warrior-- or wear pink.
"Be selective about who you listen to and whose advice you choose to follow. What is happening to you is your own experience. Only you can decide what is right for you.
"What got me through was knowledge that I'd been through tough times before and survived which made me believe I could get through this, too.
