Diane's Story — carlbower

Diane’s Story

On a winter morning, Diane warmed herself in the steam of her shower. Sliding her fingers over her right breast, she met the resistance of what felt like three raw peas. She froze. Fumbling for the soap, she rolled the bar in her hands and slid her fingers over the area again, desperate to deny what she felt.

A radiologist diagnosed the shadows on her mammogram as lymph nodes. She sought a second opinion. The cancer in her breast was among the most virulent her oncologist had encountered. Diane underwent a mastectomy and six months of chemotherapy.

The aggressive nature of the cancer and a twenty percent chance of reoccurrence in her left breast convinced her to undergo a prophylactic mastectomy. Though the removal of a healthy breast is a controversial measure, she sought any preemptive strike against the cancer's return.

Confronted with life-altering decisions in the days following her initial diagnosis, she desperately sought a sense of what lay ahead. What she found were clinical images of faceless torsos, conflicting advice, and life-affirming bromides she distrusted. She allowed me to document her experience to provide others with the signposts she herself sought but could not find. Sharing her story provided both of us with a means of focusing feelings of helplessness and frustration into something concrete, a means of fighting back against an enemy we could not see.

Diane's Story was a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

A single mother, Diane sought to protect her sons by shielding them from the effects of her treatment, at a price of losing the understanding she needed. Still, each helped in the way he knew. Her son Ari bolstered her spirits with his antics.

Still drunk with anesthesia, Diane's hand closes on the empty space that was her left breast. She is relieved by its absence.

Diane falls asleep the morning after surgery, relieved for the first time in months that the breast she came to view as a threat is finally gone.

Plastic surgeon's office, three weeks after second mastectomy.

Diane seeks solidarity at a breast cancer march in Washington DC. Women in pink shirts are laughing, smiling, feeling the camaraderie of survivors with a shared history and purpose.She feels no connection with them. She expected tears, shouting, but sees none of the anger she feels. In frustration, she yanks her shirt down, revealing her partially reconstructed chest to a cameraman. "We don't want to see that," he says. "I know you don't want to see it," she screams, "that's why you have to see it."

Six months into reconstruction, an implant unexpectedly ruptures, effectively deflating her right breast. The saline leaking into her body poses no danger, but it is a devastating psychological setback after months of striving to feel whole.

Diane waits outside her oncologist's office with her charts and bottle of liquid containing barium, awaiting a CT scan. A negative result provides momentary relief, but the continuous testing underscores the expectation that someday, somewhwere, the cancer may return.

Regular tests looking for hints of metastasis are a constant reminder that cancer is forever in remission, never completely gone. Injections of radioactive isotopes allow oncologists to check for suspiciously high densities of marrow, a possible sign that the cancer had metastasized. Every three months, a test. Every three months, a verdict.

"Passover. Last year I sat at this table and prayed the angel of death would pass over me. A year later, I sit at this table again, defiant of death, humble before God, at peace with myself."

"After being told my breasts would be numb, hope. If I can feel pain, I will most certainly be able to feel pleasure."

As she nears the end of reconstruction, Diane brings her surgeon an image of how she would like her finished breasts to appear. He explains what he can and cannot do.

Diane trains daily to strengthen her immune system and combat the stress she believes was the cancer's catalyst. Her heightened susceptibility has led her to zealously uncover and avoid environmental carcinogens, but she is frustrated by the tonxins' pervasiveness. To avoid dying, must she stop living?

Fighting depression and a persistent feeling that something insider her is wrong, Diane meets with her doctor. He finds a tumor in her right pectoral muscle. Less than a year and a half after finishing her treatment, as her reconstruction neared completion, the cancer has returned.

Carl Bower

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