SheWired Talks Boobs: A Breast Cancer Series

To honor our family, friends, loved ones, girlfriends, partners and in some cases, ourselves, we at SheWired are telling our stories about brushes with breast cancer, a disease that has affected nearly all of in some way.

Our sports' guru Helen Wortham shares the lessons she's learned from brushes with breast cancer in her life.

Three years ago I got an email from my mother. The subject line just read “News.” I knew it was something big or she would have given me a heads up with a better title. I thought it might be on the bad side too—and it was.

She matter-of-factly stated that she was going for a biopsy the next Monday because she had found that fated lump in her breast. Emails led to calls and a week later my mom was scheduling surgery for breast cancer.

I live in Philadelphia and she lives in Dallas and I felt each one of those 1,300 miles then. My mother had always been healthy and the whole process shook me. Watching her recovering from surgery, taking her to radiation treatments… This was my mother—the one who raised and nurtured me and now I was the caregiver. The good news is that the cancer was post-menopausal, so surgery and radiation were all she needed. The only thing I remember her complaining about was how hard it was to get the sports bra on and off while her incision was healing. That was my first lesson on breast cancer: Women get it after menopause so reoccurrence is minute and recovery is uncomplicated.

But I had another lesson to learn…

Almost a year to the date my girlfriend came home and told me to sit down. Again, I knew it was something big and probably bad. It was. Our very good friend had gone for a mammogram and the radiologist was asking for a biopsy ASAP. It was happening again, but this time the rules had changed…she was our age. This was a woman who had owned a Karate studio back in California. She kicked my ass on a regular basis and convinced me that I was “sparing” with her. This just couldn’t happen to my Sensei. But of course it was.

The regiment endured was much more complicated. Surgery—yes. Radiation -- yes. But she also received chemotherapy. She went wig shopping with her girlfriend. Instead of sparring with me, I brought over Kung Fu movies and watched her sleep on the couch.

Both my mother and friend are doing well. I now put breast cancer on forms under family history--but post-menopausal; I’m at low risk. My buddy doesn’t have that luxury. Every once in a while it creeps into her thoughts. What if it comes back? I hope it doesn’t, for either of us. Two lessons and two strong survivors are all I want from breast cancer.