Calypso with a Cause - Cutting the String! Shaking off 10 months of cancer talk!

A Mother’s Story…

I don’t have cancer, my daughter does!!!
A mammogram after noticing a lump, an agonizing week, 5 brutal biopsies later, and our lives were changed forever.

My daughter, all of 33, in the prime of her life, doing motherhood and marriage, has Stage 2 breast cancer!

My mom is a breast cancer survivor, and I work in the health and financial planning field, so I deal with cancer all the time.  I know exactly what to say to clients and friends in times of suffering and illness.  I am the strong one, the supportive friend, the one with all the right answers.  Not this time.  On the floor, I was.

The shock has been tremendous, the treatments hideous, and during Covid-19 times, extremely hard for Kyla to go it alone – all the testimonies I have heard and read, all point to the fact that someone dear held their hand through the chemo sessions, the endless radiation trips, the checkups, the good and the bad-news visits.  The heartache, knowing your child is alone through this is unspeakable.    

Kyla has only just finished her active treatment.  She has had 7 months of chemotherapy, a uni-lateral mastectomy and lymph clearance and 5 weeks of radiation therapy.  She is on hormone therapy for at least the next 5 years – a challenging prospect, but very necessary.  She is fiercely trying to snatch her life back now.  Eating well, exercising and grabbing every experience with both hands.  I have never seen anyone as brave as my Kyla.  She smiled through all of this.  She laughed.  She never missed a single lunchbox or school run.  She never complained.  She cried buckets, but not for herself – for Jeffrey, her boys, and for us.  She has come through it even more beautiful and more whole than before she got that dreaded diagnosis. 

The one single thing that made this even remotely doable, was the support.  Never ever did I realize how words, thoughts and prayers can carry one through.  All over the world Kyla was being held in thought daily.  Never underestimate how powerful that is.  I will be eternally grateful for every single person, prayer, deed and message.  They carried us through, and will continue to hold Kyla up in days to come.  Thank you doesn’t seem enough. 

Ladies fighting cancer are the bravest warriors I know. 

I write this in honor of all those ladies affected by breast cancer.  The Moms too.