Life In The Key Of B Flat-Cancer Brings Key Changes

The treatment phase for my breast cancer is nearly over. I get my final chemo in a few days, the port removal a week later, and at the end of the month, check in with the oncologist.

Once again, being an organizer/planner, my mind goes to “What’s next?”

I know my life will never be the same. Other cancer survivors/thrivers understand this. There is life before cancer and then life after cancer.

Talk about a key change in life. Life in the key of b flat, that’s where this change has taken me.

Life hasn’t been easy for me the past few years. My 32-year marriage ended. I moved. Started a new life in a new city. Anguished by my adult kids’ challenges.

Last July brought the first hit of a key change coming up.

After Covid and the divorce, I determined to pay closer attention to my health and get a checkup and mammogram. All was well.

Or so I thought. I received notification from the imaging place that there was a suspicious finding. This is the part in my life’s symphony that worry crescendos.

I dutifully report to the imaging center for a follow-up ultrasound.

Yep. There is something there alright. Probably nothing. But we need to recheck in 6 months.

I returned in 5 months. Something was off.

The background track to my life now has a flurry of notes, discordant sounds, insistent staccato beats. It’s like Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony has just been dumped out on the floor at my feet and rearranged into a cacophony of fear.

The build up is hell. And then the pathology report arrives. (Spoiler alert if you’re new to my writing: it’s cancer.)

Full stop. Insert a rest here. As in a halt, a standstill.

Only there is no rest. Trying to absorb a cancer diagnosis when you feel perfectly fine is a mind-fuck.

My nurse friend told me I would be in for a year-long journey and she was spot on. I couldn’t absorb that either.

And then there is the refrain in this chaotic tune-am I going to die from this?

Thankfully, the doctor’s words of encouragement could cut through the noise in my head. “This is a bump in the road,” said one. (More like a bump in my breast, doc.) “This is a slow and indolent tumor,” said another.

I would ask them to repeat their positive words. Even wrote them down and then underlined them twice. Asked my partner to repeat and confirm those positive words.

Talk about feeling emotionally needy.

I have survived this past year. The anxiety, the tests and their subsequent reports, hormone blocking therapy, a double mastectomy, port placement, and finally, chemotherapy.

I am composing a new life’s symphony. It’s in the key of B flat.

This new score is just coming together. I don’t know what it sounds like yet, but I know it is more nuanced and heart-breakingly beautiful at times.

I know my heart is keeping rhythm and my job is to follow its lead more.

I’ve lived by my head most of my life and it’s time to modulate to this new key.

Theresa Winn is a certified life coach and spiritual director. Find her at theresawinn.com. How about a cup of coffee to keep this writer writing? You can do so here. And if you find this article helpful, please clap, share, or subscribe to my page.