Through my journey I have had the honor of establishing some precious friendships. Many of these dear friends are truly superheroes and have such inspirational stories. One of those amazing stories comes from my dear friend, Sally Van Schenck. She has recently walked through breast cancer and is on the other side of that diagnosis. I recently met with Sally and was so touched by everything she shared with me and what she learned through her journey. I knew right then that I wanted others to hear about her journey as well. She recently wrote about her story and I wanted to share it with you. I think you will be inspired too!
Called to Cancer
by
Sally Van Schenck
The diagnosis rocked me to my core. Never, ever, ever had I expected those words to come out of the mouth of the doctor, a stranger sitting in front of me whom I had met all of three minutes before.
Yes, for 18 months I had felt a lump in my breast. But it was the exact same size and in the exact same location as a simple, benign breast cyst I had had some 12 years before. I knew this was exactly the same thing so I waited to get a mammogram until I felt like I could afford the surgery to remove it. And yes, lately the lump had been causing me some pain, along with occasional random discomfort under my arm. So yes, it was time to get this annoying lump removed.
After getting checked in and changing into the dressing gown, I was told to sit in a tiny closet-like room to await the mammogram technician. Directly across from me, barely four feet away, was a huge pink breast cancer ribbon, obviously homemade and hand painted by someone, somewhere who probably wanted to donate a gift of appreciation to the breast center.
Awwww, I thought to myself. How thoughtful. Then I felt led to pray, Oh Lord, someone today is going to get the news that they have breast cancer. Please bless and strengthen them and surround them with your love.
Not for one single moment did it ever occur to me that 45 minutes later I would hear a woman in a white coat say to me, “I’m very sorry but your breast mass has all the characteristics of cancer.”
What?? What did you say?? You must be mistaken. There is absolutely no history of cancer in my family. No cancer at all. Of any type. On either side of my family. None. Absolutely none. I’m sorry, doctor, but your scan must be wrong. My mind racing, I said in complete disbelief, “Are you sure? How can you tell?”
The doctor proceeded to show me on the scan how the lump had nonrigid edges, and how I was showing several lumps in the lymph nodes under my arm. “We need to do a biopsy for confirmation. I’m very sorry. I will leave you alone for a few minutes. I’m sure this is a shock. My coordinator will come in soon and discuss with you all the next steps.”
And thus began the most difficult, painful, lonely yet hope-filled year of my life.
It is behind me now – that year of many struggles – and recently someone asked me what I learned from it. It was hard to boil it all down to mere sentences; I feel like I learned a thousand lessons, plus many more that are still in the fuzzy, developmental stage. Though not in any way exhaustive, what follows is a distillation of the things that I believe would be helpful for all of us to remember when going through something difficult.
God is faithful
Despite all our inner longings, yearnings and beseeching, God does not necessarily give us what we want, much less when we want it. But He provides. Let that sink in. He has a Plan for each and every one of us, and He gives us what is necessary for the completion of that Plan. The trick is being able to let go of what we want and get out of the way so that God can effectuate things according to His Plan. I realize this can be extremely difficult, especially when we neither know, nor understand, His Plan. Or even if The Plan seems cruel or unfair.
The entirety of my cancer treatment took place during the pandemic. And a mere four months into it I learned of
something going on with my long-time boyfriend which necessitated my breaking up with him. So here I was, going through the worst time in my life, absolutely alone. And I mean, alone. Due to my ultra-compromised immune system, I was virtually forbidden from being in close contact with anyone. If I had contracted Covid during the course of my treatment, it would’ve meant the suspension of treatment indefinitely. And given that my cancer was, at Stage 3, considered advanced, it was imperative that I successfully complete all my treatments on schedule. So that meant I was basically in solitary confinement for nearly a full year. I called it being on medical house arrest. Aside from doctor visits and medical appointments, weeks would go by when my only connection to the outside world was through my phone. For a ‘people person’ like me, the loneliness was crushing.
It was easy, during these endlessly long months, to cry out, Why, God? Why did you have to pick me for this journey? I don’t like it! It’s painful and miserable…can’t you let it end??? And no, God didn’t allow it to end for a long time, but that didn’t mean He didn’t hear my prayers. That doesn’t mean He wasn’t faithful. What He did was put in my path all the doctors, medical staff, family members, friends, finances and tasks for me to get through it successfully. There was a point at which I learned to stop praying to be relieved of the journey, and instead to pray for whatever I needed to get through it in a way pleasing to God. That was a turning point, both in my attitude and in my being able to clearly see the blessings which subsequently surrounded me.
People are Good
Good people are everywhere. Good people are reliable, dependable and want to help. The generosity of people blew my mind. Never before had I been the recipient of so much kindness, sometimes from people I didn’t even know.
As I said, the entirety of my cancer experience took place during the pandemic. That meant that traditional things that friends and family might have done for me (accompany me to chemo, help me around the house, assist with driving me to appointments) were out of the question. I realized that many people who would have been happy to help were themselves at a loss as to how to do so (for a while, even the heathy people were on lockdown as we all tried to “flatten the curve”). Probably a hundred times people said, “Let me know if you need anything.”
But here’s the thing: when you are in a deep struggle, you barely even know what you need. When the effects of the chemo started really kicking in, I was living hour by hour. And I don’t mean that in an end-of-life kind of way. I mean that all I could focus on was the minute that was in front of me: I was so weak all I could think about was I’m thirsty but the kitchen seems very far away. Do I have the strength to get up from this chair and walk there to get some water? I was not thinking about my grocery list; whether my gas tank was low; whether I needed to do laundry; whether I needed to get a prescription refilled. I was thinking I’m so cold. I really wish I could reach that blanket over there but it hurts too much to move.
But it never failed…people always seemed to know when I needed to be lifted up, without me having to ask. Like the day my sister texted and said, “I just ordered soup for you from Panera. It’ll be delivered in about an hour. Thought you might be hungry.” Or the times I would get mysterious Amazon packages delivered; sometimes people would send kind gifts just to be thoughtful. Sometimes people would send gift cards which I could use for food or other things I needed (I used every one! Some of them I even used to cover my medical co-pays). At Christmastime I got a message from a friend, “You may not feel like cooking so I am sending over a chicken pot pie.”
And I will never forget one day when I got an out-of-the-blue text from a friend I used to work with several years ago. “Hey! I’m at Sam’s Club right now…can I get you anything?” For weeks I had been having the unusual chemo side effect of spontaneous nose bleeds. They would come on suddenly and last for at least a half hour. “Yes!” I responded. “I really need Kleenex, please.” I was on my last box and I had been trying to stretch it out. An hour later my friend showed up at my door with a huge package of 24 boxes.
I felt so isolated that just being remembered was a blessing. People are so good. And now I know how to be a better friend to someone else going through a rough patch…don’t wait to be asked to do or give something. The recipient may very well not even know what they need in a practical sense. But they will always need to be cared about.
Troubles are Transitory
No matter what difficulty you are facing, you have to train yourself not to dwell on the negative, painful experiences. You absolutely must allow them their due so that you can learn the lesson embedded in the pain, but then move on. Moving on is required if you ever hope to get to the other side, the side of success. Whatever you do, do not let the trouble seep in so far that it becomes your identity. You are not the pain. The pain is a situation and situations are transitory.
I was prepared to lose my hair. It seemed like everyone in the world told me from the very beginning of chemo, Get 
ready because you are going to lose your hair. So when it started falling out, it didn’t alarm me at all. It took a couple weeks for it to all fall out so the fact that it came out rather slowly gave me the time to adjust. Oddly, what I was completely unprepared for, was to lose my eyebrows and eyelashes. For some reason, that part never occurred to me. And it affected me profoundly.
I remember the day vividly. I’m sure it’s a day I will remember forever. I had just taken a shower and I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. Yes, I was bald, but to my horror, all my eyebrows and eyelashes were gone. And my skin looked pale and pasty. Oh my God I said out loud because I was so shocked at the image. You look soooo sickly. You look so sick. You look half-dead. I looked absolutely terrible, like I would be headed to the morgue that very day. All I could say over and over again was, Oh my God, Sally. You look so sick.
And then, BAM. I closed the bathroom mirror door. Nope, I said. Then louder, NOPE. I am NOT going to look at that.
I got dressed and was so rattled I paced around the house. I made a vow: I would not look at myself in a mirror again until I felt better. And I didn’t. For the next few months I showered in the dark so that I couldn’t catch my image when I got out. Whenever I washed my hands in any bathroom I kept my head down. I have a small mirror in my bedroom that I turned sideways. If I happened to see my reflection in a window I looked away quickly.
And I did all this not because of vanity; that wasn’t it at all. It was because I was afraid that I would have the same reaction as I did the first time I saw my reflection when I said to myself, Oh my God, you look so sickly. I never wanted to have that reaction again. Intuitively I knew that if I kept saying that to myself, I would start to believe it. And if I believed it, it would inevitably become how I saw myself; it would become who I was. The words Sally and sick would go together in my mind. And I was convinced that if that happened enough times, Sick Sally would become my identity. And that is NOT who I want to be! That is not who I am! That is NOT who I am going to be!
I was in real danger of that happening, though. Of Sick Sally becoming my new name; of it being a prophecy of sorts. Because, in fact, I was very sick. So I had to fight it. Actively. Every day I would tell myself, this is just a stage. It’s going to pass. It is transitory. I put signs up all over my house…handwritten notes that said things like, “Every storm runs out of rain” and “This too, shall pass.”
I dwelt on that daily, this idea that my current painful situation had an expiration date. For months and months I would whisper to myself, This is a place I am going through, not a place I am going to stay.
Then one day I touched my face felt the strangest thing. Could it be? I gathered my courage and went to the bathroom mirror. Eyebrows AND eyelashes! They were back!
I smiled. Sally, you’re gonna make it.
The Single Most Important Thing to Always Carry With You is Hope
I believe that, when going through a trial, hope is the one thing you need above all else. It is downright critical to keep
hope alive. I realize that some people would say that love is the most important thing to have but there are people who love and are loved who still commit suicide. When you’re hurting and the hope that things will change gets extinguished, you really do become lost. That feeling of hopelessness is truly devastating. On the other hand, having hope – even if it flickers or wanes a bit – can get you through things you never thought possible.
The great thing about hope is that it’s entirely within one’s control. You can decide to have hope. And you can decide what to hope for. How much or how little hope you have is completely up to you.
In the beginning, I had gotten my cancer diagnosis after several scans and tests. I met my head oncologist who laid out my treatment plan: 2 months of ‘heavy duty’ chemo, followed by 4 months of ‘standard’ chemo, then a rest time to get my white blood cell count back to acceptable levels, then major surgery, then 7 weeks of radiation. They were going at me hard because I was considered young and healthy with no other co-existing medical conditions. Once I knew the whole “lay of the land,” it was time to tell my boss.
The day came when I went into his office and said, “I have something to tell you,” but the words after that got strangled in my throat. It was unlike me to be speechless so he stared at me with concern. Finally all I could do was turn around the folder that the cancer center had given me with the words “CANCER TREATMENT PLAN” emblazoned at the top. I watched him read the words. Then he looked at me in disbelief. I’m not sure why, but I felt the immediate need to reassure him. “Yeah,” I said, “it’s bad. Stage 3 breast cancer. But it’s gonna be ok. I’ll be ok. I just have this treatment plan I have to get through, but I’ll get through it. I promise.”
Where those words came from I can only credit God, because I had no intention of saying that when I walked in there. But it’s almost like that was the very first decision I made about the whole thing. I have hope that it’s going to be ok. I will get through this.
I used to have to go to the cancer center every week to get blood work done. They called it “getting labs.” Every time I would sit in the special blood-drawing chair, the nurse would prepare my port and ask, “Well, how do you think it will go today?” Every single time I would say, “Oh, I’ll be fine.” One day the nurse said, “You know, we can always tell. Nearly 100 out of 100 times, when we ask the patient how they think their labs will come back, it’s almost always accurate. The ones who say, ‘I don’t think the tests will come back good today,’ are almost always right. And the ones who say, ‘I’m going to be fine’ almost always are right, too.”
My labs always came back fine.
The other beautiful thing about hope is it is something you can give away. I am so appreciative of the people who spoke hope into me. I had friends who sent me cards and texts filled with positive messages. I know many people prayed for me and over me. There is something inexplicable that happens when someone else sees the hope and passes it along…it can quite literally lift you up.
I like to think of hope as a life raft. If someone is hurting, you can give them a life raft or you can share yours with them. Either way, it keeps them from drowning.
After the Crisis, Comes Responsibility
One can be forgiven for displaying a certain amount of self-absorption in the midst of the disorientation that accompanies life’s dark tunnels. Sometimes, you are just looking to get your most basic needs met so that you can make it to the next day. This is the crisis mode. But the crisis mode never lasts forever. At some point, crisis gives way to some level of calm. And this is where responsibility is born.
Responsibility emerges when the story isn’t about you anymore. The story becomes I’ve just been through the pits of hell, now what am I supposed to do with that experience?
Hands down, the worst part of my cancer journey wasn’t chemo or surgery; it was the radiation treatments. Dear God, it was the most physically painful thing I have ever experienced. And I’ve been through natural childbirth! But the excruciating radiation pain went on for weeks and weeks with no let-up whatsoever. So many times I thought about giving up, about telling my doctor I just couldn’t do it anymore. But I did, through the grace and strength of God Almighty, make it through to the very last treatment. Yes, I was bleeding and crying, but I made it.
The abrupt ending was quite odd. Here I had gone every day for weeks to get this horrible treatment, then one day I didn’t have to go anymore. Suddenly I had hours on my hands every day because I was supposed to take a month to rest and let the wounds heal. For the first time in nearly a year, I was not in active treatment. My mind went into overdrive. What was this whole year about? What am I supposed to do with this experience? Just forget it ever happened? (Tempting though that was, I knew my higher responsibility had been forged.)
Today, my cancer is in the rearview mirror of my life. Subsequent scans appear to show that all the cancer has been eradicated. I am feeling absolutely fantastic and I thank God for that every day. One thing, though, is very clear to me: God 
had a reason for everything I went through. My job now is to make His reason matter. The time of crisis is past and now my it is my duty to make something positive out of that experience. With certainty, I know that God will make known to me – in His timing and in His way – how I am to help someone with the lessons I learned. I believe now that I was called to have cancer, not as any type of punishment, but as a way to relate to the hurting. I have a responsibility now to lift others up.
And I feel honored to do so.