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“You will never meet anyone more afraid of dying than me,” I told him that February afternoon — the day after Valentine’s Day — in 2005. Then I left the office, called my job, and cried to a fellow employee while telling her the news. Once I got home, I climbed the stairs, opened the door and hugged my dad.
“I don’t want to die!” I told him.
“Whoa! Whoa! What’s going on?”
“I have cancer.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Breast cancer killed my mother in March 2002. Yet none of the stories I’ve heard since then measured up to a tale told by a woman I’ve known as a dynamo, a force of nature, always smiling, always laughing, as vivacious as anyone you’ll meet, Doreen DeCosmis. This CLIFFVIEW PILOT article was originally published last October.)
My dad went into the bedroom to fetch my mom, who was on the phone. She came in completely composed, awesome. He, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck.
Then came the phone calls — to my brothers and sisters. I know this is what you do as a family. I just didn’t know how to handle MY role.
I am the youngest of 6 and was the only one still living home at the time. My brothers, who work as police officers in town, showed up . But, like me, they didn’t know what to do with themselves.
They peeked into the fridge, finding the same food in there each time, played on the computer, tried to act preoccupied. My sisters each cried on the phone to me, but I told them to stop. It made me feel like I was going to die.
Weeks earlier, I noticed a lump under my right arm. It felt like a ball, so I thought it might be an ingrown hair or blind pimple, and I let it go.
Then my breast started to swell, quickly. I’d heard that buying bras can be tough sometimes because one breast is bigger than the other. But this one was purple.
So I went to Bobby.
Bobby and I once lived together. We were going to make a future, he and I. He was my man.
Was.
He left me for another woman a year earlier, just before Christmas. Then he came back.
I showed Bobby the lump, and he got all nervous and told me to see a doctor. Then came the big day, when I entered the ring for the fight of my life.
Only Bobby wasn’t there.
A week before the doctors told me I had Stage 3 breast cancer, he left me again. And he left me with no choice: I moved on, focusing on survival. I went to all my appointments with my mom or on my own, and like a soldier I marched on.
I cried at night, felt very alone. Five years of living together: I couldn’t believe he wasn’t there for me….My heart was broken.
But my life ws my priority. Tears or no tears, I did what my amazing oncologist and hero, Dr. Weintraub, told me to do. I fought day in and day out. Alone.
I shaved my own head, I grit my teeth when the bone pain struck, I wiped eyes that were constantly moist from the chemo.
Sometimes I’d sit in bed, remove the handkerchief and look in the mirror. I had dark circles and redness around my eyes from wiping the tears. It was so raw, the skin was peeling.
There I was, 32: with no boyfriend, irritated skin, red eyes, and breasts about to be removed to keep me alive. Not what you’d call date material.
Chemo was five months, once a week. The first two visits I went with my sister and my mother. They had promised to attend each treatment with me, but that quickly stopped.
I was always one to offer the easy out: “No, you don’t have to, I got it, don’t worry, I’m fine.”
So I continued driving myself out to the hospital and back each week, while taking Benadryl for the nausea. No fault of theirs, really. The girl they still saw as the chubby young daughter had actually grown a pair of stones. But I was much more than that. I even got my sister to quit smoking.
Weeks eventually went by, then months. From February through April, Bobby came back four more times.
Four more times I let him back in. Four more times he left.
The last time, we were sitting in the kitchen.
“You don’t need me,” he said. “You’re fine.”
“WHAT?”
“I came back cause I thought you needed help,” he said, “but you are doing fine.”
The blood rushed to my head. I could’ve sworn I smelled smoke. Then the volcano blew.
“Coming from a guy who can’t wipe his own ass, get the f*** out of my house! I don’t need you.”
And that was that.
For the next several weeks it was all chemo and heartbreak (How’s that for a choice?).
My eldest sister spoke sense: “Doreen, you have gotten through so much more. You can get through this.”
That’s when I said the words I’ll never forget:
“Lisa, you can gut me like a fish, but there is nothing like a broken heart.”
She was quiet for a moment as it all sunk in.
“It’s just a matter of time,” she finally said. “It will get better.”
She was right, of course.
June 2nd, 2006: My last chemo treatment. I also got the news: A bi-lateral mastectomy, followed by 10 hours of complete reconstructive surgery, was set for June 29.
Running the operation was Hackensack University Medical Center’s “Dream Team”: Dr. Weintraub; my breast surgeon, Dr. Verna; and my cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Cohen.
As they begin prepping me, I discovered I was actually GETTING something. It’s called a “tram flap,” where they take the fatty tissue from your stomach area and rebuild your breast.
According to the doc, I had enough to give me at least a full B cup, as opposed to my current Ds. Hmmmm…. a flat tummy and perky new breasts? Where do I sign?
So the surgery is done, and the doctor runs out to talk to my parents. I’m still under, so I have no idea what’s going on in the hallway outside.
“Yay!” he tells them. “I got more than I thought I could: She’s about a full C cup!”
My mom started laughing, in a moment that I’m certain released all those days, weeks and months of tension.
I woke up on my way to recovery.
“How do they look?” I asked the nurse.
She smiled.
“They look GREAT!”
Four days of recovery give you plenty of peeks under a sheet at a flat tummy and new breasts. PSYCHED!
Loved ones came by. I got cards, flowers. What I didn’t get was a phone call from Bobby or his family.
Some time later, I got my flowers.
He insisted he missed me, that he really loved me.
But, Bobby, it was way too late. You had completely sucked dry any emotion I had left for you.
And wouldn’t you know it? Your little floozy showed you the door, too.
Even though they removed my nodes, I still had to go through radiation. A precaution to make sure they’d killed all the invaders, the doc said. So I did as I was told and kicked ass every morning for five straight weeks.
Off work on medical leave, I hit the pool. The girls in Radiation got pissed at me for spending so much time in the sun. But they also knew, deep down, that a woman given a new lease at 32 was going to do pretty much whatever she wanted.
Two weeks after my mastectomy, I was back at the gym. I worked out every day, even through radiation.
I lived through cancer. That’s because dying was NEVER an option.
And you know why? Because of a coward who made me think of me — and only me — who made me fight harder than I ever have, fueled not only by the will to live but by one of the most underestimated forces of energy in the universe: a broken heart.
Thanks, Bob.
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