Last night I finished reading
Nancy Reagan’s autobiography, “My Turn.” It was interesting and an easy read. I
found the chapter on her breast cancer especially à propos in light of
my current situation.
She spent the night
in the hospital the night before surgery. Jessica McClure was rescued from the
Midland well that night. Apparently it was during the surgery the next day (October
17) that they determined her tumor was malignant. She woke from surgery and
found she’d had a mastectomy.
The next day she
walked in the halls. “Everyone was amazed that I was walking only twenty-four
hours after surgery.” The drains came out the next day, and she could take a
shower. October 22 she went home.
Wow – so different
than my experience. It took almost 4 months from the 1st mammogram until my
surgery. Maybe they moved quickly because of who she was. Mrs Reagan went to
surgery before knowing if the tumor was malignant. (Altho I had read a book in
the 70’s when I was working at Moyer Library, a memoir of a breast cancer
survivor. She said she knew her breast had been lobbed off when she asked what
time it was, and it was a few hours later than when she’d been taken to the
operating room.) Apparently, too, Nancy R’s drains were attached to machinery
that sucked the liquid stuff out. Not the plastic bulb like I had for 2 weeks.
Things have certainly
changed.
Book was first
published in 1989. I would have been interested in reading about life with
Ronnie after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
