Book: My Turn

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 had a mammogram (October 5, 1987) that "showed something" that is "probably malignant." She was told they would need a biopsy, but from what I read it was not done before surgery. She was given the option of lumpectomy or mastectomy, and she chose the latter. She was scheduled for surgery less than 2 weeks later.

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.