Dealing with the diagnosis — twice
PHOTO COURTESY OF PEGGY ISPHORDING.
Peggy Isphording next to an ATV in the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana. The photo was taken in June, not long after her breast cancer surgery.
During the past three years I have been diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer twice. I dealt with each occurrence differently.
In the beginning, I can only say that I was devastated when the phone call came from my surgeon to tell me the results of the biopsy I had undergone were positive and a surgical procedure would be necessary. Fortunately, there was a chair close by. I collapsed into it and began to weep. The surgeon’s voice came across the wire: “Don’t get all weepy on me … you’re not the only woman who has breast cancer.”