Breast Cancer Awareness Month: My Grandmother's Battle With Breast Cancer

I was 10 years old when my grandmother, who I call “Grammy,” was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time. I was terrified. 

She had battled breast cancer once in 2000, before I was born, with numerous visits to the doctor, chemotherapy and medications. Except the first time was only a story I was told periodically as a kid, now, in the fall of 2011, it felt a little more serious. 

We were staying at my grandparents home for our annual Thanksgiving celebrations when my parents and my aunt and uncle were invited into my grandparents’ master bedroom. I wanted to join, but was told that I couldn’t. This discussion was for adults only, and from the stories my family tells of that afternoon, I spent the evening sulking because I hadn’t been included. 

This “grown-ups only” conversation was when Grammy announced that her breast cancer had returned. She was going to have surgery, something that hadn’t been necessary the first time. 

I don’t remember exactly when we were told this same news, but I remember being unbearably anxious in the weeks leading up to Grammy’s surgeries. These insistent nerves culminated into the evening before she would be going to the hospital when I broke down in tears in the kitchen of my childhood home, unsure of what was going to happen to her or just how serious the cancer was. 

As an elementary schooler, I had never been close to someone who had cancer. It was only a term I had heard at school or church, one that was often correlated with pain, or even death. These connotations, paired with my tendency to be a worrier, made the unknowns of the surgery even worse. All I knew was that I didn’t want to lose my Grammy. 

So I stood in the kitchen with tears running down my cheeks and Grammy reassuring me that everything was going to be okay. Why was she consoling me when, in my mind, she was staring death in the face? 

“I am at peace about it,” I remember her saying. She knew that she was going to be okay. 

The next time I saw her, my siblings and I were visiting her in the hospital with my mom. Apparently the surgery had gone well, and my grandfather, who we call Grandaddy, led us up to her room. 

We peaked through the door to her room and I caught a glimpse of Grammy asleep in her hospital bed, and this image still sticks with me in the back corners of my brain. I had never seen my grandmother in a hospital bed; the last thing I wanted to see my grandmother in a hospital bed and even though I knew the surgery had gone well, I still felt tears well up in my eyes. 

She looked so small sleeping in that bed, but she also looked peaceful, and this idea comforted me. I wiped my eyes and my family and I entered the room and sat and talked with our Grammy. She was okay.

In the weeks following the surgery, Grammy was a little fragile. She still had chemotherapy treatments and medications to take, which made her weak. We had to be especially careful when hugging her and her energy wasn’t as high as it had been before. I think my siblings and I were just happy to have her to watch movies with and cook with, as we had done our whole lives. 

What I didn’t know at the time was that my grandmother had received a bilateral mastectomy, meaning that both of her breasts were removed as a preemptive measure to prevent her from getting cancer again. 

Now, looking back on the winter of 2011 as a 10-year-old nervous for her grandmother, I’m realizing that even though now my Grammy is cancer free, this isn’t going to be the last of my family’s worries with breast cancer. 

Because of my grandmother’s recurring breast cancer, this means that my sister and I are going to need to pay close attention to our health to ensure that we catch the early signs of breast cancer. 

For us, this means avoiding deodorants and other cosmetic products with aluminum in them, which has been linked to causing cancer, conducting self-examinations, and once we get older, attending doctors’ appointments and getting mammograms, an x-ray to ensure nothing is abnormal. 

Breast cancer is something that I will always be conscious of, both for my health, and the health of my sister. Grammy’s fight and ultimate victory over it shows me that there is nothing to be afraid of. It shows me that I should be at peace, just like she was. 

My Grammy is one of the strongest, kindest, most generous people I have ever met. She has the most joyful laugh, the best hugs, and more stories than I can count. She is the type of person to strike up a conversation with the grocery store cashier and to just sit and listen to you pour your heart out over coffee for hours. She loves people, gardening, family dinners and holidays spent together. She is who I want to be like when I grow up. 

Grammy turned 73 on October 6 and alongside October being Breast Cancer Awareness month, I’ve come to know this time of year as being one that reminds me of her. Watching the leaves change on campus only adds to this idea, because she loved to stop and admire the fall colors last time she visited me at school. 

This month, I’m choosing to remember Grammy’s strength and the strength of others like her who have also battled breast cancer. The disease is scary, and devastating for many, but I also feel that it symbolizes the power, resilience and courage of women, reminding me to demonstrate these qualities in my life everyday. 

Life is hard, but women are unbelievably strong and everyday I grow prouder to know and love powerful women like my Grammy.

So this year, as a 19-year-old that is learning more about what it means to be a strong woman in this world today, I watch the leaves change, call my Grammy when I can, and look forward to when I can come home to her on Thanksgiving. We are going to be okay, and I am at peace.

xx

McKenna Kaufman 

Alpha Gamma Delta, Mercer University 

@mckenna.kaufman