Essay

A New Me

By: Cathy Scibelli,

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Although doctors didn’t notice anything unusual about me when I was born, by my early childhood I realized that I had a rubber spine. I couldn’t stand up to any request. I would meekly agree to fill in when it was my sister’s turn to help with the dishes. I would force a smile when a teacher asked me to stay after school to help straighten the classroom. If there was one phrase to describe me, it would be “Ask her, she’ll do it”.

As the years went by, the rubber started to corrode as each new request battered it a bit more. I gave up the idea of going away to college after my father passed away and my mother didn’t want to be left alone. I gave up my career to support my husband and move around for his job. But the sacrifice that cost me the most was postponing a mammogram until after the holidays in 2008, even though I felt something troubling in my right breast.

A week after New Year’s I was undergoing a biopsy. The surgeon said to me, “I’m not going to get your hopes up, this tumor is almost certainly cancer. I also feel a mass under your arm.” He coldly slapped a bandage on my breast and said, “ See what happens when you don’t get a yearly mammogram.”

At that moment, facing the awful truth that I might die, the last of my rubber spine disintegrated, and from beneath the ruins I felt something entirely new spring up. Fueled by indignation and regret, a steel beam began to take shape. I walked out of that doctor’s office and didn’t look back.

I went home and did some research and found a new surgeon and oncologist who are not only highly skilled but very compassionate. I told my husband that if there’s a chance I might die, I’m going to live every moment from now on the way I want. I began to make changes in my diet, to start an exercise program I’d been talking about for years, and I started writing again.

To my amazement, my steel spine grew stronger through chemotherapy, surgery and radiation. For the first time in my life, I was able to say the word “No!” And I’m proud to say that ability has only improved over the past several years as I’ve slowly regained my strength and kept moving forward on the new path I’ve chosen.

I still volunteer to help family and friends, but I balance their requests against my own needs now. Whenever someone expresses surprise that I refused a favor or turned down an invitation, I tell them, “You know, chemotherapy changes your DNA. I can’t help the way I am now.” I feel no need to explain about the spine replacement.

Changes In Life

Becoming the woman you were meant to be

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