Red Lipstick Rules...Cancer Can't Take That From Me! (A Dedication to Bev)

To say that Breast Cancer is just a disease would be letting the beast off easy. "A disease is an abnormal condition of an organism that impairs bodily functions and can be deadly. It is also defined as a way of the body harming itself in an abnormal way, associated with specific symptoms and signs."(Wikipedia) This is an understatement when you receive a breast cancer diagnosis.

The illness hits its warriors more than once...first with the discovery of the cancer, and second with realization that you may lose all that makes you feel like a woman. First, it may be your hair and eyebrows due to chemotherapy, and then for some, surgery, to either remove your breasts and/or your ovaries. In essence doctors cure the disease by eliminating the presence of estrogen in one's body and cutting (no pun intended) to the core of the things that we women use to define our sexuality and self.

While, I personally was not dealt all of these blows, I have friends who have faced each and every one of them. Beautiful, brave women who have fought and suffered. No matter how may blows we endured, we all stood strong as our health and mortality were challenged along with our womanhood; the disease still has the ability to harm us in more than a physical way.

In my case, I think about my body in a whole different way since my view of the world from my stretcher and hospital bed. Initially, I had anger that my body, which I felt I took such good care of, failed me in the worst way. I also wondered what was going through the mind of my young Oncologist whose wife was just a couple of years younger than me.

Almost 3 years later, I am thankful for a good run outside or a killer spinning class that pushes my body to its limits and leaves me a sweaty mess. But what I am most grateful for is that same red lipstick that I wore before, during and after breast cancer treatment is still worn proudly to symbolize all the disease tried to take from me, but ultimately could not.