Reflections by Suzanne Sadowsky
infusion. I was home sick in bed for three or four days and then went back to work on Monday or Tuesday until the next treatment. I was lucky. I beat the odds. I was in remission and after five years the cancer had not returned. I had survived. But then four decades later, a routine mammogram discovered a small malignancy that had developed in my right breast. A new cancer -- a small but aggressive tumor which was treated again with a lumpectomy followed with chemo and weeks of radiation. After the breast cancer diagnosis, Kaiser recommended genetic testing to see if I had a BRCA gene mutation that is frequently a predictor of breast, ovarian and a number of other genetically related malignancies. The purpose of the genetic test would determine if I was a carrier of the gene mutation that could be passed on to future generations. Genetic testing also provides statistical data to medical researchers that could help with early diagnosis, early intervention and preven- tion. I’m certain that the medical scientists who use AI must have this on their agenda. So here I am – alive and well. Not only have I lived to see my daughter grow up into an amazing, beautiful woman but also I get see my grandchildren, Sadie and Jacob, becoming kind, intelligent and thoughtful young adults. Every day is a gift and I am filled with abundant gratitude for my life to the medical team at Kaiser -- to Dr. Thomas Ewing, my surgeon at Kaiser in Oakland and Dr. David Lakes, my new oncologist in Marin who BTW decided to move to the Valley. Since his retirement David has joined the Board of Directors of the Community Center. But there is a chronic medical condition that I have dealt with my entire life: obe- sity. I have been fat from the time I was a little baby. I became a chubby toddler, a very fat little girl, an overweight teenager and a morbidly obese adult. I’m still overweight, but not as fat as I was ten years ago. It is known that obesity correlates with increased serious medical problems and physical disabilities –heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure. Equally serious is the psychological damage and emotional distress experienced by fat children, teenagers and young women. Finding nice, age-appropriate clothes that fit were a real problem. Being weighed by the school nurse in front of everyone in my class was terrifying. Being fat is a stigma in our society. It is shameful and embarrass- ing. Fat people suffer from job discrimination, body dysphoria, social isolation and ostracism. When I was growing up teen-age boys and young men didn’t want to be seen going out with a fat girl. When I was in the third grade the school nurse told my mother to take me to see the family doctor who put me on a strict diet. I graduated to prescribed diet pills –amphetamines which I took throughout high school and college. I did every diet imaginable: Grapefruit and hard boiled eggs, Atkins, liquid fasts. I continued on prescribed speed well into my 30s. I joined Weight Watchers multiple times and attended OA (Overeaters Anonymous) and FA (Food Addicts Anonymous) meet- ings. I weighed myself daily. My sense of well-being depended on my bathroom scale. Food and weight was an obsession. I yo-yoed—sometimes losing consider- able amounts of weight and then gaining it all back as my body reacted to starva- tion mode when I went off a diet. I didn’t succumb to bulimia or anorexia like many young women who starved themselves in order to escape the humiliation and criticism from their mothers, the snide insults from their dads, and ridicule from their peers. Thinness was a societal obsession. Twiggy was the ideal fashion icon of the 60’s. “You can never be too rich or two thin.” was the motto for a suc- cessful life. Things have gotten better for fat people in recent years thanks to bariatric sur- gery and Ozempec. There also seems to be a growing acceptance of larger people among our population as women and men are growing into our aging, flabbier bodies. There is increased understanding and acknowledgement among medical professionals that obesity is a complex medical condition related to multiple fac- tors: genetics, life-style, availability of healthy food choices and income. It is not just a matter of laziness or a lack of willpower that makes and keeps some people fat. So as you can tell by now, this story has a happy ending. I am one of the lucky ones that survived ovarian cancer. Five years later after my initial diagnosis I was cancer free and Heather was getting ready for her Bat Mitzvah. I told the rabbi, Rabbi Dalfin, about my experience with cancer and my recovery, Rabbi Dalfin said that it was a miracle that I survived. I said what do you mean it was a mira- cle? It was because that I had a good surgeon and chemotherapy. He responded: “That was the miracle.” Life itself is a miracle and everybody and every living thing dies. At my age I have come to accept my body with all its battle scars. It has supported me for nearly a century. Fifty-two years ago before my ovaries were surgically removed, my body allowed me to create new life. I feel blessed to be in good health despite the everyday minor infirmities that come with old age. I am grateful that I can still drive my car and because of arthritis, I have a handicapped placard so that I can more easily find a place to park when I am out and about. I am brimming with gratitude that I am able to read and think, and to speak and write my truth, and to love. And I am grate- ful to our San Geronimo Valley community where I am able to age in place with friends and family nearby in a life that continues to offer me meaning and purpose.
To Life, L’Chaim For my entire adult life, writing has been an essential part of every job I ever had and I became really good at it. I wrote press releases, articles, reports, grants, fly- ers brochures, newsletters, and more. But about a decade ago, around the time I turned 80, I decided that I wanted to learn how to do more personal writing about myself and my life story. I enrolled in a Community Education class at the College of Marin with Melanie Vetter, a wonderful and inspiring teacher. When Covid hit and COM classes were discontinued I learned that Melanie’s class was being offered on Zoom by West Marin Senior Services. I enrolled and at the end of the eight-week class a small group of us from the Valley decided to meet in person. We’ve been meeting every two weeks ever since, telling our very personal stories in a trusting, safe, and very supportive space in the Living Room at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center. I spend many hours in that small cozy gathering place, a room for all of us in the community to use for meetings, Mah Jong, movies, knitting and sometimes even just sitting down and resting for a few minutes. A few of us in our writing group have found the courage to share our writing with a larger audience, live on stage at Kate’s Café at the Community Center or at 10 by 10 at the Dance Palace. The Center’s Elders Connect electronic newslet- ter now includes a link to some of our writings. For some, our writing has been mainly for our families so that they would know more about their roots and ancestry, and one member of our group has created a self-published book to give to his children and grandchildren. For most of us, the experience has been one of internal discovery as we unearth old memories and gain insight into who we are now at this time in our lives. We are supposed to bring something to read to the group about once a month, but after all these years of memoir writing I often struggle to come up with something new to write about. However, I do manage to get something down on paper about once every three months. I wonder if I just keep repeating myself-- telling the same stories over and over again. I worry that I have become tiresome and boring, going on and on, telling the same stories again and again. Stories that only I think are funny or interesting. But since my deadline for my Stone Soup column was looming and I hadn’t man- aged to come up with anything new to write about, I decided to look back at some of my old stuff and see if there was something that I could recycle, look at from a different angle, with a new lens and a new perspective. Times have changed and so have I. I wondered if my added years might offer greater wisdom and insight into my earlier thoughts and feelings. The piece that came to mind to review, renew, and maybe recycle was called My Body and My Health that I had written in 2018 and revised in 2021 with a new title My Body is a Battleground . I won’t bore you and repeat everything that I wrote back then, but here is the gist of what I wrote then and what my thoughts are now, today, about my aging body as an almost 90-year-old woman. Like most of us of a certain age, I have suffered through a variety of everyday maladies – allergies, broken bones, rashes, hay fever, coughs, colds, the flu, etc. But in 1980 everything changed. It was in December, a week after my 45th birth- day when I started feeling not well. I had a number of symptoms that could have been related to any number of ailments. I was tired. I felt bloated, had indiges- tion, no appetite, but I was gaining weight. I thought it might be because I was menopausal. My waistline was growing and my clothes didn’t fit. I knew some- thing was wrong. The first internist I saw at Kaiser examined me and couldn’t find anything specific. He ordered a few blood tests and said to come back in a month and really try to lose some weight, that I would feel a lot better. FYI-- weight gain and the buildup of abdominal fluid is known to be one of the indica- tors of ovarian cancer. But I was fat and obesity make it harder to examine and diagnose some illnesses and diseases. A month later I had gained more weight. My doctor consulted another physician and agreed to order a CT scan. It revealed an abnormality in my ovaries and I was referred to Dr. Thomas Ewing, the chief of gynecological oncology at Kaiser in Oakland. He was an extremely caring and compassionate man. He told me that while they couldn’t be sure until they did surgery and a biopsy, it was very likely that I had advanced ovarian cancer. And when I asked about the prognosis, he said that my chances of survival were less than one in three. I remember leav- ing his office and going down to the parking garage. I found my car, got in and shut the door and for 20 minutes I just sat alone in that car and screamed at the top of my lungs. Heather had just celebrated her 7th birthday on December 13th and here I was alone so very frightened for both of us. I was experiencing fear and trembling and the sickness unto death. I had surgery in March and had to remain in the hospital in Oakland for three weeks. The next 12 months was a harrowing time – a year of surgery, chemo- therapy and then a second surgery the following March. I wore a wig in public to cover my bald head and when I went to work in the Federal Building in the city. I went into the hospital overnight on a Thursday every four weeks for a chemo
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