Brandi M.
Ocean city, MD
In less than a week, I will celebrate my 9 years cancer-free anniversary. Today, while looking for a gift to treat myself to in honor of the occasion, I stumbled upon your Web site … which I adore! I posted it online and I've already chosen a few gifts!! Please, if you can, add my survivor story to the others posted on your site. It would mean a lot. Thank you so much …
My name is Brandi Mellinger and I am an 9-year breast cancer survivor. I was diagnosed when I was 26, went through about a gazillion surgeries, chemotherapy, etc. My mother was also diagnosed at an early age, 28, and she died at 31. I was 11. Turns out my family carries a defect in our DNA that increases our chances for breast and ovarian cancers; either one could strike at any time.
* insert dramatic ‘duh duh duuuuuuh’ here *
It all started in 2002.
That’s not when I found the marble-like lump in my right breast, no one close to me died and my house didn’t burn down. It’s when I lost my job as a bartender. And I didn’t realize it at the time, but that’s when my life started to change. Little things happened, one by one, that made me start to think it was all happening for a reason — things DO happen for a reason.
Just hours after losing that job I was offered a new one because a local bar had fired a bartender the night before and needed a new one to finish out the summer. Weird, right? And person who got me the job was a woman I hadn’t talked to for months, but who, coincidentally, had the notion to call me that day to invite me to happy hour.
After about a month, I did find that damn little marble in my right breast. At the time, I happened to be dating a guy I thought would jet at the mention of cancer and all the glorious things that come with it. After all, what 20-something wants to watch his girlfriend go through surgery after surgery, seemingly endless chemotherapy treatments, hair loss, sickness, you name it?
This guy did. And with my closest family living about five hours away, he not only became my “family,” but he became my best friend.
I didn’t appreciate it, though. I don’t think I meant to, but I took advantage of him — I assumed he would be at every treatment. I expected him to come straight home after work to take care of me. I just knew he would be there and it never crossed my mind that a day would come that he wouldn’t.
But it did.
Because I was diagnosed with breast cancer at such a young age, and my mother had also been diagnosed very young, my doctors tested me for a gene mutation that goes by the name BRCA1 and BRCA2. It’s a screw-up, so to speak, in a person’s DNA that increases her chances of developing breast and ovarian cancer, especially at an early age.
And I tested positive for it. BRCA1, to be exact. Which is why I opted to have a bilateral mastectomy just two weeks after my diagnosis, rather than simply have the lump removed and play a waiting game for the next lump to pop up.
I had immediate reconstructive surgery, which consisted of painful weekly saline injections into “tissue expanders” in my chest that were making way for saline breast implants I would get later (not nearly as fabulous as Hollywood implants). And I had four chemotherapy treatments — just to “make sure” — that resulted in almost immediate hair loss and energy loss.
And then, because life is awesome, a whole new set of doctors found a whole new set of issues — specifically, a brand new, potentially cancerous cyst on one of my ovaries during one of what had since become monthly check-ups to monitor me for ovarian cancer.
I celebrated my new discovery by breaking up with my boyfriend. Told him, “You know what? Maybe I should take this one on alone.” (I’ve realized I’ve never heard anyone call me “smart.” Cute, maybe. Not smart.)
Here’s what I realized:
At 26 years old, I worried a lot about money and car payments and phone bills and rent and how clean my house was and how perfect I looked and how people looked at me and all the things people get so wrapped up in without ever even thinking.
How stupid.
I know it’s cliché, but I take one day at a time now. I don’t worry about the future because I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know how much of that future I’ll even get to see. I do the stuff that makes me happy now.
I saved an e-mail my grandfather sent me a while back, and this is a portion of it:
“Things aren’t always what they seem … Sometimes that is exactly what happens when things don’t turn out the way they should. If you have faith, you just need to trust that every outcome is always to your advantage. You just might not know it until some time later.”
If I could have had it my way, I would have never left that first job. And things would be so different. Cancer would have been completely different. Who knows what my life would have become, how I would have handled it?
I think those things happened for a reason. And I’m certainly not bitter about battling cancer. It was an eye-opener for me and my family — we learned that BRCA1 and BRCA2 do exist, and we are all at risk for carrying that gene mutation. I think I was strong enough to handle the diagnosis at the time, and to be quite honest, I think I needed it the most, given the way I had let the most important things in life drift away without ever really knowing that I had.
Though cancer certainly changed the way I thought about most things, it didn’t change me in the same way if often changes some survivors. I didn’t immediately join the “Let’s Squash Breast Cancer” Army, support groups still make me anxious, and if I’m being completely honest (and why not? Being honest online never hurt anyone …), I can’t stand the thought of wearing a pink ribbon. Telling my story without being asked a specific question scares the bejesus out of me. In fact, telling this story literally took years. It’s be written and rewritten, then hidden on my hard drive for another few months … over and over and over again.
I’ve been called selfish and arrogant and lots of other things (I prefer "Pink Ribbon Rebel). But it’s not like I volunteered for cancer, or to be a spokesperson when all was said and done. I got it when I truly believe I was strong enough to handle it, I went through the necessary therapy and now I’m back in the game. Kind of like spraining your ankle.
In the past year, though, a few things have happened to make me rethink how I view my past. My story could have an impact on another young women who was diagnosed at an early age. My efforts could help fund research for a cure. I could make a difference. Who knows?
So I decided to have my own group — the Pink Ribbon Pinups. A fundraising group that still supports beast cancer awareness, but that does it in a way that young women realize they are at risk just like older women. And that it’s ok .... they can still be beautiful and fun.
And naturally, we wear pink.
One of my favorite authors is Jennifer Weiner. She wrote a book called “Good in Bed” that, although didn’t turn out to be about what I thought it would (ahem …), did make for good reading. In it, she wrote this:
“Things don’t always turn out the way you planned, or the way you think they should. There are things that go wrong that don’t always get fixed or put back together the way they were before. Some things stay broken. You can get through bad times and keep looking for the better ones, as long as you have people who love you.
“Things happen, you know? Things happen and you can’t make them un-happen. You don’t get do-overs, you can’t roll back the clock, and the only thing you can change — and the only thing it does any good to worry about — is how you let them affect you.”
So will my Pink Ribbon Pinups make a difference in the ginormous world of breast cancer? Who the hell knows? But it’s worth a shot.
