Having surgery

In 1958 or 1959, we were told by our parents that Mom was going to go into the hospital to have a lump removed from her breast. We lived in Thornton, Ontario at the time. Of course, I was completely ignorant of what this actually meant to my parents. They treated it as if it was nothing for us to worry about. Only as an adult would I realize that this must have been a huge event in my mother's life. She was in her mid thirties and was about to undergo surgery to have a lump removed from her breast. At that time, women went into the surgery not knowing if they had breast cancer or not. If they did not have cancer, they woke up from the surgery and were reassured that the biopsy of the tissue showed the lump was benign. If the biopsy proved that the tissue was cancerous, the woman would wake up without a breast or two breasts plus the muscle tissue under her arm/arms would have been removed. At that time, I don't believe anyone had the option of having a biopsy and then deciding later what kind of treatment she wanted for breast cancer. I never asked Mom how she felt about that "simple" procedure. Even though I was aware of how traumatic this surgery was for women, I do not think that I even remembered that moment standing in the kitchen in Thornton and being told Mom would have surgery. She was certainly a courageous woman. She showed that strength and courage frequently in her life.