The Gift — Finding Light in the Shadow of Breast Cancer

By Saumya Lee

October is International Breast Cancer Awareness month. It also marks the 2 year anniversary of my diagnosis of the disease. Here are some pertinent facts about Breast Cancer (BC) that are worth knowing: In 2020, breast cancer became the most common form of cancer worldwide, surpassing lung cancer. It is, globally, the most common cause of cancer death in women. In America, 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with BC in their lifetimes. Different parts of the world are showing a rise in death rates from BC. Globally, breast cancer now represents 1 in 4 of all cancers in women.

In the Fall of 2018, when my routine mammogram led to a biopsy that confirmed cancer, my husband and I were shell shocked. I had no family history of any cancers, no BRCA gene or other common risk factors. To me, this diagnosis felt intentional, malevolent and personal. It seemed like a massive betrayal of my loyalty to a God I’d loved since 5th grade, in allowing such a blow to my life. I felt hurt, not angry. My husband and I were getting ready to celebrate our 25th anniversary. Both our children were away in college and I was looking forward to, and asking God for, new direction in 2019, after all the years of staying home to raise them. I envisioned fresh self-discovery, new ventures, weekday dates with my husband, perhaps using my law degree.…the list was long. Instead, December was spent breaking the news to our girls as they returned home for the holidays. Christmas was an exercise of hope in the blur of stressful, numbing doctors’ visits for further tests to see if the cancer had spread. Our family huddled together, praying, and being prayed for. I stopped asking God why and began asking to please, just let me live.

God, then, gave us two massive gifts for optimism; my PET scan showed no metastasis and MD Anderson Cancer Center, the top cancer hospital in the U.S., accepted me as a patient. On January 9th, I was able to begin my chemotherapy treatment there. Our previous neighbor, a breast oncologist at MDACC, became my primary oncologist, organizing the team of physicians for my treatment plan. Despite all this, privately, I was shattered. In my mind, this discovery of cancer silently growing, a living, insidious thing with no outward symptoms that could have led me to see a doctor early, was abhorrent.

There is indeed, something malevolent about a cancer cell which makes it a remarkable metaphor as to how sin can enter and live in the hidden corners of our lives, ultimately destroying us. Much like small compromises, little betrayals and failures to heed God’s signals that lead us to much larger trespasses, cancer starts with a single cell. Cancer cells ignore signals that normally tell cells to stop dividing. They can invade into nearby areas, evade the immune system’s ability to detect and kill these cells, and trick the immune system into helping cancer cells stay alive, drawing oxygen and nutrients away from healthy cells. (See cancer.gov).

There are many misconceptions about BC, the foremost being that it is one type and thus treated one way. It is, in most cases, a treatable and curable form of cancer depending on the type, stage, invasive/noninvasive, age and other factors. Each patient requires different treatments and is often devastating to women. Everything that makes you a woman can be taken away from you, thus the mental and emotional blows of this disease could last a lifetime. It takes immense courage to endure the treatments and the short/long term side effects of both the disease and the treatments. My heart breaks every time I see very young women at the hospital and I make it a point to pray for them. If you know someone either diagnosed or being treated for BC, don’t tell her about the one you know who: flew to the Bahamas while getting “IV chemo” (really?), has stage 4 pancreatic cancer (and that’s supposed to make me feel better?), took some rare food or drug and is now cancer free (irresponsible and possibly dangerous advice). Usually, it is best just to say a heartfelt “I’m sorry” and be a silent but compassionate, dependable presence. Ways to help will present themselves if you stick around long enough -- accompanying her to appointments and taking notes for her, bringing food for her family, or just visiting to pray and talk, if she so wishes. Above all, don’t write or say “if you need anything, just call me,” shifting that burden to her. I promise you she won’t call. Finally, don’t offer false optimism, saying “You will be fine” because you don’t know that, or “You can fight this”, as if it is a battle — that is completely misleading.

In my case, I saw God working in powerful, wonderful ways. I was incredibly blessed because I had so much love surrounding me: the anxious, all encompassing care from my husband; the personal sacrifices my daughters made to come help me; my two brothers who visited or texted daily to offer strength, close friends and family, both in the US and elsewhere, who called, prayed, helped and cared for us in a myriad golden ways. Through it all, God was showing me how closely He was watching over me and my family. The value of learning scripture, hymns and songs is that, like a bank deposit, you get to withdraw those promises in your time of need. During the months of pain and distress, God’s presence and love was like a tangible light in my darkened bedroom. I had never, in all my years of knowing Him, seen His love quite like this. I had begun the year struggling to see reason, telling myself that if I can accept so many good things from God, I can surely trust Him in adversity. Now I came to truly, fully, realize how very much my God loved me and my family (far more than I loved them!). It was then that I did, what I believe, changed the entire trajectory of my faith and cancer journey; I simply prayed that my life’s fate was entirely His, and the decision was His whether I lived or died. It was a complete letting go of all that I held close, future dreams and hopes for my children and my husband. I didn’t do this in despair, or as a last, desperate measure. Rather, it was my wholehearted trust in His perfect will. I was finally seeing what salvation meant in real terms. My faith, previous to cancer, seemed a pale shadow in the light of 2019. I was fully realizing Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians, which I now pray for you: “…you, being rooted and established in love, may have power,...to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge….”

Things moved quickly from there. In short order, my Oncologist was exultantly informing me that I “had a complete response to chemo” shrinking my tumors. Surgery, radiation and completing the chemo protocol and the final report of remission were borne with the trust that God was in complete control, not me. It was no picnic; I was struggling with a complete loss of taste, neuropathy, stomach problems from chemo, fears of radiation damaging my heart muscle plus a host of other issues. Through it all, I was learning patience, compassion, thankfulness and gentleness. My pastor, himself a cancer survivor, told me that to him, cancer was a gift. Losing everything that is feminine, I retorted, hardly seemed like a “gift” to me. I, later, realized what he meant. Cancer did not and will never become a gift to me. It became, instead, a vehicle through which God, when I was willing to trust Him, gifted me with His vast and tender love, unmatched presence and abundant blessing. In all humility I realize that God has a different path for each one of us. I’ve only to see the multitude of patients at MD Anderson to remember that some cannot be treated, let alone cured. Yet I hope that as you read this, you will discover, that when you put your trust in Jesus, He, alone, is enough. My path led me through a year of cancer followed by a year of a pandemic. We are still waiting to celebrate our anniversary, my remission and milestone birthdays in a glad celebration of thanksgiving. But we wait with joy. For it is by grace that I have been saved, and that, through the gift of faith which Christ Himself has gifted me.

Saumya Lee, J.D., serves on WCIU’s Women’s Institute’s Steering Committee. She resides in Houston and describes herself as “a conduit for the power of God to empower and assist other women of all ages, ethnicities and every diversity.” She is a lawyer and the mother of two daughters, aged 20 and 24. After earning a Doctorate in Jurisprudence from Baylor University, she elected to stay home to raise her family with her husband, an American-born Chinese physician. Saumya delights in serving her church in capital campaigns and interior design. She maintains deep ties with Sri Lanka and has helped to raise funds for its minority Christian community, NGOs, and theological institutes.