Mother, grandmother, librarian, military spouse, family life educator, take your pick! Debbie Legault was born in British Columbia, Canada to a former RCAF airman father and a Scottish War Bride mother and has lived in other Canadian provinces, Germany and California. Her latest role is as the author of “Mom...It's Cancer”, the story of supporting her 27-year-old daughter as they experienced breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Debbie Legault

I love receiving video chat requests from my children. All of them moved away from home at a young age to attend college, so it’s been a joy that technology has advanced to the point that I can see them as we chat. As a mother, being able to see their faces as we talk gives me a touch of feeling that is almost like actually being there. We all do it fairly often, but most often it’s calls between me and Adrienne.

Sometimes when I answer it’s a smiling, joyful face. Those are the conversations that brighten up my day or lately even my week. I hear stories of lovely 29-year-old woman things like dating, the new recipe that’s the bomb, or amazing clothing find at a secondhand store. Sometimes it’s a frustrated face because something is going on in her life that is driving her nuts and she’s looking for advice on how to manage her end of things and she trusts that I will ask just the right questions so she can find the answers she’s looking for. Sometimes, it’s a face crumpled by tears because something in her life has just jumped out at her to say “Hey, remember you had cancer?”

The most recent example happened last month. The weather was supposed to be cool and my daughter thought to herself “I’ll pull out my chemo socks to keep my feet warm." She hasn’t worn the socks since treatment ended, but they were put back in her drawer when she unpacked her chemo bag for the last time.

They are cheerful yellow reading socks that her sister bought her that came with my daughter every single time she was hooked up to an IV on a chemotherapy ward. She pulled them out of the drawer, looked at them, and collapsed on the floor in tears as the memory of how she felt both physically and emotionally undergoing the life-saving treatment washed over her. She couldn’t catch her breath, and when she called, I sat there reassuring her that I was there whenever she was ready while she slowly pulled back enough that she could tell me between sobs what was going on. As we talked through it a plan was put in place for the socks to end up in a firepit in a symbolic show of force to the universe that she will not be defeated.

Since the phone call that changed my life in March of 2019 when I heard my daughter say “Mom, it’s cancer” I still light up when I see it’s her on the other end of a request, and there are times now, for which I am unbelievably grateful when cancer is not front and center in both of our lives. But there has been one big change in how I respond when I see her name on the screen. There is now a self-preservation mechanism that I have consciously put in place because I have to be prepared for anything because if it’s a tearful face in those moments when she is so upset that she can’t speak I have to steel myself to hear “Mom, it’s back."

The steps I take are very similar to the actions that people take when they are having a panic attack, and it helps me immensely to calm my being so that I am ready. The first thing I do is check my surroundings to see that I am in a safe place. If I’m driving or out shopping somewhere, I need to break away from those activities by pulling over or leaving the store. If that is the case, I will message her that I need a few minutes and I’ll call her back. If I am in a safe place, I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths to center myself and to make sure that I am actually breathing, because I noticed in the beginning that I would hold my breath. And once I answer the call, I allow myself the time, in my head, to push back the fear. If that means taking a quick bathroom break and coming back to the conversation so that I can truly enjoy hearing about her latest funny story I do exactly that.

Recovery for a caregiver can be a very long road, and when it’s your child that road is a very bumpy one. Thankfully I can hold Adrienne’s hand as I keep on walking down the path. She is a part of my heart walking around outside of my body, and the helplessness of watching her go through what she did has left me a little bruised and battered. Perhaps a day will come that fear will not be one of the first emotions I feel when she calls, but for now, the experience is much too close for me to let it go. That’s another one of those things I just let be OK.

Articles

A caregiver discusses the challenges of always waiting to hear "the cancer is back."

Always Waiting to Hear The Words 'My Cancer is Back'

Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year, but because we were so far apart from family when my children were growing up, we had to create our own traditions. We built on those year to year, so now we hum with anticipation as the advent calendar windows are opened leading up to the big day.

Recently, however, I was thinking of Dickens’ 

 and his famous three ghosts and how they very much represent my life now. Living in a breast cancer world holding my 29-year-old daughter’s hand both literally and figuratively as we celebrate not only the holiday, but the fact that she is still here.

The Ghost of Christmas Past tells the story of our lives before March 15th, 2019 when life was full of unbridled joy and we lived inside the bubble of innocence at what the future would hold. When the most important dates on the calendar were birthdays, and anniversaries, and parcel delivery deadlines for those little things I’d find in online artisan shops that I knew would light up my children’s eyes on Christmas morning. When my biggest worries were whether or not a snowstorm would prevent a plane from taking off or landing, because I couldn’t wait to hold my children in my arms and breathe them in.When all my Christmas memories were full of laughter, surprise and fun.

The Ghost of Christmas Present is a bit of a different place. There is still joy, there is still the hum of anticipation, but the tune has changed to a slightly more hesitant melody than it was before. Last Christmas my child was recovering from chemotherapy and surgery and looking forward to radiation after the holidays. I remember feeling such gratitude that I could look over and see her sitting there, a spiked eggnog in her hand as we laughed at the antics of her niece and nephew. We both knew that she still had a way to go in her treatment plan, but for just that little while we both lived in the moment—both of us aware of what a very big moment it actually was.

This Christmas the most sparkly eye-catching decoration, our very own Christmas star, is the fact that cancer is not going to be sitting with us at the dinner table as we dig into the turkey and mashed potatoes.She hit one year of remission on December 6th.And when we all look over at her as she laughs and teases her family, she will look like her, the cancer face and bald head left behind as she sports her new style of big earrings and a tiny bobby-pin-supported ponytail behind her head.

The Ghost of Christmas Future has a dark side, but like how the main character of the story changes his fate I am full of hope that science will find a way for my child to be dancing around the Christmas tree for many years to come. Cancer doesn’t offer you a choice when it gifts you with its presence. You are pulled down the road of whatever treatment has worked before in the hope that it will kill the invader.

In Adrienne’s case, it worked, and she is cancer-free—for now. I know that due to its nature, cancer is always going to try to nudge its way into our Christmas celebrations to sneak the last piece of pie, but one big thing my daughter has going for her is she has been given the greatest gift of all…time.

Time for science to catch up. Time for someone to think outside of the box and take a different direction that proves to be the right path. Time for a researcher somewhere who is looking for a cure to find one.Time for hearing the words “It’s cancer” to be followed by a “Pick up this prescription on the way home and you’ll be good in a couple of weeks”.

The timeless tale of A Christmas Carol not only shows us how to be a better person, but how to look at the entirety of our cancer journey and what may lie ahead. 

The Three Ghosts of Christmas For Cancer Survivors

Sometimes the universe can be a funny place. I had my annual physical in late September and as usual my doctor sent me for a screening mammogram. I called the scheduling department and the first available appointment they had was October 8th.

When I got up in the morning of my appointment and opened up my computer, I got a friendly reminder from Facebook asking me if I wanted to share a picture memory with comments from October 8th, 2019.

“I have two things to celebrate today. My big brother has successfully navigated another year of life and my girl finished her last bag of chemotherapy,” was the caption. With my daughter’s chemo bag posted to the site.

When I booked the mammogram, my mind did not allow any part of me to connect it to the emotions associated with that particular date.It was like I was a robot clone of myself writing down the time and location and listening to the scheduler explain the added things I needed to know because of COVID-19 protocols in place at the imaging center.

I sent a message to my husband letting him know I’d need the car, I set an alarm on my phone (as 

 if I don’t do that, I forget very important things) and I went on with my day. The protective mechanisms that had not allowed me to connect the dates before kicked into overdrive when I saw the memory and I transitioned into one of those time-out-of-time moments where you’re there, but you’re really not.

One of the pieces of information I received was that during the time I was away the imaging center had changed locations. I was following GPS directions and as I was driving down the street, I noticed a new building that houses a cancer center affiliated with a major hospital in a large city near to where I live.I felt those little shock sensations… the cold rush, the ringing in my ears, the narrowed vision… start to come upon me as I realized that the imaging center was now in that building. I parked and walked like a zombie towards the entrance and as I walked through the doors—I saw them.

Some of them looking at the phones, some of them heads bent over staring at the ground, none of them making eye contact with anyone else as they sat there while their loved ones were inside receiving what they hoped was life-saving treatment for cancer.

I don’t really remember walking up the stairs or much about the appointment. What I do remember is leaving and wanting so much to walk up to each and every one of them and tell them I understood what it was like to walk in their shoes, that they were not invisible. I wanted to sit with them and run my hands across their backs as they shared their fears with me. I wanted them to feel heard. But I couldn’t because I was using everything, I had to hold back the tears long enough for me to get out of the building. All of the protection my brain had created to wall me off from the memory melted away and I sobbed all the way back to the car, and for a long time after I got behind the wheel. And when I couldn’t stop, I called the only person I could who I knew would get it.

We have a deal with each other when something like this happens. We will call each other no matter the time of day, and so once again we were a Circle of Two which is the safest place we have when we are hit with tsunamis of emotion. She had noticed the date and had made the connection but hadn’t said anything to me. Both of us had retreated into our corners at what October 8th means now and she figured if I didn’t want to bring it up, she wouldn’t either. Thankfully, because she had processed the feelings associated with the coincidence already, she had enough emotional room to help me work through mine.

That’s the thing about the degree of intimacy we created when she was going through treatment.When the core of trauma gets exposed like it did for me on that day, I have no one else who truly understands.The balance of phone calls is about 100 to 1 in my favor but once in a while I’m the one who needs saving and I’m so very grateful that she’s still around to pick up the phone. My heart goes out to those who have not been so lucky.

For more news on cancer updates, research and education, don’t forget to

In the wake of a cancer journey as a caregiver, mammogram appointments have a new meaning, and new emotions, associated with them than before. 

Mammograms Feel Very Different to A Cancer Caregiver

When my daughter, who is in her mid-twenties, was diagnosed with breast cancer I was able to move across the country to live with her during treatment.She told me halfway through chemotherapy that she thought she’d have to move into another apartment when treatment was done because she would see the memories of cancer everywhere.

The couch she curled up on with her bald head in my lap during chemotherapy, the shower she stood in while I helped her wash the half of her body she couldn’t get to because of surgical incisions that had yet to heal or the bedroom she hid in when the realities of her existence were so huge that she had no room for my energy. Her home has always been her refuge from the world and although she loved her apartment, cancer had invaded every inch of that space. She knew it would be impossible to clear it all away.

In the end, she did move not only out of her apartment but to a completely different suburb. She found that the memories that triggered her distress were not only in her house, but they were in the stores we went to, the paths we walked upon to make sure her heart was strong and the roads we drove to get back and forth to the hospital more times than she could count. We both know that she will never be able to completely leave cancer behind, but we are grateful that the rooms she is stuck inside like the rest of us right now don’t have reminders of me rushing her a bucket because it was getting that close.

I was much luckier, because I left all of that behind when she finished treatment and I moved back home. Yet I find that while geography has not put me in the same places, the triggers surround me nonetheless. I can’t escape them. They are everywhere.

They are hanging in my closet. They are on my television screen. They are on billboards I pass on the freeway. They are on the shelves in the grocery store, where I stand in front of an array of products just to see one, we would buy in the hope that it would appeal to her when nothing appealed, tears streaming down my face.

They are in the faces of young women I see as I roll through my days, often having to resist telling them to make sure they check their breasts when they shower—because I know they think it can’t happen to them. They are in a song I hear through my headphones. It freezes me in place as it flashes me back to sitting in a room while IV infusion pumps beeped incessantly, while we waited for a nurse to come and switch a chemo bag.

A cancer diagnosis is a traumatic event for everyone involved, and as with most traumatic events, there are things big and small that pull us back into the distress as if it was happening right now. I have found that when I’m sucked into those black holes two things are very important.

One is to make sure that I tell whoever is with me what is going on. I can go from zero to sixty in less than .08 seconds and it can be shocking to my husband when he turns around and I am weeping over a container of pudding, when a few seconds ago I was laughing with him about something. The other is to let it be okay that I am there. I know it won’t last forever; I know that given some time I will move past the moment.

I tried to fight the emotion at the beginning because I felt like others wouldn’t understand or think I was being a drama queen, and it would build to the point that I would be completely overwhelmed by a small decision and find it hard to function. Now, I let it wash over me as it comes and accept that it’s part of my healing process.If the tears come, I know that as I swipe a tissue across my face as they trickle down some of the despair is wiped away with them.

Nothing ever really ends, even when the treatment journey has wrapped up the memories of cancer are everywhere. 

Debbie Legault | Contributors

Always Waiting to Hear The Words 'My Cancer is Back'

The Three Ghosts of Christmas For Cancer Survivors

Mammograms Feel Very Different to A Cancer Caregiver

Triggers That Remind Me of My Daughter's Cancer Are Everywhere

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