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Since moving to DC a year ago, I often find myself wondering if I’ve become disconnected from my friends and family.  I do talk to my friends and family often, but there are times where I forget important things and sometimes, there are things that I don’t even know about.

When I lived in Huntington, 45 minutes from Charleston (where my family lives), they would constantly forget to tell me things.  Your cousin is pregnant, someone is in the hospital, blah blah blah.  I would call to say hello and it was like CNN breaking news, and of course, I would always be indignant (why can’t you tell me my grandmother is in the hospital while she’s actually in the hospital!?).  Or I would come in on a Sunday to do laundry at my grandmother’s house and get the weekend update then.  Oh, you mean you guys all got together for family dinner night last night?  Great.

By moving 300 miles away, it didn’t exactly help the stellar communication we already had set in place.  I do call my grandmother pretty much every Sunday after I read the paper, and I try to talk to my mom once or twice a week.  When she calls and I don’t answer, she becomes worried that I’ve been abducted or murdered or raped (never mind the fact that I live in one of the safest areas of the metro area and regularly walk home from the metro by myself in the late evenings with little to no concern for my personal safety) and she calls 6 more times until I finally pick up.  I try to keep abreast of deaths, births, scandals, events, holidays, and illnesses as best I can.

So when my mom called me this past August to tell me that my grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer, I immediately thought she had known about this for quite awhile and I was just now being told after all the treatments and everything.

The conversation went something like this:

Mom:  So I have something to tell you about your grandmother, but you can’t tell her that I told you because she’ll get upset.

Me:  Is this about her rampant addiction to Tylenol PM?  (Seriously, I swear she’s addicted)

Mom:  ….. Uh…. no.

My grandmother did not tell me about her cancer until about 5 or 6 days after that.  And that’s my family.

I’ve been thinking about this conversation because sometimes I forget that my grandma has breast cancer.  It’s not a particularly dangerous form of breast cancer, it’s very treatable and curable and she probably doesn’t have to go through chemotherapy or anything.  It’s so not a threat that they’ve pushed back her radiation treatments for like 2 months.  My family tends to approach Very Serious Things with humor and making fun of each other, so my mom threatened to buy my grandmother a barrage of pink ribbon merchandise for her birthday.  We are not one of those sentimental families.

Seeing that October is breast cancer month, I tend to think of the cancer a little more than normal.  She’s undergoing radiation therapy until mid-November and she says it’s nothing.  And I believe her.  But part of me wonders if she’s scared, if she’s thinking of her best friend Melissa who died of breast cancer in the early 90s, and how we did all of those breast cancer walks in her honor.

(embarrassing sidenote:  Melissa had cancer for quite awhile before she passed, so breast cancer became a second-nature topic in our household, and my grandmother had stacks of little plastic “How to give yourself a breast exam” placards with things like IMPORTANT written all over it.  I vividly remember trying to give myself a breast exam when I was 8, even though I had no breasts.  Safety first, kids.)

And I also am thankful for my grandmother’s vigilance for her health, and I am eternally apologetic for any jokes I may have made about my grandmother seeing her doctor more than she sees me (though that’s true).

And so, in the middle of breast cancer month, I implore you and any of your loved ones to get a breast cancer screening.  Catch it early.  Get it cured.  And by all means, please inform your family in a timely manner of any possible outcomes.  Even if your family lives 300 miles away.