Angie in the Valley of the Dolls

I was eleven when I had my first bout with breast cancer.  I just knew I had it after flipping through the pages of a book I’d found between the mattress of my sister’s bed.  The eleven-year-old me was always finding interesting little objects between my then seventeen-year-old sister’s mattresses.  Perhaps we’ll go into that a bit further in another post.  LOL. My breasts, which at the time were just beginning to graduate past the pimple stage, started immediately causing me pain me as I became caught up in the pages of this bootlegged novel. I had all the symptoms the character had in the book.  I even felt a lump of sorts one time, and then with the chest pains going on...  What was I to think?  Sometimes, I’d hold my hands tight against my tee-shirt with the picture of the Jackson 5 blazoned on the front, and weep in utter despair.  They ached through the character’s drama in the book from finding out she had cancer to ultimately ending her life with an overdose of pills.  I wasn’t suicidal, but I was a very melodramatic kid at the time.  I was empathizing hard with this book's character, and seeing myself as one of the broken dolls in the valley.  Pretty melodramatic.  See any of that in me today?  Just wondering.

The book in question was Valley of the Dolls and it took place in 1966-67 I believe; the character was Jennifer North, a model/actress who literally felt her body and looks were her only assets.  You see, although I've long since understood that the reference to "dolls" in the book were the pills all the characters were popping like M&M's, in my eleven-year-old mind, I saw the female characters as broken dolls because of all their issues.  Pretty deep for a kid huh?  As a side note, thank you Angelina Jolie for showing the world that body and looks and femininity are not compromised after a mastectomy, and that one’s true assets are the intelligence demonstrated in order to make the smart decision to have a mastectomy, or to take other preventive measures for certain cancers.  Times and the thinking about cancer have changed considerably since the 60's and that's a really good thing for sure.

Anyway, back to me.  So here I am at eleven thinking I have this breast disease and not wanting to cause my parents any heartbreak by revealing my terrible news.  I carried this burden alone over the next two years even to the berry picking fields where I’d worked during the summer to save money for clothes.  I’d sometimes feel a pang in the problem area when I’d bend down to scoop up strawberries and would hold a fisted hand against my chest, while picking berries with the other. I just couldn’t bear the thought of losing my breasts like Jennifer in the Valley of the Dolls.  Shoot I’d just got them.  It was like opening up Christmas presents from Santa; receiving what I’d always wanted, and now he’s asking for them back.  Not fair. As I got older and swept up in teen-age-gals drama/trauma – you know boys and all, I kind of forgot about my dilemma.  And then I was diagnosed for real.

Now here I am, a middle aged adult me dealing with the real deal, and the only thing I’m thinking of is my relief that they will soon remove the poison from my body, and if that means removing my breasts so that I can survive, then so be it.  My breasteses (my made up word), do not make up the entirety of who I am.  I must remember that always.  I just want to be healthy again so that I can continue with my life, and the business of making new moments with my family and friends. Can I get an Amen?!


Oh, to hell with them! Let 'em droop!
Jennifer North - Valley of the Dolls


"If children have the ability to ignore all odds and percentages, then maybe we can learn from them.  When you think about it, what other choice is there but to hope.  We have two options medically and emotionally: give up, or fight like hell.

-Lance Armstrong