A crack has streaked its way across the middle of my old Chevy Traverse’s windshield.

As Youngest Daughter now calls it “her” vehicle, I figured the safe thing to do would be to get it fixed. To have a complete view of the road, you have to look over the crack or under the crack. 

I am reminded of high school yearbook signing days, with some doofushead turning the book on its side and writing, as close to the page binding as possible, “Over the years when you look back, I’m the one who signed your crack.”

Well, today I’m reflecting on my own crack. 

The initial damage was done on the day I was returning from my first appointment for a suspicious spot in one of my breasts. I’m not too superstitious, but the resulting impression from a tiny rock looked an awful lot like foreshadowing of what was to come. 

It looked like a blown-out breast, pardon my description.

I don’t mean to shock or to sound disrespectful, but health issues, doctor appointments, tests, and waiting for results can either make you shut down or gear up, usually a blend of both.  And as I like to cultivate serendipity in all parts of life, writing about this is too good to pass up.

Within a few weeks, a crack had started snaking its way across the windshield, along with another needle-like fracture to the left. It was now imitating the stereotactic biopsy, where a needle is inserted during a mammogram to remove a small piece of tissue. The initial results were benign. 

Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

Not so fast there. According to the radiologist, architectural distortions are nasty things that need to be removed. There was still a chance that inside that unusual imaging, there could be a cancerous core.

And so, I was left with an excision scar, literally about the same length of the crack at that point.

And by the end of the week, I had received a call from the surgeon with the pathology results, which indicated that it was, indeed, breast cancer.

A small thing, though. Stage 0 DCIS. Hormone positive. I should be thankful it was caught early.

I had time to decide what to do. There were clear margins. The thing was only 3 mm. 

The crack, with the fluctuations in temperature and cold winter days, expanded to reach almost the length of the entire windshield.

I bet you can’t guess what came next.

I opted for a bilateral mastectomy with a prepectoral implant reconstruction. 

I now have long scars, but there is no more lumpy tissue to be a future garden for cancer to sprout and bloom. Technically, due to a strong family history with no as of yet detected genetic mutations, my risk for future breast cancer has been reduced by 90%. Not 100%. There will always be a chance that it could return.

So I’ve got to keep my good humor about me and continue with the appointments.

Now there’s another funny thing to write about. When folks know what you’ve had done, they get interested. 

They start looking. 

A few appear to look over it, trying to maintain eye contact with me. A few go below, as if they’re looking down at the ground. But they can’t help it. Eyes are drawn to the front view. 

I’ve had a few people, mainly women, not even try to avoid looking at my chest. 

Are they thinking of themselves? What if, the next time, they are the ones who get the bad news? 

Do I mind the sideways glances and the obvious looks? Nah, not really. Appointments and tests desensitize you to some things. At least I’ve got my clothes on, and nobody has the laser vision to see beneath to the real thing. Plus this all started back in September. I’m ready to have it mostly in my rear view.

And if my story can help someone else who has to make hard decisions, then so be it. We can still look on our tough times with lightness and levity. The very worst thing that could happen to me would never be a surgery or a treatment.

It would be losing the ability to look at this often fractured life with a sense of humor that almost always ensures a return to a new kind of completeness.

All things can be made new.

Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

Both scarred breasts and windshields.

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A last photo, also taken the same day of that first appointment. I was walking the dog, reflecting on the day’s events, when I came across a funny looking mushroom.