May was in her early 30s when she was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. When we met, she was using a wheelchair, no longer able to walk due to spinal metastases. May described herself as “an open book.” And, indeed, she generously shared her life’s story with me and with others in the weekly cancer support group I was leading.
May had experienced a difficult childhood in which she’d endured horrific physical and emotional abuse. She ran away from home at age 16 and spent the next few years living on the streets and in homeless shelters. She turned to prostitution to support a drug habit in her early 20s. At age 28, she was hospitalized for a serious infection related to her intravenous drug use.
While in the hospital, she had an encounter with a kindly nun that drastically changed her life. This meeting led her to enter rehab and then move into a home for women in recovery. By the time she was diagnosed with cancer, she’d been clean and sober for five years, had obtained an associate’s degree in early childhood education, and was working as a teacher’s aide in a preschool for children with developmental disabilities.
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