A giver learns to receive

By NANCY KIMBALL

The Daily Inter Lake

It wasn't so much going bald that bothered Susan Christofferson.

It wasn't even losing a breast to cancer that sideswiped her.

It was one outcome of what she called going "shiny," losing all the hair from her skull, her eyebrows, her eyelashes.

"Nobody told me about the nose hairs," she exclaimed.

Christofferson, the executive director of The Nurturing Center in Kalispell, discovered that, along with all the rest, her nose hairs fell out as a result of her chemotherapy. That mattered because, to put it delicately, she suddenly discovered a need to carry a tissue with her everywhere she went.

"Those nose hairs perform a pretty important function," she said with an impish grin.

Despite two years that brought a car crash, a broken back, a broken shoulder and breast cancer to Christofferson - who a few years back had been diagnosed with Type I diabetes and the auto-immune thyroid deficiency known as Hashimoto's Disease - she considers herself a pretty lucky woman.

She also manages to see something that tickles her in most situations.

"Finding the jewel in adversity," she explained it. "Your attitude makes all the difference in healing."

Now, landing a $300,000 federal grant for the center to expand and improve its supervised child visitation is as much foundational to her healing as it is frosting on the cake.

Christofferson would rather start by talking about the center's new program.

It's called Safe Havens, a project funded by the two-year renewable grant from the federal Office on Violence Against Women.

The program provides the personnel and a place for supervised parent-child visits when ordered by the courts, or when necessary because of family dysfunction or other child safety concerns. Christofferson and her crew have provided these services for years, but the newly leased facility and other grant-funded initiatives solidify the program.

Christofferson collaborated with the Violence Free Crisis Line to submit a proposal in January 2005.

"We got the grant on October 1," she said. "We were literally up and running on October 2."

She's excited for the new facility, for the child-centered program, for the safety and educational opportunities the grant provides.

It fits with the work The Nurturing Center has been doing in the 27 years since Christofferson became one of the original incorporators. Each of them shared a vision for showing those in need how to navigate the patchwork of available support services. She first volunteered, then went on the payroll, then became its executive director.

"You don't count the time when you're just excited to walk up the steps on the front porch every day," she said, gesturing to the front entry of the comfortable old home that serves as the center's offices.

Her sense of purpose there has proved essential to her survival over the past 20 months.

Things began changing for her early on the morning of May 11, 2004, as she was driving along the Swan Highway.

Apparently, she said, low blood sugar combined with her thyroid condition to shut down her system at a most inopportune time.

She's still not sure what happened next, but she woke up with a broken right shoulder and a broken back. She spent the entire summer in a clamshell, a hard-sided body cast that she describes as a "giant bustier," while her lumbar vertebrae healed.

During her time in the clamshell, her right nipple became inverted. She noticed it, but the medical professionals dealing with her broken bones thought it was nothing more than a side effect of the clamshell's compression which would return to normal after she was flexible again.

The clamshell eventually came off, but the nipple did not right itself.

In April 2005, while doing her breast self-examination, she felt a lump beneath that nipple.

Within days, she saw her doctor, got a mammogram, had a biopsy and received a diagnosis of Stage 2 cancer. The 3-centimeter tumor had spread to three lymph nodes under her arm.

A modified radical mastectomy removed 13 lymph nodes as well as her breast, but left most of the muscle tissue.

A visit to the oncologist then launched eight rounds of chemotherapy over the next 24 weeks.

"That's when I became bald. People began telling me, 'You have a lovely head,'" she recalled. "That's when I started to wonder if they just don't know what else to say, or if I do have a lovely head."

So she decided to roll with it, forget about wearing a wig and just don a hat to keep her head warm while outside.

"I gave myself permission to deal with being different, of looking different."

Being that public with healing is not for everybody, she said, but if she could be a role model to some, so be it.

She then went through 6 1/2 weeks of radiation, finishing two days before leaving for a Christmas visit to her children in California.

Next, she said, will come a yearlong treatment with "this exciting new drug," Herceptin, which has been shown to decrease chances of cancer returning.

"I'm one of the lucky ones to be a candidate for it," she said.

She may, however, feel most lucky because of the people in her life.

"I have the best friends in the universe," Christofferson said. "They got together and took care of me."

Two summers ago her plans were to paint her house. But, caged in a clamshell, that was out of the picture. So this past summer, a group got together and did the job. Christofferson pitched in on her good days.

Shortly afterward, Bill and Diane Yarus of Airworks Inc., discovered her 57-year-old furnace was hardly repairable. So they gave her a new one, installed it, and brought in another crew to insulate her home.

"I can hardly talk about it," she said, wiping away the tears. For a chronic giver, she said, receiving is not easy.

Dr. Michael Goodman and the Glacier Oncology staff treated her "with dignity and respect despite the fact that you're going through something that strips you of dignity," she said.

"And so many people are praying for me - Lutherans and Catholics and Baptists and Buddhists," she said. "That is very important."

Simply being in The Nurturing Center daily, where she can give back a measure of the kindness she has received, is therapeutic.

Her health insurer of 20 years dropped her coverage on Oct. 1, but her agent scrambled to find another company. The coverage is much different and her accumulated bills are sizable, but she figures her home has curb appeal and could be sold if needed.

Christofferson expects to get her full energy back in another six weeks or so.

She doesn't spend a lot of time any more wondering about the cancer.

"I got it because that was my destiny and I was to learn humility and use it to help others," she said. "If you learn something you don't have to leave it empty and you can take something with you."

She is stilled by the Yaruses' generosity, her friends' helpfulness, her staff's competency and cheerful willingness to carry on the work of the center when she's out.

She admitted that she is changed from the cancer.

"It makes me want to be the very best I can," she said. "I want to be a better person, to dedicate myself to the community. How else can I show my gratitude?"

Then a twinkle came into her eye, and she added one last thought.

"I'm looking forward to a summer with hair and no clamshell."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com