Graves: This Milford mom's cancer fight is about her kids

MILFORD - To be a mother is to be a protector.

It's just instinct really. To be there when your child falters. To be there to applaud their victories. And eventually, you expect to be there to inhale that oh-too-wonderful sweet smell of their new baby.

That's nature's intent. To see them through. That's the way things are supposed to go, after all.

So it's not surprising that the idea of not being there is what brings tears to Angela Pascale's eyes.

It is an unfair question I ask this 48-year-old Milford mom as we sit on her couch chatting about her stage 3 breast cancer.

Are you scared?

She nods and the tears come.

"I want to be here for my children. I want to see them grow up, graduate, get married,'' she says.

She has no reason to believe she won't be, she says. She will complete her last round of chemotherapy this Friday and the large, hard lump in her left breast she discovered this past summer -- even after having a mammogram just months before -- is now visibly smaller. Tests have not  shown cancer anywhere else in her body. Her type of cancer is not aggressive. Her doctors are optimistic and she is even more so.

"I have cancer,'' she is quick to quip, "but cancer doesn't have me."

"I'm trying to really keep their lives as uninterrupted, as normal, as possible,'' she says.

She met a plastic surgeon Friday to determine how her left breast will be reconstructed after the cancerous breast is removed. She's figuring out how to fit radiation treatments that begin in mid-December around the holidays, her 11-year-old daughter's dance schedule, her 13-year-old son's activities and also around the cake-baking business she and her husband started a couple years back.

Of course. That's what mothers do.

But she has learned how to say yes to the many offers of help.

"I was always the strong one. I always thought I didn't need help, y'know: 'I got this,''' says this now bald-headed, former-red-headed woman who used to work 11 to 18 hours a day. "I don't always have to be the strong one. And when I'm healthy, I'll give back and pay it forward."

The only thing she regrets during her "cancer journey'' is having to cancel a planned family vacation to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios. She's a huge fan, as are the kids.

For now, though, she's focused on getting well. There will be time for the trip.

And that magical bound between parent and child will most certainly sustain her until that day comes.

Chris Graves, who dyed her hair pink in support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month at the beginning of the month, committed to chatting with survivors during October. So, if you are battling breast cancer – or know someone who is – drop me an email at cgraves@enquirer.com.  I might just stop by for a visit and we can share a laugh or two over my crazy fuchsia hair.