That Day...

(6)

Little did I know it but that day when I noticed there had been a change in the appearance of my left breast was the day I would begin to need to draw on all the inner resources I'd been gathering and I would need more and more inner resources as time went on.  To think that one quick glance in the mirror could confirm the thing that women dread was shocking.  Treatment for breast cancer.  There was no doubt at all in my mind what it was but at that stage I had no idea just how much this would test me.  I've always been a "live in the moment" person.  I've never made long term or even medium term plans.   I live for that day and that day only.  I note down appointments and plan those but apart from that I let life unfold as it comes.  Because of that, I've always been a relatively carefree person who never worried too much about anything and now, even though I had something to worry about, my mindfulness meditations came to the rescue.

As soon as my husband saw what had happened, he took over for me and booked me in for  urgent investigations.  Fortunately, I didn't have to go through the long waiting period that I've heard women describe as torture.  I was given an appointment for mammogram, ultrasound and X-rays on the following Monday.  This was Friday so we only had to get through the weekend.  I was so weak by then that my husband had to borrow a wheelchair to take me to the clinic.  That morning was the most arduous, exhausting, painful and traumatic morning you can imagine.  I breezed in (if it's possible to breeze in in a wheelchair!) thinking it would be over with in an hour but I was wrong.  I spent an hour just in the mammogram room.  Each time the radiographer took my films to the radiologist to check that the picture showed up to the best advantage, she would be back again to go through the procedure again, focussing on my right breast, to my bewilderment.  We women of a certain age know that mammograms aren't much fun, that they're something to grit your teeth, get through and go away feeling virtuous over.  The mammograms, at least fifteen of them from all angles, of my right breast were excruciating and they seemed to go on forever.  Mindfulness was impossible.  It was simply a matter of doing as I was told and hoping each time was the last time.

At last I was released from the mammogram room into the dim, relaxing light of the ultrasound room, where I was looked after by a lovely, compassionate lady.  By this time my senses were alerted to the fact that obviously all was not well.  The change in my left breast seemed to be of little interest to the radiographer, sonographer and, it seemed, the radiologist they were in communication with.  Adelie could see I was the type of person who needed to know what was happening and she explained what I was seeing on the screen.  There was a clearly defined tumour in the left breast and she told me the measurements.  It didn't seem to be a big problem but why was she running the ultrasound wand over my right breast for so long and in such detail?  I couldn't see a tumour.  To my uneducated eye, it just looked like a thick mass of tangled strands.  It turned out that that's exactly why Adelie was searching it so thoroughly.  It was a dense mass of malignant tissue and, she explained, almost the entire breast seemed to be full of small tumours mixed in with fibrous tissue.  She was also concerned about the sentinel lymph node as it was enlarged and active.  We spent a further hour investigating this and, meanwhile, the staff had sent off to the mammogram clinic I'd been attending for the past twelve years, conscientiously every two years as advised, asking for my films to be scanned to the radiologist for her opinion.  Adelie then brought the radiologist and my husband in and we had a conference.  I have to admit that I have a memory block of exactly what was said but it was clear I was in trouble and would need a lot of treatment.

By the time the X-rays had been completed I had been there for three hours and I was exhausted, mentally and physically.  We were worried and we knew we had to make some plans very quickly.  We researched breast surgeons and, because mine was an urgent case, I was given an appointment three days later.  The breast surgeon was a brisk, no-nonsense man and quickly summed up my options, of which there was one.  He wrote a list of general options for breast cancer treatment and crossed them all off one by one until he came to mastectomy.  I wasn't surprised.  I had prepared myself.  I didn't like it one bit but I knew it was the only way to save my life, having seen the report sent out to us by the radiologist.  The report, which had also been sent to the breast surgeon, described my cancer as a 2cm primary tumour in the left breast and a large primary mass in the right breast measuring 10cm.  In case you're not familiar with sizes, as far as breast tumours go, this is massive and very, very frightening.

I didn't have the luxury of weighing up options but, on the other hand, perhaps that made it easier to accept the loss of my breasts.  I had no choice if I wanted to go on living for as long as possible.  The life span of a patient with metastatic breast cancer is generally described as 26 months.  I haven't delved into this description very deeply because I choose not to think in terms of statistics.  I choose to think in terms of living as well and for as long as I can and to do that, I was prepared to do exactly what the breast surgeon recommended.   I fully believe I will live for much, much longer than 26 months.  I see a long life ahead of me still and I refuse to think of it any other way.

I was booked in for operation in ten days' time.  Ten days to adjust to this new knowledge and to grieve the loss.... and it is a huge loss.  There's no way of pretending that it really isn't a big deal.  To most women our breasts are part of our femininity and that was definitely true of me.  I cried and cried.  I can honestly say that I never felt self pity.  I didn't say "why me?".  I accepted what had happened but there was no minimising the grief I felt.  My husband and son tried to comfort me but they couldn't understand that the fact that my breasts were killing me wasn't a solace in my grief.  I knew that was the case but I had to be allowed to cry it out and I did.

At this point I'd like to mention that this post is not an exercise in self indulgence on my part.  It's been suggested to me that writing this blog could be cathartic but that isn't my reason for writing it.  My sole purpose for writing is the hope that it might benefit others - men and women - who are going through this.  This is how it felt for me; these are very private feelings but I share them in the spirit of giving a  small insight into how one woman handled it.  Obviously we're not all the same but this is how it was for me.  There is no way to make this particular post entertaining or light hearted.  This was the most difficult event I'd ever been through and I had been through many, many challenges before this.  ~

If you have any questions or suggestions you may email Leapfrog at: positivetrialsblogspot@gmail.com