I vividly remember the exact moment when I started to worry about the lump I'd found in my right breast. It wasn't, oddly, the moment I first found it, a couple weeks before, while sitting on my sister's futon in Maui watching tv surrounded by her cats. (At that time I wasn't even convinced I'd really found anything worth noticing, and told myself I'd call my doctor if I still felt it in a few days or a week)
It wasn't even when I went in for a breast exam and the nurse practitioner recommended getting imaging done. She seemed a little out of her depth and it seemed standard to get it checked out, whatever this was.
The next day I was driving when I got a phone call. I saw the number pop up with the "healthcare" label, and I knew it must be Kaiser calling to schedule my the mammogram and ultrasound, and immediately pulled off into the nearest parking lot to answer it so I could safely look at my calendar. We settled on a date and time (for about a week from then) and it was as I ended the call that suddenly the dread and anxiety dawned on me. Shit, ok. I had something worrisome enough to get imaging done. And, I was either getting better at finding the lump, or it was getting bigger (or both), because it felt more noticeable each time I checked to see if it was still there.
(I drive by this parking lot all the time, and think of this moment every time I pass by it)
I hadn't mentioned the lump to anybody yet. I didn't want to tell anyone, because that would mean it was Something To Tell. Plus, I didn't want to worry people in the very likely event it turned out to be nothing.
But... I also realized I kinda needed to tell someone.
Now, something I'm learning about the ways my emotions sometimes work is that, for better or worse, I can do a decent job of just kinda putting my worries/fear/anxiety/etc into a box and setting it aside when I need to. I don't know that this is healthy (particularly when I don't realize I'm doing it)... however it certainly is useful, especially when I have people I'm taking care of, for whom I need to stay calm and collected. During that week or so between the scheduling call and imaging appointment, I still felt relatively calm, at least on the surface... but I could feel this tension and worry below the surface, not really prepared to deal with it but knowing I would need to eventually. And I think I realized I needed at least someone to provide some support, to not be alone with this feeling.
I had plans to visit a couple of dear friends, and as soon as I made the decision to tell them about this, I could feel the damn beginning to burst. I managed to hold it together just long enough to get out the words, "So a couple weeks ago I found a lump..." and then promptly I burst into tears. Bless their souls, they held me and let me talk and cry and get it all out and were the exact kind of support I needed right then. They did a lot of that over the coming months, and I'm eternally grateful for that space and support.
Confession: at this point I wasn't even really thinking about the C-word (at least not consciously...see above about putting my fears in a box to not deal with them). Sure, I knew that was a possibility, but I also knew that the vast majority of lumps that get imaged and even biopsied are benign, and it seemed really, really unlikely and not worth (consciously) considering. What I kept thinking about instead was the desmoid tumor I dealt with a little over 10 years ago. That wasn't technically cancer, but it was an aggressive growth so needed to be cut out, and ensuring good margins meant cutting out a decent chunk of my ab muscles leaving a noticeable concave spot. So I kept thinking about that happening to my boob, which wasn't terribly ample to begin with, and having a big scar, and just feeling scared and overwhelmed about possibly needing surgery and recovery, and of my breast being deformed as a result.
Is it weird that I was worried about vanity instead of, like, properly fearing for my life? Was that my brain protecting me, not letting me go go there and face the actual scary shit? I don't know. But that's where I was at.
When I went in for my mammogram, they had these like one room dressing room stalls where they had me change into the cloth gown, and had me wait inbetween things. I did my mammogram, which was normal enough (as far as I could tell, it was my second ever), then I went into the room to wait a bit. Then they took me to a small dark room to do the ultrasound.
They checked the spot with the lump, and then they spent a lot of time looking at something in my armpit which confused me because that's not where my lump was, but I didn't ask about it. Eventually a doctor came in and said that they wanted to do a biopsy of the lump, and of one of my lymph nodes. I asked if I needed to make an appointment for the biopsy, and she said, "No, we're going to do it now, today."
I still didn't know to be scared. I thought that was maybe standard practice.
I went back into the little waiting/changing room and sat there for a long time, I don't know how long it really was but probably close to an hour, maybe more, just sitting there in my gown, mindlessly browsing on my phone, while they scrambled to find someone who could perform a biopsy on me because it was, apparently to them (but unbeknown to me), that urgent. They did keep coming back to check on me and reassure me that the biopsy was "just to be safe." I believed them.
Finally they led me to yet another room and had me lie down, and injected me with the numbing shots which hurt like hell for about 30 seconds and then blessedly didn't feel like anything at all after that. The same nurse had been with me for all the things that morning and she was very sweet. The doctor explained what he was doing and why and went through all the things, and at the end he asked if I had any questions. I almost said no, but then I built up the courage to ask the question I'd been refusing to freak out about... "So, is it common to take a sample from the lymph node, as well? Is this a bad sign?"
The doctor paused and looked at me and said, "It's not uncommon, but I'm going to be straight with you. The lump and your node both look pretty suspicious. I think you should be prepared for it not to be good news."
Well, fuck.
The very sweet nurse handed me a tissue.
I thanked him for his honesty. I appreciated it, really. I'd rather just know the hard thing and move on to figuring out how to deal with it. He put some steri-strips on the biopsy sites (which ended up bleeding through and onto my bra, lovely), I dried my eyes, thanked them for everything, got dressed, and made it back to my car before I sobbed, finally opening up to the reality that I Might Have Cancer.
I think it was after that that I went home and started googling everything I could find about breast cancer (which is usually not advised, but honestly information calms me so it mostly helped...? I also wanted to know what they were talking about when they called with biopsy results). I also finally told Zach. Before that point, I'd wanted to keep this worry separate from my normal daily bubble as much as I could. But suddenly, the probabilities were different than what I'd believed that morning, and if this biopsy came back positive he and I had a lot to prepare for and deal with.
Here's a funny thing about the story, and part of why I appreciated the biopsy doctor's candor. After that biopsy I was about 80% convinced I had cancer, and that it was in my lymph nodes, which isn't awful but makes for a trickier prognosis. So when I got the call a couple days later confirming that yes, I had cancer, BUT!!! my lymph node was clear, it honest to god felt like a relief. The worst was confirmed, except it was slightly better news than I'd been expecting. Expectations make such a difference sometimes.
I first felt the lump sometime in late-ish June. The imaging and biopsy happened on July 10. I got the call just two days later, July 12. I met with my surgeon and oncologist just over a week after that, to talk about tests and results and chemo and surgery and what decisions we would make when. I had an MRI, another biopsy, port install, so much bloodwork, and then started chemo on Aug 1, just under three weeks from the day I got the call with my diagnosis. Looking back, it all happened at lightning speed... At the time, of course, the whole process felt like it took an eternity, waiting for each piece of new information and trying to figure out just how bad this was going to be. I'm grateful for the speed and efficiency of the whole process, and how every doctor, nurse, and tech I encountered were all kind and helpful and patient with my questions. They helped make a shitty time a bit more manageable.
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