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| Seeds of Death |
Sometimes life is a body slam, coming out of nowhere. I was just going about my usual innocuous routine, when bam!, an event knocked the wind out of me.
“It’s cancer,” the radiologist informed me after a biopsy.
I really didn’t want to go to cancer land. It is an alien, dark, menacing place. Not the words I wanted to hear. Ever.
The biopsy procedure had been unpleasant. Normally, I tried to avoid doctors and tests unless absolutely necessary. Now I was sucked into a situation with no control. Medical people lie that’s it’s only “little pinch,” or“it won’t hurt,.” The test was supposed more tolerable than in the past. As the radiologist, guided the needle through the tissue, I felt searing pain. My skin broke out in a rash. The ordeal made was tiring.
I had never had this result before with the many mamograms, ultrasounds and biopsies I had had over the years. Biopsies had involved sticking a needle in the tissue, guided through mamography, and punching out a ribbon of flesh. The nagging thought in the back of my mind every time was maybe something is wrong, but it never was. Until now.
I got a mamogram every year because my mother and sister had breast cancer and my father esophageal cancer. Still, I didn’t smoke or drink heavily like they had, so I assumed my healthier lifestyle might spare me. Or at least, I hoped it would. The results this time showed something suspicious and a biopsy was needed to see what it was.
The cancer was small, slow growing and isolated, but still a seed of death. The radiologist said surgery and radiation was necessary, but probably not chemo. I was lucky in that regard.
The cancer cells were the type that responded to hormones. This meant I had to give up hormone replacement. Hormones made me feel better, less depressed and have more energy. They made hot flashes disappear. Without drugs, the hot flashes came back, got more numerous and intense. I woke up several times at night drenched in sweat. The sense of well being was gone and I mourned the loss.
It meant that Aromatase Inhibitors would be a suggested treatment. This drug sounded like a bad idea. A brief internet search revealed nasty side effects like joint pain and hot flashes, which I already had too much of. Maybe it would prevent recurrence of cancer in exchange for being miserable for five years. This could be a poor trade off, especially since I only had two tiny seeds of death.
The next steps was a breast MRI and seeing a surgeon after the pathology report was done. MRI’s are claustrophobic and very noisy. This procedure required me to lay face down and not move. While it wasn’t physically uncomfortable, the confined space made me panicky. I had on headphones that faintly played music, except when the technician talked. The music wasn’t calming. I had a panic button to push, but the technician ignored it despite my numerous times that I pushed it. When the machine moved over me, and loudly banged continuously, I desperately wanted out and felt like I was suffocating. I kept telling myself that “it’s only temporary”, while hyperventilating the whole time. At least the result of that horrible experience showed that the cancer hadn’t spread.
WHAT THE HELL DOES IT ALL MEAN?
I alternated between anxiety and depression, thinking about the unknown future. The surgery and treatments sounded painful, exhausting and. detrimental to my mental health, fitness and body. A side effect of radiation was fatigue and sometimes skin burns. Radiation was every weekday for a month. Slice and burn me in order to be cured? My routine would be disrupted and I had better things to do, like an upcoming ironman race and a trip to Maryland to see my daughter.
My attitude might have been different if my cancer was more advanced, but it was early stage. I didn’t want weight gain, joint pain, fatigue or skin burn. Some of the treatments seemed like over-kill and the necessity of them was hard to accept. Modern medicine was my enemy more than the cancer.
The whole situation felt surreal. Instead of being a healthy person, suddenly I was diseased. Normalcy had disappeared. It was hard to grasp the idea of being weak and vulnerable.
I felt utterly alone. Who to tell and when was a dilemma, until I saw the surgeon and discussed a treatment plan. Giving someone bad news is a downer and rather awkward. Maybe they really didn’t want to know. The whole “you poor thing” was repulsive and I didn’t want the attention. Setting up the surgery could take a while. Why tell someone and let them worry a long time?
Still, the knowledge that this drastic life changing event was a burden that I wanted to ease. The temptation was to tell someone, even if they didn’t want to know about it. I kept my mouth shut for a while, but it was difficult not to share the turmoil.
Deep down, I knew that I would eventually be fine, but that the journey would challenging. Pain and discomfort awaited. The body assault loomed.
NEXT: SURGERY
