Its official. I'm a cancer patient. I've known since the 20th of March 2009.
I've gone to a few doctors who have run several tests, but I'm still in the early stages of information gathering so I don't really know what is going on yet. I had an MRI to see if it has spread, but I don't know the results yet. Right now the diagnosis is Stage I, invasive and ductal. I had to find this out from the plastic surgeon.
I guess its been a looming threat since 2005, and I've been fairly nonchalant about it. I'm STILL pretty nonchalant about it outwardly. Inside, sometimes I'm depressed and sometimes I'm terrified, and sometimes I look on the bright side of things.
I'm depressed when I think of how life altering this could potentially be. It could change my ability to have children (possibly...I don't know if it has spread or not). It could change my physical attributes to something quite ugly (if I'm not at stage I). I've already been to a doctor that threatened to turn my left DD into a B and leave the other a DD until AFTER I have kids and have nursed and THEN take it down to match the first. She suggested all manner of horrible things that I ran screaming from also. I hate that woman.
I'm terrified when I contemplate whether it HAS spread and wonder if I'm really at stage I or something more dastardly. The doctor whom I hate has been giving me information thus far (I'm seeing three others this week) and she is certain that it is a breast cancer only, but I don't trust her. She was also certain that it wasn't a cancer at all. Then she told another doctor that I was enthusiastic about getting a breast reduction when I'm really not. There is no way in the world I'm going to let someone knock me out and then allow that woman to come into the room with a scapel to cut my body. Sometimes, my lymph nodes under my arms hurt. They also swell. Cancer spreads through the lymphatic system...so I'm afraid. Also, my (I hate even typing the word) breasts are always lumpy. I wonder if they are just lumpy because they are or because I have cancer throughout both of them. Scary. What only my cousin Gidgett understood (and my mother) is how scary a cancer diagnosis is for a family member of mine. NO ONE in our family has died from anything other than cancer except an uncle who died young in a mechanical accident. EVERY other death has been from cancer. I can trace this all the way back to my great grandmother. While my grandmother and one of her sisters (there are only the two of them left of 8 children) are still hanging on and threatening to leave earth through good ol' fashioned old age, every other one of their siblings died of cancer. Correction...Aunt Dot killed herself when she found out she had cancer. Of my grandmothers children, only one has died. He had cancer. My mothers brother by her dad died of cancer also. My dad was just treated for prostate cancer. Can a sister just have a heart attack?!?!? I don't even really know if I'd want that to be honest.
With all of that, I can still look on the bright side of things. If it is stage one cancer, I probably won't die from it. I am lucky because they have moved radiation therapy (recommended at the moment) so far forward, that I might not have a horrible looking outcome. I will have a boob job. I probably won't have to chemo and lose my hair and sit out of school. I have health insurance! I will be a survivor.
In the meantime, my feelings fluctuate from one extreme to the other but I can generally think positively about it, or at least not negatively. I work really hard to not think about it at all but you know how your mind can be. The one thing you don't want to contemplate creeps up over and over.. like your tongue over a loose tooth.
My friend from the department (the black gay guy whom I need to give a name but haven't as yet) has been so super supportive and sweet. He has really been amazing. And, I am still slugging it out in the lab while juggling appt after appt after appt. I've told 6 people and the blogosphere, and that is the way it is going to stay until I HAVE to mention it to anyone else. Hopefully I won't. See the next post for exciting retreat highlights
