So it took a week between meeting with my primary care doctor to meeting with the new doctor. During that week I did what every other red blooded American would do, I Googled the shit out of breast cancer. First off, I didn’t realize there was more than one type. The language being spoken on the sites were like a foreign language. Folks talking about having stage IIA, HER2 cancer. Or progesterone BC. But what I was able to dig out was that my tumor was only 1 cm in size, so therefor I walked away with my honorary doctorate in breast cancer from Google. I (thought) knew that we caught it early, that they would just auger that little bitch out, maybe radiate me a little bit, and by the 1st of the year – I would be fine, a distant memory this little blip in my life. I started processing and dealing by humor, sarcasm, and back to avoidance. I didn’t want to call my parents, or any of my other family or friends. Talking about it made it real. And honestly, I didn’t know anything yet – and I didn’t want to give anyone, especially myself, false hope. So I sent an email to my parents (ya, judge me all you want, if you find yourself in this boat you will realize that being a little self-absorbed is okay). I messaged my brother and sister-in-law. I told my boss and demanded we go out for drinks as alcohol and inappropriate/off-colored jokes is how I prefer to deal with stressful situations.
The weekend before my big appointment my husband came down with an infected tooth. He needed to get in to get a root canal. He was in agony, not sleeping, hopped up on pain pills and heavy duty antibiotics. He was worried though that I was going in to the lions den alone, defenseless, without my knight in shining armor to protect me. I told him I didn’t need him to go with me to this new doctor just to hear what we already knew. I have cancer, they are going to do surgery, and she would tell me next steps. You go to your doctor’s appointment, I’ll go to mine, it will be fine.
So when you read that it’s good to have someone with you when you see the doctor, because you will get quickly overwhelmed, shut down, not hear or catch all that they tell you – those folks are right. If I had to do it all over again though, I still wouldn’t have made Brent miss his appointment for this – I needed him healthy and strong so that he could support me.
So I go in to meet Dr. Jones. I already know I have breast cancer so I’m interested (and anxious to be honest) to hear what the next steps will be. I did not expect her to tell me that I have aggressive, triple-negative, ductal carcinoma. Honestly, after the word aggressive – I didn’t hear anything more. I didn’t understand what triple-negative meant. At first I thought, that’s great – nothing feeds this cancer, no hormones, I won the cancer lottery. Nope, wrong, go back to Go, do not collect $200. Because it was triple-negative there were no drugs to treat it, I had no options available but surgery and chemo. It was that word, chemotherapy, that made everything real. Not saying any other cancer is “less” of a cancer, but chemo made it seem big, real, deadly. This time the tears didn’t just stay in my eyes, they fell down my cheeks. We scheduled surgery for 2 weeks out – I would’ve done it that day if I could’ve. Get this shit out of me now!!!
We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up or fight like hell.Lance Armstrong
I collected myself enough to hear that we would be removing the lump and some lymph nodes to see if it had spread. First though I needed to go in for an MRI. They needed to get a better look at what was going on. They would then change treatment if need be or go forward with the surgery. I also needed to schedule genetic counseling to see if I had the BRCA1 gene. I didn’t understand why any of this was necessary but I nodded and went along with it.
I got in my car, and just cried. I texted my husband to see if he was out of his procedure. I then called him and cried. It was too much, I was too young, this wasn’t fair. My boss and friend texted to see if I got to keep the tatas, I told them I did but not my hair. They started sending me funny pictures of possible wig ideas (Elvira, 80’s big hair) and if I had to lose the girls some replacement ideas (think Madonna cones). I sat in the parking lot of the Clearwater Casino crying and laughing, looking like a mad woman but it was exactly the medicine this doctor ordered. I cried off and on the whole ride home. But I also processed, I absorbed and I accepted. I was ready – I was geared up for the big fight.
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