So by now I had shared the news, I was still avoiding talking to anyone that I couldn’t see face to face, I knew they would have questions – the same questions I had, that I didn’t have any answers for. I couldn’t talk to them right now, I didn’t know what to say. I continued to add to my honorary doctorate degree by Googling everything I could on triple-negative breast cancer. But I avoided statistics, I didn’t want to know survival rates, honestly, some people live, some people die – I wasn’t going to get wrapped up in those numbers, I couldn’t get wrapped up in those numbers. I found the Susan G. Komen site. They had all these videos, only a couple minutes in length that explained it all, from the different types of surgery (lumpectomy/breast conserving surgery to double mastectomy), occurrence rates, what cancer was, treatment options, side effects of those treatments. I can honestly say it was one of the best sites to visit and gave good information without overwhelming you.
I was now better informed, the unknown seemed a little less scary. Breast cancer is the leading cancer in all women. Gals I knew but didn’t know that they had breast cancer were now popping up everywhere. And speaking of popping up everywhere, you don’t realize how common this is until you are hypersensitive to it and notice it everywhere. Reading a book, a silly book about demons and snarky heroines, the sworn enemy of the heroine is angry because her mother is dying of breast cancer. What? I’m reading mindless drivel to get away from this, not to have it back in my face. I couldn’t turn on the TV or radio without seeing another ad about breast cancer. Not that we have much choice, but I advise not getting diagnosed during breast cancer awareness month, sheesh – talk about overload! Even driving into Lewiston for doctor appointments my doctor was on the first billboard as you entered town. I wasn’t going to be able to deal by avoidance any longer.
So the next big scary step was getting the MRI, I was taking a new approach, none of this positive thinking, I just kept getting knocked down, kicked in the gut when I tried to think the best, so now I was going in with the attitude that they would find it everywhere. It would be in both breasts, I would be riddled with cancer. I was sure of this. I feared the MRI, not the actual procedure, but the results of such.
So for any of you that need to go through this, let me give you a little run down of how things will go in the MRI for breast cancer. They will make you lay on your stomach, sternum and ribs resting on a “padded” metal bar, girls dangling through two holes, arms above your head, don’t move for 40 minutes. I put padded in quotation marks because after 40 minutes it doesn’t feel like there was any padding. I lost feeling in one arm from holding it above my head, and when I went to sit up I swore my ribs had been broken. I could barely breathe. The actual procedure aside from that was no big deal. My husband was shocked that I could actually lie still for 40 minutes (he refers to me as one of those big air filled guys you see outside a car dealership, waving in the wind, going up and down with the pressure of the air being pumped inside them – he finds himself hilarious, I don’t think I’m that bad). I’m not claustrophobic, and since you are looking down at a mirror so you can see who’s coming at you, it isn’t that bad. They give you headphones and tune to your favorite radio station (mine is classic country) so that you don’t listen to the humming of the machine the whole time and then they give you little updates during the procedure piped through those same headphones. Let you know how many minutes this next image will be for. That they will be injecting you with dye. That the next picture is only 2 minutes long. Towards the end your sternum and ribs are screaming from pressing in to that metal bar. All your weight (and for me I’m a big girl, with big girls) pushing down and pulling down on that bar. I started counting seconds in my head, giving myself a countdown until I could be out of this torture chamber.
You don’t know pain until you’re staring at yourself in the mirror with tears in your eyes, begging yourself to just hold on and be strong.
THAT is pain.Anonymous
Upon completion they told me it would take several hours to process the images, I might not hear back from my doctor today, I told them I lacked patience, if they could just tell me as soon as possible I would appreciate it. I went home cringing every time I twisted from the extreme pain in my ribs. By the time we got home I was positive that the cancer had spread. It had to have been in my bones by now, that’s why my ribs hurt so bad, they are weakened and I broke them. Another side note – having spoken with another gal who is battling BC, every ache you have from this point on out you are positive that it is the cancer spreading. Welcome to your new reality.
As I was pulling in to my driveway a new voicemail notification came through. Since I don’t have reliable cell service for most of the drive it wasn’t surprising that I would’ve missed a call. It was the doctor’s office with my results. I called back, I had just missed the call but she just went in with a patient. They would let her know and have her call me back. 30 minutes ticked by, an hour, going on an hour and a half – I called back, I have no patience, can you just tell me! My doctor gets on the phone, the MRI came back clean – only the 2cm lump originally identified in the mammogram was found. Of course I immediately glommed on to the 2cm, I screamed into the phone, “are you telling me the lump doubled in size in 3 weeks! I thought it was only 1 cm?” The doctor talked me off the edge, no, it hasn’t doubled, all that shows is the inaccuracy of the imaging and the better resolution of the MRI. Whew!
Leave a Reply