An abnormal mammogram

Today is Monday, November 29th, 2010. I had my first radiation treatment at the Bruno Cancer Center in Birmingham, Al. I have thirty-two more to go.

I am still kind of surprised that I am in this situation. "Cancer" was never supposed to be a problem in my life. The script I had written said that I could have heart disease, or maybe dementia someday, but cancer didn't fit at all. I have always been very healthy with no history of cancer in my family. So, when I got the message on the phone in July that my mammogram showed something "abnormal" and I needed to have a follow-up ultrasound, I was more annoyed than anything else. I figured this would be a false alarm and I would just be wasting an afternoon and a co-pay to follow mammogram protocol. So, I dutifully went for the ultrasound. Three days later, on my birthday, I got a message that I had to see a surgeon. "Great! More wasted time! This will require a core biopsy, it will be negative, and I will have wasted another two hours and ANOTHER co-pay."

So, I went to see the surgeon. She showed me the picture, and there was definitely a spot on the right side. "We need to take it out." Okay. So, surgery was the end of July. The next day, a phone call from the surgeon informed me that it wasn't cancer, but that my risk was a bit higher now. "Come back in October for a baseline MRI"

October comes. I make the appointment. I have the MRI. My girls are visiting from Germany and California when the phone rings and the nurse informs me that they spotted something on the left side. Kate asks me if I should go ahead and go in right away to have them do the follow-up ultrasound. "No. It will wait. I will set it up after your visit." A week later, I do the follow-up ultrasound. They can't see anything. "We need to get it out." "REALLY?" So, back to surgery.

This time, there is no phone call the next day. An appointment is set up for the following Tuesday. This is different. I spend Tuesday morning quiet, praying, journalling. I am annoyed because this is going to be nothing, and two seconds later, I am imagining the worst. I stop myself in mid-thought and talk myself out of catastrophizing. The waiting seems endless.

Two o'clock finally comes and I meet with the surgeon. "Well, it WAS something. Actually, it was two cancers." She goes on to describe the first cancer that was as big as a the period at the end of this sentence, and a second cancer around it that was as big as the end of a pencil eraser. "We got it all with clean margins."
"Okay," I think to my self. "So, that's that." But, there's more.

"We will go ahead and do a week of radiation and two years on Tamoxifin, and you should be fine." No, I should already be fine. You got this tiny thing with clean margins. You got it amazingly early. It is Stage 0. It is nothing. Why would you do radiation when there is nothing there? How can you tell me it is ridiculously tiny and then tell me I have to do radiation? It doesn't make sense.

She gives me the statistics of my potential for full recovery - like, 99%, or something like that. My response - "Statistically, I am not even supposed to be here. Five kids in my twenties, all breastfed, no history in my family. I do not belong here. So, statistics are not really registering on me." Truthfully, not much is registering on me. I leave there not knowing if I have cancer or not. Why would you radiate nothing? Radiation is for people with cancer. I do not have cancer. I had a small little thing that is now gone.

So, I leave the office with an appointment to see the Oncology Radiologist in a couple of days. I don't know what to say to anyone. I don't know what to think.