Musings From a Big Metal Tube

Waiting rooms are the worst.

Most of the time I can distract myself from the reality of my situation by staying busy thinking about planning and schedules and supplies I'll need for the next 6 months of fun. However, when I'm sitting in a waiting room, all I can think about is what I'm there for.

And waiting for tests is even worse.

Yesterday I had a PET scan. I've never had any kind of scan except an x-ray, so this whole process was pretty new to me. For a PET scan they inject you with a radioactive tracer that then flows through your body and gets soaked up by your cells. Cancer cells apparently soak up more of this tracer because they are hungry, so when they do the scan cancer cells anywhere in your body show up as brighter or "hotter" areas on the image. (Yup, that means my boobs are hot!) This is probably one of the few times in my life where I'm hoping that no one thinks any other parts of my body are hot.

Did I mention that the radioactive tracer they injected me with came in a big, industrial metal syringe? And that after he injected me the tech told me not to hug anyone or pet any puppies for a couple hours? Awesome.

I then sat in a waiting room alone for an hour waiting for my cells to gobble up the radioactive goodies flowing through me. In the waiting room I was assaulted by the Today Show's Breast Cancer Awareness week festivities. People wearing pink running around obstacle courses or sitting in dunking booths all cavorting for the good cause of "Breast Cancer Awareness". They interviewed a smiling lady who had hit it big on social media when her daughter gave her a pink mohawk in support of her upcoming double mastectomy.

Needless to say, I cried.

Then I laid in a big metal tube for 45 minutes as they tried to hunt down additional cancer cells. Those big metal tubes give you good thinking time, I guess. Although, as I mentioned, I've been trying not to do a lot of independent thinking lately.

What I came up with was surprising even to me. I was thinking about impermanence. Buddhism teaches that all existence is transient, or in a constant state of flux. The Buddha also teaches that all conditioned phenomena are impermanent, and that any attachment to them becomes a cause of future suffering. In most parts of my life I whole-heartedly embrace change and impermanence. It seems, though, when I think about my self-image and my future life, I'm really scared of change. I had a whole plan of how things were going to be that I had become attached to, and now that I'm losing that plan, I am suffering. So, if I were to have coffee with the Buddha, he would probably say to me to let go and embrace impermanence. It might make me happier. That is, to let go of the tangible things I am attached to and embrace the intangible things that are really important - health, love, friendship. Deep, huh? Guess I'll try to make a go of it. Hopefully it wasn't just the radioactivity bringing me clarity.

Today I sat in a waiting room again. MRI this time. But no Today Show thankfully. Again, I cried a little, although I'm not sure why. I think embracing impermanence takes a little time. The whole cancer thing does make you feel pretty alone, too. Even though I have the most amazing group of supportive friends and family, its really just me dealing with the whole impermanence thing. I guess that's just part of it.

The MRI was a little different than the PET scan. I had to lie face down this time with my face in a little donut pillow while the machine clicked and thumped all around me. I tried to pretend I was just getting a massage. It didn't work.

This time I didn't have any deep thoughts. I just thought about the retail therapy I was going to do afterwards. Retail therapy at Target always makes me feel better. I guess that's something that doens't change.

When I get home I think I'll have a cocktail.
I think you should have one, too.

Cocktail pairing: Chai liqueur and irish cream in a hot cup of coffee.

Big Day

So the good news is......I don't have any cavities.

Apparently once you're undergoing chemotherapy it is dangerous to have dental work done - something about bacteria being released into the blood stream.  So I went to the dentist this morning. I haven't been to the dentist in 3 years, so I think I might have been almost as nervous about impending dental work as I was about the cancer appointment.

But, as I said, no cavities!!! :)

The dentist was surprised at the amount of teeth grinding I've been doing. He has no idea.

So the bad news is.......I still have cancer.

Some little tiny bit of me thought I might walk into the surgeon's office today and he would say, "Oh, sorry pretty lady, we read the results wrong. You're perfectly fine!"

Alas, no.

Not only do I still have cancer, but I actually have more than I thought. Yay!

So here's the scoop:

Removal of the big main lump might not necessitate a mastectomy. However, there is a second lesion further back that can not be felt that may or may not be cancer. 

If the second lesion is not cancer, I might get away with a lumpectomy. If this is the case, doing chemo first might shrink the main tumor to make a lumpectomy less bad and would take care of the cancer in my lymph nodes.

However, if the second lesion is cancer then it doesn't matter. The whole thing must go. Doing chemo first will still probably cut down on the chances of the surgeon having to remove lots of lymph nodes (which is a bad thing).

All of this depends on the MRI that I get on Friday that will tell me if the second lesion is cancer. I will also be getting a PET scan on Thursday to make sure our extroverted cancer has not been making friends with other parts of my body. 

So........probably will be doing chemo first starting in a few weeks. That lasts for about 6 months. Then I'll have whatever surgery is warranted. Also sometime in the next few weeks I will have some genetic testing to see if I have the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation. If I do then I will probably end up with a double mastectomy.

So many options! It's like Let's Make A Deal except I don't get to pick the door.

I took all of this in relatively well today, and actually almost made it out of the office without crying, until I was told that Blue Cross Blue Shield doesn't automatically cover MRIs and that I wouldn't know if I would have to pay $4000 out of pocket until after the procedure was already done. Crazy, right? Who says we don't need health reform?!?!

Luckily, the folks in the surgeon's office are excellent and were not phased by my awkward sniffling. They figured things out for me and we made it out into the parking lot before I totally lost it.

We then proceeded to go get our flu shots so I don't come down with the flu while I have a compromised immune system.

Dentist, surgeon, flu shot.

Big day.

Next steps? Meet with the Oncologist tomorrow to confirm when chemo will start. 

Hopefully it falls in line with our trip to Hawaii that is coming up in a few weeks......of course that means no snorkeling and no diving for me while we're there. Guess I'll have to come up with something else to do.  Stand up paddleboarding? Parasailing? Who knows......

I think I need a cocktail. I think you should have one, too.

Cocktail pairing: Cupcake Petite Sirah.

A Very Strange Week

It’s been a very strange week.

On Sunday I ran my first marathon. It hurt like hell, it took longer than I thought it would, and it felt REALLY good when I was done. I felt strong. I felt powerful. And I felt relieved that I had checked off yet another big event on my life list.

The following day I found myself lying half naked on an ultrasound table at the Breast Diagnostic Center in Fort Collins hearing the doctor say, “I am quite concerned that this is a breast cancer.”

A month earlier, on the morning of the last event of my hugely stressful multi-year project that I was really glad was finally coming to an end.......I had found a lump in my left boob. It scared the shit out of me because I knew something was not right. The husband concurred when I showed him by saying, "That's not good." 

I didn't even know where to go to get a doctor to look at it. I'm 39 and healthy. I just ran a fucking marathon, for Pete's sake. I don't have a doctor because I don’t need a doctor. Thank god for cooler heads than mine that gave me a phone number and told me where to go.

So I went to the first doctor. He felt my lump, quoted me the very low odds of it being cancer considering my age, health, and medical history, and ordered me a mammogram and an ultrasound. Then he told me not to drink caffeine in case it was a cyst. Apparently caffeine makes cysts cranky. Of course this was right after I had downed a Starbucks Mocha Caffeine Power Bomb.

I should have known this was a sign of things to come.

I got the mammogram and the ultrasound and listened to the second doctor (a surgeon this time) tell me that he didn’t know what it was, but it probably wasn’t cancer. He asked if I had experienced any physical trauma to my boob lately (really?!?) and told me he thought it was fat necrosis (which occurs, apparently, after your boob gets whacked by something). To my knowledge I had not been punched in the boob any time recently and told him so. He sent me to get an ultrasound guided biopsy.

So that brings me back to this week.

On Wednesday, I got the call.

I have breast cancer. Stage II. It has spread to at least one lymph node in my armpit.

Shit.

I told my boss, a few people at work, and my parents. Husband told his boss. And I’m already over the telling people thing.

Breast cancer has become both a big thing and a normal thing in our society. We see the pink ribbons everywhere. Professional football players wear pink shoes and pink gloves. Events screaming “CURE” and “SURVIVOR” in swirly pink letters abound.

I never even thought twice about it.

Did you know that 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer? I didn’t. And I certainly didn’t think it would be me. But there you go. I guess no one does.

So now it’s been a few days since I got the news. It’s been an emotional roller coaster as I have come to accept all of the many horrible things that I’m going to have to go through in the next year and I’ve rotated through several different stages of emotional craziness:

#1 – Grief. General sadness. Uncontrollable crying. An out-of-body feeling that this really isn’t happening.

#2 – Denial. I actually said, “This is no big deal. It’s just another thing to get over.” A good sentiment to be sure, but maybe doesn't take into account all the things that are really lying in wait.

#3 – Fear. After almost 40 years, I have just gotten to the place where I am ok with my body. I actually enjoy wearing a bikini, and have just recently lost enough weight to feel comfortable in my own skin. The fear that I am going to go back to hating how I look again for the rest of my life is overwhelming.

#4 - Anger. I am angry that this is happening to me. I just got over a big stressful year. I have only been married 2 years and my husband was just getting used to me not being crazy. I am angry that he is now going to have to go through this, and that we, as a couple, now have to go through this. And I am angry that this is going to change everything.

And then I started doing all the internet research. Don't worry, the oncology nurse told me which sites to trust. The research has helped me come to the epiphany that while this cancer will probably not kill me, it is going to suck. Big time.

Here is some of the research I have found that does not make me happy:

•  I may lose a boob. I don’t have big boobs to begin with, but I’m pretty happy with mine, and while I wouldn’t say that I focus a lot of who I am on the presence of my boobs, I’m a pretty big fan of symmetry.
•  If they take my boob and I choose to get reconstructive surgery, the most common place to take skin/muscle/etc from is your abdomen. I am very proud of my flat stomach. So now not only may I have one boob, I may lose my abs and have a poochy stomach. The body image thing just keeps getting better.
• Chemo is going to make me gain weight. I can’t even get a disease that makes me lose weight. Body image. Again.
•  My hair is going to fall out. I love my hair. I guess the good side is that this gives me an excuse to try out a fun cut and color. I’ve always wanted to go Alias Red.
• My eyebrows may fall out. What?!?!
• My eyelashes may fall out. Double what?!?
•  Even if my eyelashes don’t fall out, I cannot wear mascara. I have worn mascara since I was 18. I don’t go out in public without mascara, and now I’m going to have to go out in public with no hair, no eyebrows, one boob, poochy stomach, and NO MASCARA! Shit. Shit. Shit.

·       Some things I have decided that do make me happy:

• If my hair is going to fall out, at least its winter. There are fun animal hats with ears that I can wear in winter. Maybe I'll get a penguin hat. Or a lion. So many choices.
• Scars don't really bother me, so I'm not really worried about the scars. But I CAN get a sweet ass tattoo to cover up my boob scars. Turn a thing of asymmetry into a thing a beauty. I actually really like this idea.

These things may all seem very shallow. They kind of do to me now that I read them back, but right now that's the only thing that's real to me. The medical part of things is out of my hands. I have a pretty good survival rate, so I'm not worried about dying. What I am worried about is my quality of life after its all over. That part is very real to me.

So anyway, that's where I am right now. It's been a very strange week. I'll probably continue to bounce back and forth between ok and not ok like a yo-yo for awhile as I try to work all this out. I heard someone say this week that Buddhist teachings tell us that life is about transition, so I'm trying to prepare myself for this transition. Be prepared.

Tomorrow I go to the surgeon to find out what is really going on, how bad things really are, and what the plan will be.

I need a cocktail. I think you should have one, too.

Cocktail pairing: A straight shot of something strong followed by a smooth Ad Astra Amber.