A new journey and where it all began

I have been trying to leave a record of my journey with breast cancer, in fact, I have left bits and pieces of it in many places. Some of it hand written, in different journals, some on the computer, just here and there. I hope with this blog to bring it all back together, gathering all of my thoughts together in one place.

In the fall of 02 I was laying in bed one night and felt a very definite small eggs shaped lump. I knew right then that I had breast cancer. I saw Dr. Jackson the next day, he also felt it, sent me for a mammogram - which came back “ nothing found”. I knew they were wrong, I tried to get them to feel it, but the Dr. wouldn’t touch me. Because it was such an obvious abnormality I should have been sent to a surgeon for a consult. I didn't have insurance so my Dr. decided that it was probably nothing.

A few weeks later Chris(my girlfriend) and I were going somewhere, anyhow - we were almost arguing about the state of health care in this country. I all of a sudden became teary eyed and told her that I would die from breast cancer because I did not have ins. There was an instant moment of complete silence, Chris and I looked at each other, didn’t say a word, but heard the truth in what I had just said - we didn't talk about it again for over a year.

The next year after minor car accident, I suddenly felt very odd so Tim took me to the hospital. My blood pressure was 196/140, they didn't treat it - again, I had no insurance, just told me to see Dr. Jackson ASAP. I Saw him the next day - a Monday. It had been about a year since I had seen him and that visit was for the lump in my breast. By now it was bigger than my fist. Again I had a mammogram, again it did not show anything and I was sent away - no consult, no nothing.

A day or 2 later Alice(another friend) was here helping me get ready for a show(my husband and I traveled to high end gift shows to sale Soap Du Jour. We were watching TV as we wrapped bars of soap and the news ran a story about the latest findings about the effectiveness of mammogram. The jest of it - Mammograms are not an effective dx. tool in women that are premenopausal and /or have fibrocystic breast disease. I looked at Alice and said something like “ This isn’t making me feel very good since I am both."

New Year’s eve I got a call form the Breast Screening Clinic at Baptist Hospital - said they had made a mistake and they needed me to come back in so they could recheck me. Of course they now did a bx. They said that the mammogram showed a 2mm tumor, that’s about an inch, much smaller than the fist sized tumor that I and my Dr. could feel - that is how poorly mammograms to for premenopausal and/ or fibrocystic breast disease.

For two weeks I waited in a constant state of high anxiety - I really didn't care that I had Breast Cancer - I just wanted to get to the next step. Finely, one day at the shop, the phone rang and it was Dr. Jackson.............the bx was negative! Alice was there, she was so happy to hear the news. She was hugging me and saying all the things people say to you under those circumstances. All the time Alice was hugging me, the only thought that went through my mind was " Don't get excited - this is far from over". You can't express that emotion to someone - they just don't understand how you can be anything but relieved, grateful, and happy. I played the part as well as I could and tried to sort things out in my on mind.

I was finally scheduled to see a surgeon, although it wasn't cancerous, they told me it was a fast growing benign growth that need to be removed. In two weeks I would see the
Breast Specialist and be scheduled for surgery to remove this - what ever it is.

When I was a child , a teenage and even a very young adult I wanted to be sick - I needed to be sick. That’s the only way I could get love and attention - at least that is what I witnessed with my mother. And when I was older, that is what all the medical shows on TV showed. Oh to have someone care as much as Dr. Gannon or Welby. I later realized that illness was a means to get what I wanted, it also meant that I didn’t have to be responsible for anything - I could just blame it on being sick, not feeling well - I had been taught well. As an adult I have had to fight tooth and nail to not be that little girl - it is so easy to fall back into old patterns of behavior.

Ever since I felt the first lump my intuition has always been that I would die from breast cancer. Now as I wait for the results form the pathology reports from the 5mm x 7mm x 3mm tumor that was removed, everything seems so chaotic. I couldn’t sort my intuitive feelings from my emotional feelings. I found myself going back and forth between no cancer, to not dying from cancer, and back to my original intuition that I will indeed die from this. Sometimes it is hard to know where defense mechanisms starts/ends and truth begins.

Last night I had my first dream about it, it was one of those dreams, the kind that is meant solely to give me info. All I got was the radiologist saying “ well, I’m a little more concerned now that I was” and another Dr. explaining the cell differentiation to me.Two weeks later ( something about a 2 weeks waiting period) all the reports were in - Stage IIIB, high grade, progesterone +, estrogen -, poorly differentiated. Prognosis - moderate to poor.

Now that is 2004 to present day all rolled into a few paragraphs. I wish I had started this in the very beginning, it would much easier to record my true emotions at the onset. But, I guess I will start from today.