Thanks for sharing your story, Helen. I can definitely relate to having a different outlook on life after having cancer. I, too, sometimes felt more positive about my situation than my family & friends!
I'm curious as to any treatment you may have had after your mastectomy and reconstruction.
Seven Weeks out of 47 Years
It’s that time again, the dreaded “PAP SMEAR”. It’s funny how these two little words sound so dreadful to you. “Hope you’ve made that appointment for your Smear Test, I don’t see what the problem is”, says your husband. You yourself know it won’t hurt, it’s just humiliating. You have no control over the situation, you’re asked to lie on the bed and then assume the position. Could it be any more humiliating?
During the next couple of days you ring the Doctors office to make the appointment. It’s ringing, I’ll hang on for a couple of rings more and if they don’t answer I’ll hang up and ring back another day. Damn it! The voice on the other end of the phone says, “Whoop Whoop Medical Clinic”. Now you have to make the appointment. Your making dinner that night and tell your husband with a slightly smug look on your face saying, “I’ve made the appointment for the Smear Test, I’ll be going straight from work on Wednesday night so I’ll be a little late getting home, Ok”. You receive a cuddle and a comment saying, “Good, I’m glad; it wasn’t that hard was it”.
The night before the appointment you’re lying in bed and you feel a lump in your right breast, just below the armpit. Yes, it’s definitely a lump so you mention it to your husband and you’re told, “Well, mention it to the Doctor at your appointment and get them to check it out; all very simple”.
The next day after work you make your way to the Doctors office. The Receptionist says, Good evening, yes we have you down for your smear test. You glare at her thinking, “not so loud we don’t need to tell everyone now do we”. You pray that you will be called next thinking that everyone is staring at you. Two people go in before you and then at last your Doctor shows his/her head and looks straight at you with a grin; you rise and follow him/her to the consulting room with a quick glance back to see who is watching you go for your Pap Smear.
You are in the Doctors office and you are looking at the ceiling then you hear the Doctor pull on the gloves, then the spotlight is turned on. You hear his/her voice and you know what comes next so you get into the position and think, hurry up and get it over with. The Doctor says, “Oh, sorry I’ve just got to get some Bla Bla Bla. Won’t be a moment. There you are left looking at the ceiling with a spotlight on your private and confidential area waiting to be invaded by the cold metal brigade. Eventually it’s over and your Doctor says, “that wasn’t too bad was it”. Your response being “of course not” when you really want to say “the hell it was”. You hear the Doctor say “well if that’s all, we’ll post the results to you in a couple of weeks”. You hesitate, your mouth opens to say something, your mind is racing, will I mention the lump or not, you see the face of your husband saying, “Did you mention about the lump in your breast”. The words spill out of your mouth and you are asked to lie down again and they will check it out. You know they have to find the lump but you did say where it was located but do they really need to push it through to your spine whilst checking. The other breast is checked as well and you are told that there is a thickening in the left breast near the nipple area and you’re told that because of your history you should have a mammogram and ultrasound just to be on the safe side. You’re told there is nothing to worry about. You leave the Doctors office thinking; thank God that’s over for at least another two years.
It was about three years ago when you found the other lumps. Benign Cysts they called them. Why do these breasts that you are so proud of give you so much trouble? In between morning tea and lunch at the office you make the appointment for the Mammogram and Ultrasound.
Life at this point will be a constant waiting game. Why these rooms are so cold I’ll never know! You would think someone would have the heating on high; after all, everyone who goes in that room is virtually naked and nervous. The radiographer is very pleasant and strives to make you feel at ease. Again you do the right thing and chat about the weather, your day at the office and other meaningless things whilst being manoeuvred around until your in front of and resting your problem breast on the cold machine. While still discussing meaningless things the operator throws in between the conversation the points about deep breaths, holding still, a bit of discomfort, no a lot of discomfort I’d call it. You think to yourself could they get my breasts any flatter. You take a quick glance down and there it is; what is supposed to be your breast but at the moment it looks more like a meat burger. I’ll never make another hamburger after this. Ten to Fifteen clicks later you’re finished with the mammogram. You are asked to return to the cubicle until the operator checks the film to make sure they got what the doctor wanted.
You’re now in the cubicle waiting for the ok to get dressed. You’re wearing a huge papery gown with just a paper belt to tie around yourself. You think to yourself if there was a fire and you had to go out into the street it would be another humiliating time with a paper gown on. You hear a noise but it’s not for you so you look at the wall in front of you and read things on it while you wait, have you checked if you’re pregnant before having your X-ray. This is in five different languages and then you hear a tap on your door, “sorry dear, I just have to take a few more shots, do you mind”. You say, “of course not” and grit your teeth thinking lets see how flat we can get your breasts this time. Salvation at last, you’re finished with the Mammogram. Now it’s time for the Ultrasound. Being covered in cold jell is not my idea of a good time and yet again, you must play the waiting game. This is when you realise that you have more crevasses in your breast than man found on the moon.
You get dressed again and are told that your results will be sent to your Doctor. Your appointment to see your doctor is for the following week. All of that week you worry yourself about that damned lump and the results of your tests. You should carry a warning sign around at work saying “mines in this vicinity, could explode at any sudden moves”.
When you arrive at the Doctors office you are amazed at the short wait this time, the doctor informs you that you need to go and see a specialist. You are again assured that there is nothing to worry about. You are given a referral letter which is sealed plus you’re X-rays and you blindly and ever so trustingly make your way out of the clinic in a bemused state.
I decided this time that I would look at my X-rays and read the referral before seeing the specialist. It reads, “Thank you for seeing this 47 year old female, you pause and think why Doctors have to be so clinical, after all I have been going to this particular clinic for years, they could at least use my name. I put the referral back in with the X-ray and throw them on to the back seat of the car.
You ring your doctor and advise that you have made the appointment with the specialist just outside the two weeks that was mentioned and I am immediately told that they will call me back. I receive a call from the Doctors office in less than half an hour and am told that I will be seeing the specialist before the end of this week. I now know that something is not quite right here and it could be serious. I tell my husband that night that I have to see the specialist again; it’s probably just another cyst that needs draining. That night I go out to my car and reach inside and pick up my X-rays again and decide to read the full report that was inside. There seems to be a problem area in the left breast that is of a suspicious nature which should be looked at more closely…………… I can’t believe what I have just read, “problem area” why can’t Doctors just tell you if there is a problem and let you deal with it then and there instead of letting you believe everything is ok after all it is your body.
I front up at the specialist rooms on the Thursday and I know there is something wrong and just wonder when he/she is going to fill me in on everything. I am asked to lie on the bed and am told that he/she intends to insert a needle into my right breast where I have the lump and he/she proceeds to insert the needle then the needle is twisted around a couple of times and then the same on the other breast. After applying a couple of bandaids on the insertion points, whilst getting dressed he/she says. “You do know about this problem with your breast and the outcome of the Mammogram and Ultrasound don’t you?” My answer to him/her is simply, “no, my GP said nothing at all; I was just informed to make an appointment to see you”. There is a sigh from the specialist and he/she tells me that there is a problem and says something about the left breast showing signs of thickening and the right breast having a small lump. He/she then asks me to make another appointment to come in again the next day with my husband or a close family member, we need to discuss the changes in your breasts more fully. I nodded my head and then everything was a blur from then on.
I made the appointment at the front desk before leaving the surgery. I drove home thinking how tough this was going to be telling my husband and family about the outcome as I did not want to upset them any more than is necessary. I cried a little on the way home and then told myself; nothing is final yet and dried my tears before getting out of the car in our driveway. I walked into the house and my husband asked how it went at the specialists. There was no nice way of saying it. I told him that the specialist wanted to see both of us tomorrow afternoon, my husband looked straight at me, and the hurt and frustration that I was feeling showed in his eyes. I gave a bit of a laugh and said, “Hey, its nothing to worry about, we don’t know what is going to be said to us yet” but I think we both new it was not going to be good news. We did not talk about it that night; it was easier to handle it that way.
The following day at work went quickly; I can’t tell you what I did, if I did anything at all. I left just before lunch after advising my boss of what was happening and his words were what you expect from everyone, “don’t worry everything will be fine”.
The conversation in the Doctors office started off with us being told that there was a cancerous growth in the left breast that had radically changed in size since my last Mammogram. They could not tell if the lump in my right breast was the same, as they could not get a good sample because of the location of this lump. We both sat there stunned. The specialist was telling us that he/she thought that a partial lumpectomy on both breast would be the best way to go as it is much easier on the patient than taking the whole breast. He/she believed that this would be a much better way to go in this particular case. The only thought that was running through my head was that I wanted to be rid of the two breasts right now and forget about conservation surgery, if they have cancer in them then I want them taken away. I wanted to be rid of the disease for good and not have to worry about it in the future. Meanwhile the specialist was going on and on about Breast Conservation. I reached over and took hold of my husband’s hand, he looked so upset and I knew that he was thinking about his mother who had died when she was 64 from secondary breast cancer. He would be thinking that it was happening again to someone he loved, his eyes were filled with tears and I could do nothing to stop the pain he was feeling. That is when I heard myself say out loud, “I would like to have both breasts removed”. Everything went silent, I heard my husband saying, “Maybe we should listen to the Doctor, the specialist leaned forward in his/her chair and said we could do another small test here today and get more samples of the breast tissue to make absolutely sure we know what we are up against. Silence again, I looked at my husband and he had a look of desperation in his eyes so I nodded my head and we followed the doctor into another room to do the tests. I was told that I would receive a local in each breast before proceeding with the test. I was shaking and the doctor was advising my husband and me what would be done. I was looking at my husband during all this and then I saw the needle they would be using. It was much larger than the previous needle and I began to panic, the nurse stepped towards me and told me just to take a breath in and squeeze her hand if I needed to. The needle was inserted and I felt a thud in my breast and then the needle was twisted in a circle a couple of times, the same procedure was done on the other breast and I was sitting there with tears running down my face and blood oozing from my breast where the needle had been inserted. I looked at my husband sitting on the chair near me and he looked utterly helpless, I gave him a reassuring smile that said, “its ok it doesn’t hurt that much.
After more discussion with the specialists about the breast conservation surgery I agreed that I would go through with it and it was all arranged for the following Tuesday with an admission time of 8.00am with surgery scheduled for 10.00am.
As it happened the breast conservation surgery was successful only on one breast and my husband and I were told by the specialist the following day after surgery that I would need to have the left breast removed as the cancer had spread to the outer limits of the breast tissue. This time I insisted that I wanted the two breasts removed and I did not change my mind. My specialist performed a Bilateral Mastectomy in 2002 and I followed up in 2003 with Breast Reconstruction.
The worst part of my journey with Cancer was not physical but emotional. My family and friends were placed on an emotional rollercoaster whereas I knew I would beat cancer but they were not as convinced as I was that I would be cured of Cancer. Family and friends mean the world to me,my work is not as important as it used to be. It is now 2008 and I am going strong but with a different outlook on life altogether.
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