At 8:35 am, Friday, April 28, 2023, I took a call from my primary care doctor. Several weeks before, during a routine mammogram, they found two suspicious spots on my right breast. More mammograms and ultrasounds followed until I had two biopsies on April 25.
She started with the good news. The first spot was a fibroid, with nothing to worry about.
She ended with the bad news. The second spot was cancerous.
I had breast cancer.
I called my husband. Crying, I choked out that he needed to come home. I had cancer. I told him to please drive carefully.
And I closed my bedroom door so I wouldn’t wake my daughter, and I cried, barely holding onto reality.
I had breast cancer.
By the end of the afternoon, I had an appointment with an oncologist for the next Monday and a breast cancer surgeon on Tuesday. That day started the beginning of the longest weekend of my life.
We told the kids (20 and 16). We sat them down and explained what we knew. That we wouldn’t keep secrets about what was happening. We cried. We sat in silence. So many words unsaid, but everyone knew what each person was saying.
I had a meltdown on Saturday. I sobbed on the bed with my husband, barely speaking, “I don’t want to die.” The kids must have heard me crying as soon I was surrounded by the three most important people in my world, hugging me, crying with me. Comforting me.
I didn’t sleep much. I didn’t eat much.
We learned what the cancer wasn’t on Monday, May 1, 2023. It wasn’t some rare form of cancer and didn’t appear aggressive. I had invasive ductal carcinoma, Grade 2. I had a low positive for Estrogen and a positive for Progesterone. HER2 was inconclusive, so a FISH test needed to be run.
We learned more about cancer on Tuesday, stage 1. For this number, we celebrated, which is weird to celebrate cancer. Celebrate we did, though.
Since then, I’ve had an MRI that showed three more suspicious areas and subsequent biopsies, which we await results.
This all sounds so clinical.
Stage 1. Grade 2. HER2, ER/PR. So many words. So much information.
What it all boils down to is… I have breast cancer.
99% of the time, I am ok. I try to stay positive because this is out of my control, and I am doing everything possible to fix it. That 1%, though, leaves me terrified. The kids will say something that references the future, and my mind immediately asks, “Will I be here for that?” I remember April 27, when I didn’t think about death and just lived like an immortal.
I cry in the shower. I cry because I look down at these flabby breasts and remember that in the near future, I am having them both removed with a bilateral mastectomy. I cry when I look in the mirror and see the bruises from the past five biopsies. I cry because I am just getting started, and I sure as hell am not ready to quit.