I've been preparing myself for years... to help protect myself from the shock of hearing that I have breast cancer. And now I'm closer than I've ever been to hearing those words.
I've always lived my life as though I will someday have breast cancer. My mom, who passed in 2007, had breast cancer in both breasts. I don't know a lot of the details of her battle, as she and I weren't really close, either in proximity or personally. She left my dad and moved "back home" in 1990 to be closer to her family in Pennsylvania. We spoke a few times a year on the phone...mostly holidays and special occasions. It was during one of those conversations that she relayed to me that she found a lump while in the shower. I was only in my mid 20s at the time, and still quite naive about the cruelty that is breast cancer. I would hear through other family members about her treatments and struggles, but didn't have to see if firsthand, so still it didn't really 'hit' me. During her illness, my older half-sister (same father, different mother) encouraged me to go get a mammogram. Though I was only 25, I could tell by the sincerity and fear in her voice just how serious she was about this. I didn't really see the necessity of it, but did it to pacify her. And then my mom found another lump, in the other breast. She battled, and grew sicker, and I along with all my siblings made the 16 hour car trip to visit her in December of 2006, which the entire family knew would be our last Christmas with her. In February of 2007, shortly after coming home from visiting with my mom, I saw a TV commercial for the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the Cure event. Fueled by fear, anger, and two glasses of wine, I registered for the Boston event. From that time on, I made it my mission to educate myself on breast cancer, and to be it's voice and biggest advocate for awareness in my small community. In October of 2007 my mom lost her battle. And there were many others to add to my list of "family history of breast cancer" list. Two aunts on my mom's side, my half-sister herself, the one that encouraged me to get a mammogram, and an aunt on my dad's side.
Since 2007, I have had routine mammograms, participated in annual Susan G. Komen 3-Day walks, and prepared myself for what I saw as the inevitable. My doctor, who was also the then midwife who delivered both of my children, has always been very supportive of my need desire to be very proactive about my breast health. She never questioned why I wanted a mammogram and never told me I was too young. We talked at length about whether or not I should have genetic testing for the breast cancer gene. After much thought, I declined for several reasons: cost, you can be positive for the gene but never develop breast cancer, you can develop breast cancer without testing positive for having the breast cancer gene, and because I would live my life no differently than I do now. I am in fairly good health, I am not overweight, I eat fairly well, I do not nor have I ever smoked, I do not nor have I ever taken any illegal drugs of any sort, and I only drink on occasion. Lucy had once told me that if they EVER saw the slightest thing on my mammogram that she didn't like the looks of that she wouldn't hesitate to send me 4 hours away to Portland, Maine to the Mercy Hospital Breast Specialists of Maine. And I was more than OK with that.
A little over three years ago, that day came... during a routine mammogram they found a "cluster of microcalcifications". My immediate reaction to anything is to educate myself. And I did. I researched the hell out of those three words! I was scared, but not terrified... for I had prepared myself to someday hear this. Within a week I had an appointment to go to Portland where I met with Dr. Melinda Molin and her staff at Mercy Hospital. And they were wonderful. Dr. Molin explained that she looked at my mammogram from my local hospital, as well as a baseline digital mammogram performed at her hospital, and said the cluster didn't appear to be anything to be immediately concerned with, then she set me up on a pretty agressive schedule to keep an eye on it, which consisted of an annual digital mammogram, staggered with an annual breast MRI. And so it was... I would drive to Portland, 4 hours one way, every six months, to keep an eye on things. I would always panic a bit in the days following each procedure, and then get the letter or call that nothing had changed and everything looked fine. And all was fine, until yesterday.
I had my annual breast MRI last Monday, May 14th. Dr. Molin is usually really good about calling me as soon as she gets the results so that I don't have to wait for a letter to arrive via snail mail. I hadn't really thought much about it until yesterday, it occurred to me that I hadn't gotten a phone call, or a letter. So I called her office, as she had always encouraged me to do any time I had a question. As it turns out, Dr. Molin was on vacation and would return next week, but the girl I spoke with offered to have her associate Dr. Hoekstra review the MRI results and give me a call. Within 1/2 hour Dr. Hoekstra called, and informed me that there were "suspicious areas on both breasts". She scheduled for me to go back down next Wednesday to have both breasts ultrasounded and then to meet with Dr. Molin immediately after to review the results.
Even after speaking with Dr. Hoekstra, I wasn't horribly fearful, because Dr. Molin has told me several times that one problem with breast MRIs is that they have a fairly high incidence of false positives. Not one to rest on a silver lining, I dug into that a little more. And my findings have me now close to panic mode. Though false positives are relatively high in initial MRIs, the percentage drops with each subsequent test. The radiologist has the baseline to compare to, so what may appear suspicious in the baseline test, is then discounted in subsequent tests. So the fact that I would have a "suspicous area" in my 4th MRI and have it be a false positive isn't quite as likely, and even less likely that it would happen in both breasts. So, here I am, a week away from my ultrasound appointment, and I'm getting more than a little freaked out. So many things are going through my head like a whirlwind: "I have to clean my house really good in case I'm sick soon"; "I have to finish my fundraising for my 3-Day Walk in case I won't be able to later", "I don't want to have ugly, hacked up boobs with tattooed nipples"; "I wonder what my hair will look like when it grows back if I have to have chemo"... and on and on and on. And this is only 24 hours after.
I'm hoping that this being Memorial Day weekend I will be busy and distracted and won't have a lot of downtime to think. I work a normal, 40-hour workweek at my "real" job, as well as bartending on Friday and Saturday nights. I have a sunny lazy kayak river trip scheduled on Sunday. That only leaves Monday to fill with a mindless activity, and a workday on Tuesday before my appointment on Wednesday.
