Getting My Cancer Diagnosis

Breast cancer is insidious. It is a cruel, non-discriminatory killer. It doesn’t just kill, it maims in the process. Once a woman has breast cancer, she will never be the same again. I watched it kill my mother, but not before she suffered. My mother was a nurse, so she should have been on top of her screenings. Did she miss one? I am not sure, but she was diagnosed in November of 2010 and died in July of 2011.  By the time they found her cancer, it had spread and was already stage four. She underwent a double mastectomy and chemo, then radiation, but to no avail.

So, when I was diagnosed in January of 2021, it was terrifying. I was a couple of months late, but it was still COVID, and regular screenings were hard to come by. Did that make a difference? I knew something was wrong during the mammogram, and then the ultrasound confirmed it. The poor technician gave it away even though she couldn’t say anything to me. She high-tailed it out of the room tout suite once she was finished. Then came the letter stating that I needed a biopsy, which means I needed to find a doctor. It’s like working on a new puzzle, where can I go for what’s coming next? My friend had a suspicious lump taken out of her breast a long time ago, and said she really liked her surgeon, so that is who I went to.

Dr. Weinstein is a small, intense woman with amazing curly gray hair, not just a doctor and breast surgeon, but a healer. There is not much to a biopsy. I don’t remember if she numbed anything, but she used a punch needle to go in and extract a sample of breast tissue and lymph nodes. They biopsy the lymph nodes, as that is most likely the place where the cancer would spread first. Out of the four they biopsied, two had cancer in them. My tumor was 2 cm and at six o’clock on my left breast. It left me black and blue and sore—the first assault on my body.

Going in to discuss the biopsy results was so strange. I had only met Dr. Weinstein for the biopsy, but today I got to know her better. Brian went with me and recorded the whole thing. What he did with that recording, I have no idea, but that day was the day he probably proposed to Swinehilda. My cancer obviously freaked him out. I wish that someone else were with me that day. It would have meant a whole lot more if I were with someone who actually cared about me instead of him, pretending to care while trolling around for my replacement.

We got down to business right away. Dr. W gave me a binder with all the information you could want. Hey, welcome to Your Cancer Binder. It felt surreal, but I had never had cancer before, so I didn’t know what to expect.  I had invasive ductal carcinoma, HR+/HER2-, the most common type of breast cancer, which afflicts one in eight women. My tumor was two centimeters, and out of the four lymph nodes biopsied, two had traces of cancer, which made it a stage 2. The cancer cells were positive for hormone receptors (estrogen and/or progesterone) and negative for HER2 protein. It is a common breast cancer subtype where hormones fuel tumor growth, but the cancer cells do not have high levels of the HER2 protein. HER2, or human epidermal growth factor 2, is a protein that can also promote cancer growth. A negative result makes it slightly less aggressive, which was about the only good news, that and the fact that they found it early. I cannot stress enough the need for regular screenings; early detection saves lives.

Looking back, it all becomes automatic. It is scary and traumatizing, and it seeps into your psyche like a worm. It is always in the back of your mind, Am I going to die of this? Then there are the reminders and other demeaning things like getting a chunk of your breast cut out of you, or you out and out have a mastectomy, or in some cases, a double mastectomy.  And that seeps in as well, your identity as a woman changes. I have a few friends who have gone through singles and doubles and are okay with it, or seemingly so. I only had a lumpectomy. Part of my breast is still there, but it has morphed into a blob of flesh that looks nothing like a breast. But I am alive, and if giving up part of my breast is what it takes, I’m happy with my blob of flesh. But I can tell you that if I had to have a mastectomy, I would tattoo the scars and display them proudly.

As I sat there listening to Dr. Weinstein explain it all, my throat felt hot with the fear that was creeping up from deep inside me, and I couldn’t concentrate. It reminded me of the Snoopy cartoon when the teacher is talking to the class, and all they hear is noise that makes no sense. Luckily, I had the trusty binder in case I missed anything, and Brian recorded it. Next was to find an oncologist. I decided to go with the doctor Dr. Weinstein recommended, a local doctor who had been treating cancer patients for many years. Everybody has an opinion about what you should do, but you have to go with what is right for you. Despite how rattled I was right then, I knew that I did not want to go any further than I had to for treatment, and I am glad that I made that decision. The treatment would have been the same in my neck of the woods or on the moon, so being close to home was important to me.

Next was meeting Dr. Andrade. He examined me and looked at the biopsy results. He then began laying out my treatment plan. It would encompass several months of chemo, radiation, and surgery. We would begin with chemo first or neo-adjuvant chemotherapy to shrink the tumor and kill any cancer cells that may have spread, making surgery more effective and less invasive. As he explained the regimen and types of chemo I would need, Brian, who had been with me for both appointments, had a panic attack and had to leave the room. The first time I was left alone in all this. My cancer journey began.