This has been a week for the record books-another of those weeks! I was in terrible pain, and when I got to the hospital on Tuesday for the verdict on the histology results, I realized just how anxious, apprehensive and frightened I was. I had kept telling myself that this was just a cyst, not cancer-so now I have a great deal of trouble trusting my intuition and my judgment.
I decided to be very extravagant, and buy something ridiculously expensive to mark this day. If the verdict was a good one, I would look at it and remember how lucky I am. So I bought a red china teapot at the tea shop in Highgate. Crazily expensive, but more permanent than, say, dinner at an expensive restaurant, or a bottle of wine or bubbly.
Mr. Tan was almost on time. He was also very to the point. The sentinel node, he said, was clear. There is no need to remove any more lymph nodes. This was an aggressive cancer, and if I had waited much longer, he said, the results would have been very different. There was also something on the left side, so he was pleased with the fact that we had both decided on a bilateral mastectomy.
The bottom line: the cancer is gone, I do not need chemotherapy or radiation, I only need to be on the nasty drug called Tamoxifen for the next five years. No more cancer. And, of course, no more breasts, either. the little steri-strips came off, in about seven weeks I can have prostheses (silicone inserts to put in my bra to make it look like I have something there), and he wants to see me in six months. In the interim, I will need to be checked and double-checked at the clinic. And in a year I can have reconstruction if I want it. I have some time to think about whether I want more surgery!!
I can tell you how happy I was after the consultation-how relieved, too. So Tuesday was pretty good, but I had to collect the first month's supply from the hospital pharmacy-and that was an hour and a half's wait, so it was a very late day. I decided to blog on Wednesday, although I did call and text everyone who was also awaiting the verdict.
On Wednesday everything changed-and that is why I haven't been online to blog or email since last week. On Wednesday I decided to look in the mirror-and I was so traumatized by what I saw that I couldn't speak to anyone all week. I couldn't sleep. I had to force myself to eat. I looked at my chest in the mirror and finally saw how badly mutilated I was. I looked like slashers had been at me (I really have to stop watching those Halloween films. And Dexter. Well-maybe Dexter is an exception!).
The lines across my chest aren't straight-but then, Tan had to remove both breasts, and one is always a bit larger than the other, so there won't be straight lines. The scar begins just behind my left armpit and carries on to the breastbone, and then begins again and goes all the way to just behind my right armpit. Mr. Tan told me there would be "dimpling" that would go away in about six months. What I saw wasn't dimpling. What I saw were great big lumps of tissue-and I mean big, and I mean lumps-held by the sutures. No nipples, of course, but incredibly ugly. I looked, as I had really avoided doing all the time I was in the hospital, and all the time I had to wash using a basin and a cloth, so I didn't wet the dressing. And I cried.
I knew I had to look-and the good is the fact that I don't have cancer, and I don't need more treatment (except the Tamoxifen, which has very nasty side effects-but cancer isn't one of them). The bad is the pain I have had since the surgery, and the fact that I am still on painkillers (but I took myself off the morphine when I got home), although I will be going off those very soon. The lucky? No chemotherapy, no radiation, no cancer. No cancer. How lucky I am to have gone for a checkup when I did-we caught it just in time, before it hit the lymph nodes. How lucky is that?
But the ugly-the mangled-the mutilated...I remember how I looked before the surgery, and I look at what used to be my chest and all I can see is something that has been sliced and diced. If that isn't completely traumatizing, I don't know what is.
I've always used humor as a coping mechanism, although it completely deserted me after the gentamicin poisoning. I fought so hard to get some form of balance back, although I am aware that I won't get all of it back, since the mechanism has been destroyed. But-after two years I finally accepted my fate, although I didn't stop fighting. And now? This is something completely different. This is cancer-this WAS cancer.
On Friday my doc pointed out that I need to deal with the loss, the mourning of part of my body that is gone, the fact that I am cancer free-at least for the moment. Macmillan, the cancer people, made public the fact that by 2020 (only six and a half years away!!), 48% of the population of the UK will have some form of cancer. That is big. Very big. I did my part now, and I've been there, done it, got the t-shirt (which I can't fill anymore!), and don't want to ever do it again. I said: born with CVID, all the chest problems because of CVID, the probability of other types of cancer (CVID again), gentamicin and no balance system, so I wobble and occasionally fall over, and now a bilateral mastectomy, so no boobs either. What a catch!! I said. And her response was honest and practical: relationships are formed because of a connection. If a man can't see any further than body parts, he isn't worth my time or my emotions. He's too shallow to deserve me. That made perfect sense.
I'm waiting a few more days, until I have been out of hospital two weeks (Friday) and until I feel a bit less pain. Then I am contacting Macmillan to find a local support group. Only people who have gone through the same thing can understand the way I feel-so I will find them and join them, because I know I am not alone.
It helps that I have a friend who is like a sister (but without the sibling rivalry and the fighting), who has been incredibly supportive. But whether you have friends, or family, or nobody-just keep fighting. I won't quit-even after all I've been through (and that is a hell of a lot), I will not give up, roll over and wait to die, go to Dignitas, become a hermit...I will keep on fighting. Aren't I a big pain in the ass!
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