Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I am a strange type of hypochondriac. I can be all consumed by my illnesses yet I avoid medical attention at all costs. I just want things to go away on their own and, for all of my life up until now, it's worked out pretty well.
The biopsy of the left breast was scheduled for the last Monday of summer vacation. By that time, the giant lump had grown to the point where I felt sure it was going to grow right out of my body. The wonderful technician and doctor worked quickly. I mentioned before it was an easy job for the doctor. It wasn't like he would miss the lump with his little flesh chomping gun, it was literally as big as my fist. Three very loud clicks later he was done. Again the words, encapsulated and well defined were used in describing the now orange sized lump. Doug was in Provo at BYU moving Bret into his first college apartment so after the biopsy I came home to an empty house. I was told no lifting for twentyfour hours and to take it easy all day. I did the best I could. It isn't in my nature to sit around so I worked on painting a coffee table and end table for the remainder of the morning. School started in just two days so I had about 5,000 things I wanted to get done. A classroom to set up, lesson plans to attend to and a host of new programs and technology that I needed to digest. That afternoon I went down to the school and promised myself I would just do work at my desk. I remember walking down the hall with my arms folded discreetly over my chest so I could hold on to the massive lump to stop the pain. My thoughts were occupied as I reflected on the many things I had to do during the next three or four weeks. I had the new school year of course and on top of my young students' classes I was slated to start teaching a graduate literacy course the following week. I was also enlisted to present at our stake's women's conference the second Saturday of the month. On top of that I had a Primary Teacher Appreciation coming up and 11 year old scout camp was just around the corner. Although my nest is empty September looked to be jam packed with commitments. Planning for the weeks ahead kept me from focusing all my energy on the lump. Besides, I had convinced myself, It was a fibroadenoma, or possibly this other phyllodes thing (that are almost always benign by the way) so it was all good.
When the call came on Thursday and I was told I had, whisper it, cancer, a funny thing happened. I knew instinctively that no good would come from my google searches at this point. Somehow the reality of the diagnosis told me it was time for me to focus on the guidance and advice of the professionals. You would think a hypochondriac like me would have sat at my monitor all night googling those forbidding words; malignant, spindle-celled neoplasm, but I didn't. I knew I was out of my league so I just avoided the web searches. I had read everything I could find about phyllodes tumors prior to the diagnosis and hoped with all I could hope that this thing, this interloper, this intruder, this aggressive, whisper it, cancer, would turn out to be one of those rare phyllodes tumors and not some far worse form of the dread disease.
About six weeks after D day I decided to dip my toes in the pool so to speak. I went online and deliberately searched for breast cancer. You can imagine the thousands of results that search returned. I looked over a few of the sites, hopping back and forth between breastcancer.org, dana-farber.org and mayoclinic.org. I settled in on dana-farber.org. I'm a Boston girl and somehow knowing the Dana Farber Cancer Institute is in Beantown gave me comfort. Besides my old high school pal Anne who is just finishing up her treatments for breast cancer was cared for at the DFCI and had nothing but wonderful things to say about the hospital. She was diagnosed in 2015 and went through a mastectomy, chemo, radiation and most recently, reconstruction. I haven't seen Anne in over 20 years, maybe close to 30. I still picture her as a seventeen year old girl, not a woman, who like me is battling with this horrible disease. Anne has been a huge source of strength and information for me. She is, for lack of a better term, ahead of me, in all of this. So talking with her about what I should expect has been informative, helpful,and extremely hopeful .
So what did I find in my research? Cancer is gross. Cancer is a cruel, ugly diseases that picks on the old and young alike. Breast cancer it seems finds a place for itself in one out of eight women in the United States. Welcome to the club to which nobody wants membership. I still avoided looking at survival rates or stats on recurrences. I'm just not there yet and quite frankly don't think I will ever get there. Knowing that information won't help me in any way. In fact, I steered clear of anything that felt negative to me. I studied my pathology reports and with the help of the breastcancer.org's guide made sense of every foreign term I found there. I researched Tamoxifen, the drug I would be taking for the next five years. I learned about its effectiveness and its side effects. I researched radiation, and its effects on the body as well as different courses of chemotherapy. Although I have been told chemo is unlikely, it's still a possibility so I wanted to know more about it. I looked into support groups (Vegas is significantly lacking) and found some online communities which offered lots of information. I further studied nutritional changes I wanted to make and other lifestyle changes that could help me as I go forward.
As I educated myself I felt myself becoming stronger, more powerful. Faith in the blessings I had received increased with this added knowledge. Since the surgeries which removed the damaging tumors I have not known what to say about myself in regards to my cancer status. Am I cancer free? Am I a cancer patient? Am I already a survivor? I mean the cancer is gone, right? Dr. President made darn sure of that. But somehow saying , "Oh ya, remember those three weeks or so when I had cancer," doesn't seem logical, or even possible. Dr. President warned me that for months, maybe years, heck possibly forever, I would think every little ailment was cancer. Considering my place in the Hypochondriac's Hall of Fame I was pretty sure he was right. Still, armed with this knowledge (in addition to my faith), I have been able to fight victoriously in what is probably the most difficult battle when it comes to a cancer diagnosis. The battle with fear. I once heard faith and fear can't exist together. I'm not entirely sure that is true. Throughout my illness I have had tremendous faith-faith in God, faith in His plan, faith in the Atonement of Christ, faith in prayer and faith in many other principles, but I have still felt fear on many occasions. We often talk about our relationship with the Father and Jesus Christ and use phrases like, "We do our part and Christ makes up the rest." I think maybe the formula to overcome fear is knowledge plus faith. We do our part, which is to gain knowledge and add that to the faith we have. This in turn causes that very faith to grow. For me, this combination has been unbeatable.
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