Friday, June 24, 2005

End of the First Week

"And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid." "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," T.S. Eliot


That poem has been echoing in my head for the past couple of days. I am afraid. Perhaps it would have been better if I hadn't known about the invasive nature of the carcinoma. I've even been admitting to people that I have waves of panic wash over me all throughout the day. Sometimes I'm very sad. I'm more reluctant to share that with others. I guess it seems to me that fear is a lot more understandable by people who haven't had cancer.

I managed to sleep past four a.m. today. I gave in and took a Xanax early yesterday evening and I also took an extra 10 mgs. of Elavil so that I could sleep through the night. My stress level is very high, leaving me exhausted even if I do manage to get enough sleep. When I'm sleep deprived, it's hard to even get up the stairs at work.

I've been continuing to work out, though at a much-reduced pace. I did a Bellydance tape for the aerobics workouts and yoga instead of weights. I feel like a slacker and I'm torn between thinking I need the extra rest and thinking that exercise is really good for dealing with anxiety. I don't know.

I decided today that I'm not going to do the mastectomy. The long-term survival rates are the same. I think there may be more potential for infection with the mastectomy. I'm also concerned about recovery--moving tissue around from one place to another has to be extremely painful and probably prolongs recuperation time.

Typing "recuperation time" sent another wave of fear through me. I can't help but hear the tiny voice in my head saying, "Maybe there won't be a recuperation period." I need to remain optimistic about my long term health.

I have next week off for vacation. I'll be continuing to attempt to push things forward so that I can get the surgery over with soon.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

The First Inkling

Every year since I turned 40, I've dutifully made an appointment to get a mammogram. Every year, I'd receive a report that said, essentially, "We think you're fine, but you have really dense breast tissue, so we can't tell with any degree of reliability whether there's something there we can't see." I used to get anxious about those reports until my primary care physician told me that many people have dense breasts and, more likely than not, I would be fine.

This year, a couple of days after the mammogram, I got a call from the Breast Center. "We need for you to come in and do another mammogram. You know that place we've been watching for the past several years? We just need to take a better look at it."

No. I did not know the "place they've been watching." Somehow everybody forgot to inform me about that. It was a hassle, but I wasn't alarmed. I thought it was probably a technical error. Maybe they hadn't mashed my breast flat enough or they hadn't gotten enough of the surrounding skin squeezed into those mammogram plates. I made an appointment for the following week.

I had the new mammogram done and waited while the radiologist checked the quality of the images. After a few minutes, they led me into another room to have an MRI. The tech sent me back out in the waiting room, but she didn't tell me to get dressed yet. I continued to wait in my little terrycloth robe until everyone who had had their mammograms had gone. Finally, when one of the x-ray technicians told the last woman she could leave, I asked her what exactly what going on.

"We're just waiting for the radiologist to get here," she said. "You can put your clothes back on, though, if you wish."

A tiny shiver of uncertainty ran through me. It couldn't be anything serious, I told myself. There was no need for panic. Yet.

About a half hour later, after I'd been stuck at the Breast Center for about 2.5 hours, they brought me into to see the radiologist. He told me he was sorry for the long wait, but he wanted to be able to talk with me personally. Uh oh.

"Okay," I smiled.

"Come on over here and let me show you," he said. He was sitting behind a massive machine of some kind, so I found my way over there in the dim light.

"Look at this," he said. "I don't know what this is, but it doesn't look right. It's not cancer. This is not cancer, but whatever it is, you should just have them take it out."

I could see the bright spot on the x-ray. I could also see the large black area at the bottom of the MRI image.

"What's that?"

"It doesn't look like cancer. We should just have someone take a look at it and remove it."

That wasn't much of an answer. They told me my next step would be to find a surgeon who could do an actual biopsy. I thanked them for their help, got dressed and went back to work. "At least they don't think it's cancer," I tried to reassure myself. "I'll just get this thing removed and all will be well." It's just going to be a big pain in the ass to find a surgeon, get a referral and ensure that I was meeting all of my health insurance requirements so I could get this paid after I had it done.

I was feeling a little numb. I came back to the office and told a friend, reassuring her that the radiologist said it wasn't cancer. She didn't seem to be terribly impressed with that statement. I could tell she was more worried than I was. That worried me. I went to my office and started the process going, trying to dismiss any concern.