Just another Tuesday
It was an unassuming Tuesday in June. I was at the office checking off my to-do list, waiting for my follow-up with a general surgeon I had seen once before. But my breast cancer journey truly began one year earlier. Athena was 6.5 months old and still breastfeeding, I was mostly pumping by then, actually–but banking milk like Scrooge and his gold bars. I felt a “grain of rice” in my left breast and initially thought it was mastitis. I rolled it between my fingers trying to dissolve it. But there was no heat, no redness, no swelling. I monitored it for 2 weeks. It grew. My PCP sent me for an ultrasound. “It’s likely a cyst, come back in a few months if it changes.”
Maybe it was my determination to keep breastfeeding until she turned one. Just let me get to November. It grew. Maybe it was fear of something more. It grew. It’ll go away. It grew. March came and so did another ultrasound and a recommendation to see a surgeon about a biopsy, just in case. Two additional ultrasounds, a biopsy, and a mammogram later, I received a letter at home suggesting I have an MRI done. Miscommunication from that doctor’s office brought me in on that unassuming Tuesday in June, two months later.
I remember the pink plasticky fabric brushing against my shoulders. There was a mild draft. I took a selfie.
I’m sorry, it’s cancer.
The doctor came in and I smiled optimistically, his surgical assistant hovering behind with a pen and notepad in hand. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “I’m sorry, it’s cancer.” My grip on the leather beneath me tightened, I think more so I wouldn’t fall. The sound of his voice became a low muffle, and I suddenly felt a heaviness in my eyes. I hadn’t blinked. He handed me a box of tissues and at that moment, I felt gravity shift.
When I made it back to my car, the weather had turned gray and wet. And as I sat alone, I called my husband, then a group chat with my sisters, niece, and mom, and lastly my best friend. Those were the easy ones. How do you look your children in the eye and tell them? With honesty and full transparency. This was not the end of anything, it was the beginning of a new chapter, one that would not be so easy.
Can-cer.
Within a month I had met my oncologist, and a port was placed in my chest. 35 years young. The recommended age for your first mammogram is 40, and yet cases in women under 40 are rising. Stage 3 Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, with lymph node involvement and skin infiltration. BRCA2+, a genetic mutation that puts me at a higher risk for breast and ovarian cancer. Aggressive. So, treatment would need to be aggressive. Six letters, two syllables, one word.
