Breast Confessions and July 6th, 2015

When I was pregnant with my second child at 33 I started contemplating getting my boobs done after breastfeeding for the second time. My beautiful boobs that I had in college had been shot after breastfeeding my son, so I started toying with the idea of getting implants once I was done having children.  I mean, I got a lot of mileage out of those puppies in college, and embarrassing enough (now that I have kids) I am positive that if youtube were available way back when, my breasts would’ve had their own channel. I had a lot of fun in college, and you know what? I don’t regret a single moment. I've always had a weird obsession with not only my breasts, but just breasts in general. My good pal Amanda* told me that one of her first days of high school (after moving from Arizona) that I told her in the girl's locker room that she needed to show me her boobs. She NEEDED (as if it were part of locker room protocol) to show me her boobs? What the hell is wrong with me? Can you imagine how uncomfortable that was for her? She still brings that shit up 20 years later like I bullied her. I am lucky I didn't get a sexual harassment case thrown at me. I only have two guesses as to why she decided to be my friend that day:  she was either A.) afraid of what I was going to ask her to do next or B.) was hoping that later on down the line I would show her my boobs. Which, I can't confirm or deny if I did or not, but I am sure that I did. 

SO getting back on track, my sagging boobs were the foundation to start the conversation and justification as to why I needed to drop a few G's for a pick me up (no pun intended). Plus, my weird right nipple that wasn’t healing a year and a half after breastfeeding was visibly a major problem and conversation starter. It should’ve healed right?

 

*There are many main and supporting characters in Cancerland. I will create something like credits after a movie one of these posts so that you can make sense of who these people are.

July 6^th 11:42 AM Monday

I am informed over the phone that my biopsy results came back positive and I have breast cancer. When I hear the information given to me, my heart starts racing and I instantly become drenched in sweat. The medical assistant, Lorena, would never know on the other line because I stay cheery and friendly and act like I am putting in a to-go order for a sandwich as she explained to me that I needed to see the Dr. that afternoon at 4:50 to discuss my treatment and to bring my husband if I needed to. I hung up the phone, fell into a lump on the floor and began to sob. My son came running in and said, “What wrong mommy?” I dialed my husband at work and sobbed for him to come home. He couldn’t understand a word that I was saying and at one point asked if I was playing a joke on him. I then called my mom, told her my results and she said that she’d come right over right away. When Darin came into the house he had a look on his face that I will never forget. His body was slumping forward and he made this wimpering sound and just grabbed on to me. The first thing that ran through my head was, "This poor guy, loses his mom to lymphoma and now he's going to lose his wife to cancer." He started to cry and I just stood there. Watching someone I love breakdown always send me to the opposite end on the emotion scale and I am able to hold it together for the other person. It's very strange, it's as if my body seizes up and will not let me show any emotion in the hope of staying stable for the other person in need. My parents arrive shortly after Darin and I watched as my mom and dad entered the house crying. My dad went directly to the back of the house and cried. He couldn’t look at me or talk to me. I even tried to offer him a grilled cheese (who doesn't love grilled cheese when they're sad?), but he said no. In fact he looked at me like, "What the hell is wrong with you? NO, I don't want you to make me a sandwich." Good thing he didn't know about me making Amanda show me her boobs in the locker room. He would have really been mad at me for that...My mom held me and cried, saying that this should’ve happened to her. I just watched as everything moved in slow motion. I was in shock. I called my sister as well and she also came in with her kids.

It was the strangest thing. My dad was crying and refusing sandwiches, my mom was crying and accepting my Kleenexes that I was handing out, Darin kept telling me to stop taking care of others, Marco was playing with his superheroes and Gobi (our crazy dog...no joke) was absorbing everyone's stress and walking backwards across the floor to only stand in front of the wall and lick it for hours. I stood and watched all of this go down and inside I was laughing because it was an absolute circus going on and I had a front row seat. My life. Lord help me. It was here that I came to the conclusion that I needed to pull it together and be the stable one for everyone I love. You see cancer doesn't impact only the person diagnosed. When someone gets cancer the whole family and support system gets cancer. Everyone is traumatized, everyone is grieving, everyone is scared and everyone is hoping for the best.

It was the longest afternoon possible and it was pouring rain. That's a nice depressing setting for a cancer diagnosis, don't you think? We all just kept busy kind of operating independently of eachother. When we left the house, Darin wanted to drive and couldn't figure out where he was going and he refuses to use windshield wipers, even though it's raining. I kept reaching over and turning them on and just wanted to scream as we hit every. single. red. light. possible. I hadn't learned yet how to "let things go" as I mentioned at the beginning of this blog so, I might have had a minor fit in the car.

When it was time to meet with the Dr. I was shaking and sick to my stomach. I don’t really remember that appointment. But, one thing that I did pick up on was that my Dr. had been crying before she came into the consultation room. Either that or she had a cold, but she definitely didn't seem to have a cold. She informed me that I had Paget’s Disease and we had to start the hard conversations about treatment and balancing decisions carefully with my pregnancy. I have the type of cancer that is almost always associated with additional tumors in the breast. I also have the type of cancer that on average is diagnosed in women around 57 and only makes up for about 3% (if that) of cancers.  There is little to no research on Paget's.  I find out that I need an ultrasound to detect more cancer in my breast and then we’d need to make a decision from there, on what we need to do in terms of treatment. I am sick to my stomach that I am even having the conversation yet weirdly focused at the same time. I wonder if I am going to have to terminate my pregnancy? Then the worry sets in that I may possibly be leaving behind two small children, and how that is NOT an option.

I come home, still in shock but feel good that we’re moving forward with a plan, even though I have no idea what that is yet. I do know that a mastectomy is my best choice and if I want to live, that is what I need to do. We have a discussion in my living room with my family on the prognosis and everyone seems relieved. My parents decide to go back to Elko the next day and I agreed that I would go to my ultrasound alone to detect the additional cancer and I would be fine.

Mike and Mariluz come over for dinner that night. Mariluz can’t stop crying. I am still watching everyone’s reaction, yet not having one yet.  Since breaking down when I first got the news, I have not shed a single tear. It is like I am watching all these people go through emotional pain and I have yet to connect the pieces that they are crying for me. We eat dinner in the living room and hang out. They both look and seem very concerned. I love them like they are my family and have that weird reaction again where I can't connect emotionally because I feel like I need to be strong for others around me.

I sent a text to my boss that night asking to meet the following day because I was going to report back to school in a few weeks. Trying to figure out how I was going to balance all this news and be a counselor to middle schoolers was overwhelming me. How was I going to pull that off? I was shaking so badly I could hardly type. I kept changing my response so that it wouldn’t scare or lead anyone to think anything really bad...I was not looking forward to sitting down with my admin and telling them what was happening because I care about them so much that I was scared that my guard would come down and I would break.