It's Stage 2, I Mean, Oops, We're Sorry, It's Actually Stage 4

After a diagnosis of breast cancer your life becomes a dizzying blur of doctors appointments, tests and long periods on hold with your insurance company, who at this point wishes they never heard of you.  One of the reasons for all of these tests (MRIs, CAT Scans, Bone Scans, Chest X-Ray, Bloodwork, etc.) is to determine what stage your cancer is.  Staging is very important as it not only determines your course of treatment, but it also gives you a solid benchmark to see whether or not the cancer has spread and if so, by how much and where.


Before all of my test results had come back both my oncologist and breast surgeon had told me I was Stage 2 and that my cancer could be curable with aggressive treatment.  Although, "aggressive treatment" sounded daunting, "curable" was what I wanted to hear.   


Insert the sound of a bubble bursting here. 


After the results of my CAT scan came back I got a call from my oncologist telling me they had found "3 dark shadows" on my liver and he wanted me to have a liver biopsy to make sure these spots weren't cancer as well.  "Are they ever not cancer?" I asked.  "No, when you already have breast cancer they are usually indicitive that the cancer has spread there." was the response I got.  The liver biopsy was no picnic and of course I had held out hope that maybe those dark shadows on my liver were something else (too much drinking in the 90's?), but several agonizing days later I got the call from my oncologist telling me the results of the biopsy had come in and that they had found breast cancer in my liver.  He was quick to point out that it wasn't "liver cancer", but that the breast cancer had metasticized and had spread to my liver. 


So, why the fuck did they tell me initially I was Stage 2 when the reality was they didn't know what stage I was at that point because not all the results of my tests had come in yet?  Of course I asked about this (I did not use the word "fuck" although I wanted to) and I got a very dissatisfying response.  Apparently they feel the need to tell you something right away.  How about wait a couple days and tell me something accurate??  WTF?


Goodbye Stage 2, Hello Stage 4.  There is no Stage 5...

“It’s cancer, Judyth”

Waiting for test results is usually agonizing enough as it is.  Waiting to find out if you have cancer is more stressful than anyone should have to endure.  Especially if you’re already a stressball like me.  I didn’t get out of that marathon Mammogram, Ultrasound, Biopsy “trilogy of fun” until about 5:30 p.m. on a Tuesday.  I didn’t get a call until around 10:00 a.m. the following Monday. ..yes, 6 days later  (thanks to Good Friday).  Those 6 days were among the most agonizing I can recall.  Everyone was telling me “try not to think about it”.  Okay, you try not to think about it if you were waiting to hear whether or not you have cancer.  It’s nearly impossible to think about anything else!  When the call finally came it was from the associate from my OB/GYN’s office who had examined me the week before.  Because she had written the order for the mammogram all the test results came back to her so she was the one who had to call me.  I will always appreciate the fact that she didn’t fuck around.  She came right to the point.  “It’s cancer, Judyth”.  In that instant my whole world fell away.  I had been standing out in front of my office building to be able to talk freely and now I desperately needed to sit down.  I tried to listen as she read some stuff off the pathologists report, but all I could hear was the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.  I mean anything after “It’s cancer, Judyth” didn’t really matter anyway…

The last thing she said to me was that she had never had to tell anyone they had cancer before and how sorry she was.  Well no one had ever had to tell me I had cancer so I guess it was a day of firsts for both of us.   

The Mammogram Appointment that Ended With a Biopsy

I went for a mammogram on a Tuesday.  My appointment was around noon so I figured I could run and go get this taken care of on my lunch break.  The mammogram itself was a little more detailed than normal since this wasn’t my routine, yearly test and they had me wait back out in the waiting room while they had a radiologist look at the results.  I knew something was wrong when they asked me if I could stay for an ultrasound.  So much for getting this done at lunch!  The ultrasound tech had a hard time locating the spot they had apparently found on the mammogram.  I was told I had dense breast tissue which makes locating abnormalities a little more difficult.  Great.  Normally an ultrasound shouldn’t hurt but she was pressing down so hard and going back and forth over the same area again and again and again.  And this was all after my left breast had been flattened and pulled every which way for the mammogram.  Finally she called in the radiologist to come in and do the ultrasound and it seemed like he had better luck.  He was at least able to match up the spot on the ultrasound with the spot on the mammogram.  This “spot” would now become known as an “area of concern” that they wanted to biopsy!  Biopsy?!  This was quickly becoming a nightmare of an afternoon!  (I learned later that at this point the radiologist already knew it wasn’t a cyst because they could see on the ultrasound that the spot wasn’t filled with fluid, that it was a solid mass.)  I didn’t have to move to a different room for the biopsy since it was ultrasound guided and I was already in the ultrasound room.  As I laid there watching the nurse prep the room for the procedure I couldn’t help but notice she brought in 6 very large hollow needles.  I mean, really medieval looking shit.  “Those can’t all be for me”, I thought.  Maybe she’s just stocking up the room.  I was already crying as they explained the procedure to me and to my horror I learned that yes, all of those needles were for me.  All six of them.  Actually 7 needles were involved if you count the one they had to use to give me a local anesthetic injected into my breast to numb it.  Unfortunately I would quickly learn that needles were going to become a constant in my life.  I could tell by the look on the radiologist’s face as he was swapping one needle out for the next that what he was seeing in the way of the tissue samples he was getting wasn’t good.  Of course he told me that he couldn’t tell me anything and that we had to send the samples to the pathology dept. and wait for them to write their report.  This would take several days and if Friday hadn’t been Good Friday I may have gotten the results then, but as it turned out I had to wait until Monday, the day after Easter.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

A lot of people have asked me “how did you first find out you had breast cancer?”  Believe it or not this trip down the rabbit hole started one day in the mirror while I was shaving under my left arm.  Glamorous, right?  I don’t know if it was the angle I was standing at or the way the light in the bathroom was at that moment, but I noticed a dimpling in the skin on my left breast while my arm was raised up over my head while shaving.  “What the hell is that?” I wondered.  Had that always been there?  I didn’t think so.  I definitely think I would have noticed that before.  When I was done shaving I laid down on my bed and started feeling around my left breast in the area I had seen the dimple.  I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for and because I was looking for something, now everything felt like a lump. It seemed like I could feel something, but I didn’t trust in my own judgment at this point. 

The next morning I walked into my OB/GYNs office without an appointment and asked to have my doctor give me a breast exam because I thought I had found a lump, but I wanted to be sure.  As luck would have it my regular doctor was out delivering a baby so I saw his associate.  Because I didn’t have an appointment they had to “work me in”.  “Working you in” means that you’ll wait at least an hour in the examining room before anybody comes in to see you.  I didn’t care, I would have waited all day long.  I just wanted a professional to check this out and lay my worries to rest.  When the doctor finally came in and examined me she said she could feel something too, but that it was probably a cyst.  I mean I’m relatively young to have breast cancer, my last mammogram was fine and I have no family history of the disease, so what are the odds?  Yes…probably a cyst.  What a relief!   She wrote me an order to go have a mammogram a couple days later just to be sure.  On my way out she assured me again that she didn’t think I had anything to worry about.

Thanks for Visiting!

Welcome to my blog.  I hope you visit often.  Become a "follower", please leave comments - be as interactive as you wish.  I welcome it all.

Let me explain a little bit about what I hope to accomplish here.  8 months ago I was diagnosed with Stage IV Breast Cancer and since that time I've been on countless forums and read hundreds of blogs written by women "just like me".  The only problem is I've had a hard time identifying with a lot of the people who are "just like me".  Of course there are similarities in the treatments we're receiving and in the names of the drugs that are coursing through our veins with the hope of trying to save us.  Oh, and none of us want to die.  Duh.  Having said that, my writings here are not meant to undermine or alienate anyone who may be going through (or gone through) a similar situation.  I just felt that an unapologetic, take-no-prisoners type approach to the life of a 40-something, single mom living and dealing with Stage IV Breast Cancer was missing from the blogosphere.  So here it is in all of my fucked up and skewed way of looking at things. 

Oh yeah, I will swear a lot - of that you can be sure.  If you are easily offended by such things this may not be the place for you.