Category: breast cancer

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The First Step

As I stepped out onto our porch, I took a deep breath. Ed was still in bed, and the girls were parked on the couch, watching Saturday morning television. I walked to the end of the driveway, boots crunching on the freshly fallen snow. I picked up our newspaper and took it into the house. Placing it by the coffeemaker where Ed would find it, I contemplated trying to find the camera. The snow was so pretty, but finding the camera was going to take too much effort. Instead, I stepped back out that front door and started walking. It was cold. Not bitterly cold, but cold enough.

Almost as soon as I put my earbuds in my ears and turned on my MP3 player, I took them out again. Snow was drifting out of the clouds, falling gently to the ground, and yet there were birds chirping and conversing with one another. I wanted to listen.

About half a mile later, I decided I would listen to my music. My playlist, titled “Random,” actually is fairly random. From “Layla” by Derek & the Dominoes to the Dixie Chicks, from Beck to Stone Temple Pilots, I walked and listened. One foot in front of the other, pushing myself forward.

The sleepy, snowy neighborhood was slowly waking up. One man was shoveling his driveway. A car rushed by. In a hurry on a Saturday morning? I spotted another walker behind me, a woman with a pink knit hat.

As I walked, I thought about the laundry that always has to be washed, dried and folded. I thought about rehanging the valences on Lily’s windows. I was having trouble with her curtain rods. And I thought about all the blog posts I was going to write in my head that would probably never be written down.

I’m about to do a lot of walking.

A couple of weeks ago, I signed up for the Avon 2-Day Breast Cancer Walk. I committed to walking about 39 miles in two days. I committed to raising $1,800 for breast cancer research and treatment.

You already know why. My life has been dramatically affected by breast cancer.

Every five years that I survive breast cancer, I have committed to walk and raise money. This is my third walk; this will be my fifteenth anniversary of survival.

This is, however, the first walk I will participate in without my mom’s support. And if I write any more, I’m going to start crying.

Mom, this walk is for you.

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Since I blog with the pseudonym of Ginny Marie, I’m choosing not to post my fund raising page. If you would like to make a donation and help me raise money for breast cancer, please email me at lemondroppie[at]gmail[dot]com, and I’ll send you more information. Thank you!

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The Diagnosis

I could never have imagined that beautiful May afternoon would be the beginning.

“What’s this?” I think. I’m lying on my bed in my apartment, left arm above my head, a shot of anxiety-ridden adrenaline flowing through my veins. I feel a plain difference in my left breast compared to my right. There’s a ball-like formation that I can feel all the way around. It’s not attached to my chest, but is just floating there in the middle of my breast. I push all suggestions that it’s “a lump” out of my mind.

Three weeks later I think I have a yeast infection. I’ve never had one before, so I’m not sure. I make an appointment at the clinic in town. The doctor examines me. He tells me there’s no infection, but he feels the lump I was trying to ignore. “You need a mammogram – today.” He escorts me to radiology. After the mammogram, the radiologist looks at the films and talks in whispers to the doctor. I am informed that I need to see a surgeon – today. No one shows me the films. I wait in an exam room, shivering in the skimpy hospital gown. I feel out of control. I have been hustled from room to room with hardly any explanations. This whole afternoon is turning into one long nightmare. When I finally see the surgeon, he announces as he looks at my file, “I’m taking that lump out tomorrow morning.”

I walked into the clinic thinking I would walk out with a simple prescription. I walk out with a lumpectomy scheduled for 8:00 the next morning.

I’m angry, so angry, that I was never asked if I wanted to call someone, never given a chance to breathe, never given any choices. For the next couple of years, I swallow tears every time I drive past the clinic. It’s a small town and that street is hard to avoid.

I call my parents as soon as I get home, tears rolling down my face. They tell me; beg me; come home. They don’t wait for me; they come and get me instead.

My new surgeon gives me choices. My new surgeon gives me time to make some decisions. I decide to have a lumpectomy, and just get rid of the blasted lump. I’m only 27 years old. It couldn’t possibly be what I think it is, could it?

I’m lying on my back, left arm stretched straight out. The anesthesiologist makes sure my left breast is numb, while the surgeon picks out music. U2 OK? Sure. I’m reminded of watching St. Elsewhere, way back when. An older doctor would play classical music, while the young, hip doctor would listen to classic rock during surgery. Cool, I think, I’ve got a doctor that rocks. The nurse clips a sheet vertically between my head and my body. I can’t see much; the light blueness drapes down on my face and I feel claustrophobic. The nurse tries to hold the sheet away from my face when she’s not busy with other tasks. She constantly talks to me; reassures me. I feel tugging but no pain as the surgeon removes a growth that has formed where it shouldn’t have. The tugging seems to last an eternity. Finally it’s over. A call to the pathologist is made. I sense rather than see people conferring, hear something about clean margins. We’ll do a biopsy, but it looks like cancer.

Then the whole world shifted.

This was my response for this week’s prompt at The Red Dress Club to write a piece that begins with the line, “I could never have imagined” and ends with the line, “Then the whole world shifted.” There is a 600-word limit this week.