Diagnosis – Boob Gone Rogue

Tuesday September 19 – Result Day

This morning finds me wide awake before the alarm goes off. How long can I keep this up? I feel wooden. I am terrified. Why am I so afraid? It’s the unknown, yet known. I’m afraid because deep down, I know what it is; I just don’t want to acknowledge what it is. My hand creeps slowly up from my side, and I feel my right breast. Damn, The Lump is still there. The steri-tapes I was told to keep on for 5 days are really starting to make me itch. It’s close enough to five days, so I can remove them before we go. The anxiety is heavier this morning, and it has spread. It’s now in my lungs and around my heart. It’s up in my throat. I take my morning pills, but I don’t eat. I can’t. The anxiety is a dragon unfurling slowly in my body, cutting off my ability to swallow, to talk. There are moments when I feel like I cannot breathe.

My husband takes my hand. It will be OK. The dragon recedes just a bit. I can breathe again. We get in the car. We drive back to the BDC. I walk up to the front desk to check-in. I have my pink slip; they look up at me. “Oh, OK, we will take that. We will be right with you.” The first Oh, is filled with dread. Then the voice turns perky. My dragon tightens. I sit with my husband and hang on for dear life.

Evelyn, a cute petite brunette with kind eyes and a beautiful smile, calls us and brings us back to an office, where we are directed to sit at a desk. Evelyn is calming; she speaks softly. She says Dr. R will be in shortly to discuss my diagnosis with us.

Dr. R comes in and introduces herself. I know this is going to be bad. I get out my notebook from my purse. I am a visual, kinetic learner, so if I want something to sink in, even doodling will help me if I am seeing or reading something I need to understand. Keywords and doodles help me commit it to memory if someone is speaking. Dr. R said I get copies of all the pathology reports. She’s going to explain what it all means and provide us with a recommendation on treatment.

She went through the pathology report from top to bottom. As my heart constricted, my ears buzzed, and my stomach flipped. My anchor was holding my hand, and my dragon was flipping inside my torso.

I have invasive ductal carcinoma. It’s considered triple negative at this point, but they do not have final confirmation. This means the current biopsy information provided shows this cancer is not receptive to Estrogen or Progesterone. We ask what this means. It means we cannot add hormone therapy to cut off the hormone supply to the tumor to weaken it. They are waiting on the results for HER2 cells. These are cells that, if present, are telling the tumor cells to multiply at an accelerated rate. If this is negative, this means they cannot add an additional medication to chemo that will specifically target the HER2 cells to slow down its growth. My mind translates HER2 cells to God Cells – go forth and multiply.

This is an aggressive tumor. My Ki-67 came out at 80%.

Dr. R said if she were my oncologist, she would recommend Chemotherapy to shrink the tumor, lumpectomy, and then radiation.

She asked about family history, and when our response was negative and she learned of my previous bout with Thyroid cancer, she said we should insist on genetic testing for any of the 7 variants that indicate a risk for breast cancer. Even if we have to pay for this ourselves, as the insurance may not want to cover the cost since I am over 50, get it done. If I have one of those variants, she would change the treatment recommendation to bilateral mastectomy.

She emphasized that even though people say a triple negative cancer is bad, don’t think about that. Think about the part that this type of cancer is very receptive to chemo. This is treatable, this is curable, this is survivable, and this is temporary.

She said I would lose my hair, get a wig, or do whatever I needed to do to feel pretty and keep up my confidence during treatment. I asked about working through this. She didn’t say no, but she seriously did not think it wise and told me I should really use this time to take care of myself. If I wanted to try to work, there are a few who feel well enough to do this, but most do not.

She told my husband that his job was not to always tell me I must have a positive outlook every day. She told him there would be days when she would just need to let everything out, and that was OK. No one can always remain positive every day during this treatment. She has to have the ability to let her feelings out, and you need to be the safe place for her to do that. It doesn’t mean she is losing hope. She just needs to vent.

My anchor, my rock, looked shell-shocked, but he heard Dr. R. He committed to her to let me use him to vent on my down days in this process, and he would understand that I was not giving up.

She asked if we had any questions. I am numb, I am petrified, how, what, how? Why? That dragon of anxiety, the curling gray fog, has engulfed my whole body. My ears are working, but everything thing seems muffled. We shake our heads, no, no more questions. Wait, my husband has a question. I hear it, but I don’t hear it. He is trying to emphasize that I will live. I have cancer. I have a bad cancer. I have a cancer that will require chemo, and surgery and radiation, and reconstruction, and, and, and… I will live. Dr. R explained that Evelyn would return to review more things with us.

Evelyn comes back in, she explains the diagnosis briefly, yes, we understand. Dr. R and none of the oncologists who work at the BDC are part of our HMO, but there is a group under our HMO that works directly with the BDC and the oncologists there. Based on my diagnosis, she has picked one who she feels will be a great match for us, and I have scheduled an appointment with her the next Monday. Now, for a Surgeon, she checked with my primary care physician, was directed to the preferred surgical group, and matched me with who she felt was the best doctor there for my case, and that appointment has been scheduled as well. She has also scheduled me for an MRI in a few hours at the BDC. If there are additional lesions or lymph nodes that show signs of involvement, then I will need to be scheduled for additional biopsy and have those completed before my first Oncology appointment.

Then she opens a 2-inch wide plastic document case and starts going over resources and places to go for research and support groups. She highly recommends the Cancer Care Center, and we really need to get to the first welcome meeting on Friday before we can be signed up for a support group. And here is information on breast cancer. This will help you find local resources for wigs, scarves, and hats; here is information on nutrition. Here is the surgical information, and Sentinel Lymph Node mapping will be done here before your surgery. Here is some information on that for you to read. Here are contact numbers, and if you want reconstruction, let me know as I will get you matched to a plastic surgeon, and here, and here, and here… I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to say. I’m a statistic, again.

Evelyn explains she is also a breast cancer survivor. She tells us briefly about her diagnosis and her double mastectomy. Her sister too. She emphasizes that everything will be ok. My heart aches; it will never be the same again. My right boob is defective. It’s gone rogue. It’s trying to kill me. Evelyn tells me she is going to hug me now. She is tiny, but I will survive. I am terrified. I can’t believe this is happening. This is not my life. If this tiny thing can do it, so can I. I take some of her strength, I need it for the rest of the day.

We take our plastic document box with the handle, filled with way too much information to begin to digest in a few short hours and walk out of the BDC hand in hand, in shock, both of us silently trying to come to terms with what we have just been told. We have about two hours before we have to be back for the MRI. My husband asks me if I want to eat. Am I hungry? No, no, I’m not hungry. Let’s go home.

I called my boss and told him I would not be there the rest of the day. Explain my diagnosis. So many questions I don’t have answers to yet. Can he tell people if they ask? Yes, there’s no reason to hide this. It’s my boob…. We arrived home, and my family was all waiting on pins and needles. I can’t talk to them right now. I have to tell them, but I am not ready for this. I will send them all an email and then tell them they have to wait until Saturday before I can talk. I will text them all to read the email. My husband, Robert, texts two of the three kids to let them know. I copied the letter sent to my extended family and sent it to them later. I also IM the oldest son to let him know.

Letter sent to the family: “As I am sure all of you have discussed, I found a lump in my right breast right before Labor Day weekend. I already had a follow-up doctor appointment scheduled for the Tuesday after, so didn’t rush to make another appointment.

I’ve had clean mammograms for years, the last being this past January.

On Tuesday, September 5th, I told my primary care doctor about said lump. She felt it out, we both agreed it was most likely a cyst, and she scheduled me for a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound on Tuesday, Sept 12^th.

That led to being scheduled immediately for a biopsy, which happened on Thursday, September 14th.

Today was results day.

The lump is 29 x 22 x 17 mm and is located on the anterior side of my breast 8 cm from the nipple.

It is an invasive ductal carcinoma, grade III

It is hormonal receptive negative, and the Ki-67 indicator is 80%, which means it is a very aggressive tumor, and there is not the additional plus of being able to cut off hormone supply to help stop the cancer.

It is in the early stages, 1 or 2.

The mammogram and ultrasound did not detect any additional sites or enlarged lymph glands.

I have already been scheduled for an MRI today to ensure no other lesions or lymph gland involvement before my first appointment with an Oncologist.

They are also trying to get me scheduled for genetic testing this week, but think it may not happen until next week when I meet with the Oncologist I have been referred to in my network.

The consulting oncologist we met with this morning advised if I were her patient, she would recommend chemo first, as this type of cancer responds well to chemo, shrinks the tumor, and then have a lumpectomy.

If my genetic testing comes back positive for any one of 7 variants for breast cancer, that would change from her original recommendation to double mastectomy to prevent further occurrences.

I will be losing my hair, and I may need radiation treatment, but that is still to be determined by the next scans and the genetic testing results.

I have a great medical team that is at my beck and call should I need them, even if it is only to help me with the doctors that are covered in my medical group or answer our questions.

I have been referred to support groups here as well.

The consulting oncologist and my cancer coordinator both emphasized this is very treatable, curable, and temporary.

I am in good hands, and this is being fast-tracked as much as possible so they can implement a treatment plan sooner rather than later.

This is all the information I have right now. I am not ready to talk about this, and I still have to return to the imaging center for the MRI. As soon as I know more, I will update you all.

Please do not call me today or tomorrow. I have a lot of reading to do, and I have a full-day symposium scheduled for tomorrow that I really need to attend for work.

This weekend I will make time for phone calls. I love you all, I thank you all for your understanding and support.

Love you all VERY much.”

I head to our bedroom and remove all my jewelry. MRI, no metal. I must remove the tiny stud in the second hole in my left earlobe. It’s really supposed to be a nose stud, but I love the tiny blue chip of color that barely winks from my lobe. I drop the stud. I can’t find it. Fuck my life.

Of course, my mother did not read the messages in order, so she called. I can’t answer. I can’t talk; we have to go back for the MRI. Then my mom pocket-dials me. I don’t know if this is a pocket dial, as I still cannot answer. I want to yell at her,” READ THE FUCKING EMAIL”. I want to yell at the world. I want to stop the world and get off until this whole thing is over. I want to wake up from this nightmare. This is NOT happening to me. I already had my cancer. It was easy, it was stressful, I lost my sense of taste, I would forget what I was doing, and I ruined a perfectly good pot and made an egg in a shell catch fire and burnt teabags, but I aced that cancer! I’m cured. I should not have to do this again. Why do I have to do this again? FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK! I can’t breathe.

My husband takes my hand. The constriction in my chest eases just enough so my lungs can expand yet again. We have arrived back at the BDC, and now we head to the other door. The door that says to me,” YOU HAVE CANCER”. I am no longer just the woman coming in for my annual exam. Now I am the woman with cancer. Like I am defective. I didn’t do things right, so now I have cancer. I should have exercised more, lost weight, managed my weight, eaten better, and taken vitamins more regularly. Only drank red wine, not the bubbly or the whiskey…. I am bad. I have cancer. It feels like a walk of shame.

As we walk through the door, I hold my head up high.

Sign in. Wait, my name is called, and fill out more forms. Wait. Called back. I am taken to the dressing room, and the nurse explains how this will go. This will be an MRI with contrast, so once I am changed, all clothes off, into the provided tie waist pants, and the gown tied in the back, I will be taken to a room to have an IV catheter started. Once that is done, then I will have the MRI of my breasts, chest, and armpit area done.

As I prepare to change, the nurse brings me some socks to use as well. She says it’s cold in the MRI room. I then wait to be taken for the IV catheter. When the phlebotomist comes to get me, and we go to her little room, I ask her if she has a warm blanket.

“Oh, are you cold?”

“No, but if you want to be able to find a vein, that will really be helpful,” I as I hold up my arm and show her my nonexistent veins.

She agrees; let’s warm up that arm. As we wait for the warm blanket to work its magic on my veins, I give her the spiel on how this must go so the vein does not collapse. She takes it all in and says, we’ll let’s start you in a reclining position first, and we will go from there. She moves the chair around a bit so we can recline it, and then she competently goes to work, finds a vein, takes her time, and in it goes, no hesitation, and we’re done. I thank her for doing it in one fell swoop. She thanked me and said all the info I provided helped her, too. Back to the small waiting room off the changing room, with the warm blanket held to my chest like a life preserver.

The MRI tech comes and gets me. We go into the MRI room, and she explains how I will lay on the board with my breastbone positioned on a small pad on a bar between two rectangular openings where my beasts will hang. She will place a pillow under my feet and a small support under my pelvis to help relieve some of the pressure on the breastbone. My arms will be extended above my head like I am trying to fly like Superman. One hand will hold a “ball” that will be my signal if I am in distress, squeeze the ball. There will be three images taken without contrast, then the last image will be with the contrast. My gown is removed and I lay down on the table, we adjust my placement. I am provided with earplugs and earphones. The tech drapes the gown over my back. She places the ball in my hand. She hooks up the IV to the contrast. All set? Thumbs up. My breastbone hurts. I feel exposed. I feel like I am not a real person. It’s hard to breathe. The bed is raised, moved back, and then the tech asks if I’m ready. No, but I don’t think I will ever be ready for this.

“The first scan will last 4 minutes. Please try to breathe normally; do not take deep breaths.” Whir, cachunk, cachunk, cachunk, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrddddddddddddttttttttttt. Da tat, tat, tat, and on it goes, sounding its loud cacophony as images of my upper torso, my breasts, are made. “OK, that was good. The next image will be 6 minutes. Here we go.” And more noise while I lay there wondering how I got here. “One more, and then we start the contrast.” Cancer is not dignified. You are exposed, raw, and hurt. Fear curls throughout you while you are bombarded with tests, x-rays, imaging, and chemicals. You bare parts of yourself to strangers as if you do this every day. Breathe. Do not cry now. Fucking lump. “And now the contrast. You might feel a little cold. This scan will take 20 minutes.”

I am finally done. My breastbone feels bruised. The tech removes the catheter. They use the stretchy cling tape instead of regular bandage tape. Nice, no itching. I get dressed, and we go. I can’t do this. I am not strong enough. I’m just a little frightened girl. We go home. There is so much information. I feel like I need to know it all before we meet the Oncologist. I set myself up on the sofa with my “Cancer Box” and started reading.

I am overwhelmed. This is too much. IT’S TOO FUCKING MUCH. I crawl into my husband’s lap, and he holds me while I cry. It’s loud, sobbing, snot dripping, heart-wrenching, face swelling, can’t catch my breath agony. Life is not the same. Life is hard, life is short, life is unfair.

I don’t eat at all that day. I can’t. Finally, it’s bedtime. I take a shot of Nyquil to help knock me out. I want, crave, and need the oblivion of sleep.

Life is wishing for oblivion

September 18 Monday… D Day?

My alarm goes off at 6:20 am. I think I should feel exhausted. I have not slept a full night since last Thursday when that word was said that feeds the anxiety still curled in my gut, waiting for me to let it loose. It’s getting harder to control. I was awake for several hours in the middle of the night, falling back to sleep sometime after 4 am. I was awake before my alarm went off at 6:20 am. I lay there ignoring the alarm and check The Lump. FUCK! It’s still there. Damn it. I get up and get ready for work, packing my lunch. I have an industry Expo in town that I need to get to try to do some networking. We need more business. But I want to get to the office first and catch up on all I missed on Thursday and Friday.

I am trying not to think about The Call. The call that will schedule us to come back for the results. The call that will change the rest of my life. The anxiety pushes from its little corner; I push back. My boob already hurts. I can now take more than Tylenol. Advil is my next choice. I can take 3 extra strength Advil, which will get me through the day. I work, get through emails, answer questions, help with billing issues, and check all pending to make sure everything looks right and there are no anomalies.

Boss arrives, we talk, review some things, asked when I’m going to the EXPO. I told him I would finish up some rate requests, review some things, eat my lunch, and head over there. Asked about The Call. Not yet, as I shake my head, my cell phone rings. Not a number I recognize, but it originated in the city of the Breast Diagnostic Center. I hold up my finger to pause my boss for a second and answer. It’s Evelyn from the BDC. They will not receive the biopsy results in time to schedule a follow-up that day, but they will be in for a first-thing appointment on Tuesday. “9 am, yes, that works, we will be there.” Show the pink slip or tell the front desk you are there to see Evelyn. They will take it from there. The anxiety perks up, and it starts to unfurl, ready to go, but I am not ready for that yet. I close my eyes, take a deep cleansing breath, and imagine good, purifying energies coming in, goldish, with a tinge of pink, entering my lungs, spreading through my bloodstream, fortifying my body, adding invisible armor, my protection from bad, and slowly exhaling. My boss watches all this, and as I turn back to him, he says, “Tomorrow”, and I nod. “OK. Let me know how it goes.”

“I will.”

“Will you go back to the EXPO tomorrow?”

“Depends on what I find there today.”

“OK. Then Wednesday, you have the all-day Symposium on the Software we use, correct?”

“Yes, I still plan on going to that. I think there are tools we’re not using effectively. This is a free way to find out what I am missing.”

“Good, we will see you back here for sure on Thursday.”

“Yup.” And with that, I went back to work.

I like my boss. I really like my boss. I love what I do. There are times when I don’t like my boss. We have different management styles, and he can be overbearing at times. He is quick to anger and VENTS. But he is also quick to calm down. When he is frustrated or angry, he will not listen. There is no talking to him. You cannot explain anything. You just take the wrath, do what you can to fix the situation that started his frustration, and then present the solution you wanted to present earlier after everything is fixed.

He frustrates me to no end at times. He makes me stretch and grow and learn new things, even when I don’t want to. He is fair. He believes that in a good days pay for hard work. He expects hard work. He is so much like my husband. Cut and dry. A wry sense of humor. He’s a boob man. I know this; he knows this. He says things he shouldn’t say, but they are the same things I think or would say. HR rolls her eyes at us all the time. It feels like we are compatriots fighting the same fight.

He makes me laugh almost as much as my husband. I respect him. When he mentions my boobs about whatever we may be dealing with, it is usually funny, makes me laugh, and then I tell him I own his ass. He laughs and agrees. As angry as he can make me, and I am sure as hell, I can press all his buttons and piss him off, too, I don’t think I would find a better place to work than where I am now.

I was very happy for almost 20 years to work for a major corporation. Then they moved all the jobs I liked to Arizona. And not to a nice place like Prescott or Flagstaff. I couldn’t do it. I could not move with the jobs. So, after almost 20 years with this company, I took the layoff. Sometimes I think of my boss as almost a second father. He is a good man.

Anyway, it took me a little longer than I anticipated to go over everything, get emails caught up, and answer all the questions. I went and retrieved my salad from the frig and ate at my desk as I put finishing touches on things, then packed all my gear up and headed to the EXPO. I walk in, and of course, I see people I know everywhere. I’ve been in this industry for so long, and I happen to be the current president of one of the non-profit organizations in our industry, so I have had the great opportunity to meet many wonderful people.

I greet those I know, we chat, promise to call and get together, the normal stuff. Then I will move on to see if there are any opportunities to grow our business here. I stop at various booths, introduce myself, chat, swap stories, trade business cards, get goodies, the little marketing gimmicks everyone buys to hand out at EXPOs. As I turn a corner and come to one booth, I recognize an old colleague. The previous corporation I worked for has gone through many changes, including a purchase by another company. Many of my previous co-workers throughout the country have left and gone on to other adventures. The previous COO and the President of the Americas have started a new company based in Arizona with the primary footprint of the services and goods they offer in my neck of the woods. As they have been expanding their footprint and providing offerings in other markets, they keep hiring more and more people to help them. One of my previous bosses, who I loved working for, also works for this new company. Here was yet another face from my past, becoming my present once again. It was good to see him.

Once I was done grooming the EXPO, with very little to show for my efforts, but it was nice to have been able to get out there and talk to people I don’t get the chance to speak with very often, I called it a day and headed home. Home, where we were still in denial about the word that had been spoken that directly relates to the C word. I was barely in the car before I unhooked my bra. I am still uncomfortable wearing it. Thank God for Advil. Any maybe tonight I will drink the rest of the bubbly I opened last Tuesday. Maybe this will help me sleep through the night.

We watch TV, I go through email again, and I drink the last of the champagne. The anxiety is getting hard. It has been this soft ethereal thing curled into a corner of my gut this whole week. Now, it’s becoming hard, edgy, cutting, and heavy. How am I ever going to sleep tonight? I didn’t tell my husband that my primary care physician left me a voicemail earlier when my phone was snugged away in my purse. She’s received information from the BDC about the biopsy, if there is anything she can do, I am to call her. I am afraid to call her; I don’t want to know what she knows.

Life is denial for now

The Beginning

Where do I begin this story? Since this is about my boobs, we should probably start when they did.

I really didn’t think about my breasts until I was about 12. When I noticed other girls starting to develop breasts, and I had nothing yet. I would wonder what mine would look like, what they would feel like. What would it feel like to have someone else touch them. I knew what intercourse was by that time, and wondered about that as well, but that is not what this story is about. I knew quite a bit about my body and the coming changes that would happen and about exploring those changes and my sexuality because I read, a lot. I was, and still am, a voracious reader. I read a gamut of genres and at that age was very interested in reproduction and the birth process. Even at that young age, and not voicing any of this to ANYONE in my little circle of life, thought that women had been giving birth for thousands of years, it really seemed weird to me that we now did it in a hospitals sterile and cold confines, ripped away from all our loved ones and those, who we find our most support in those times, that I imagined birth would be like. But I digress, that is another story for another day.

I wondered if my breasts, when they did decide to start growing, would end up as huge as my mothers. Hers were beyond gozangas, they were watermelons! And not the tiny little watermelons we see now in the grocery stores that have been cultivated to be small and seedless, easy to manage with one hand, and not feel rushed to eat before it goes bad. I’m talking watermelons of the 60’s and 70’s – those huge things that required two hands to pick up and carry. The kind where your parents, in preparation for a party weekend, cut a small hole in the side and tipped a giant bottle of vodka into it days before the party would start. The kinds that were cut up for the watermelon eating contest; big wedges of bright red, fading to pink before the rind started, dotted with hundreds of glistening black seeds that would be swallowed or spat, and even both, by the contestants. Yeah, that big. I wasn’t sure I wanted breasts that big.

Then it happened, those soft little nipple buds started to perk. They were so tender and any hard pressure to them hurt. I was slightly embarrassed at their appearance. I was happy to see them, but didn’t want to share them with the world. I wanted them covered, compressed so their shape was not visible to the world through my clothing. I wanted it to be my secret.

My best friend and I were learning to sew on her mother’s sewing machine, and she had given us some left over yardage and scraps of very rough muslin. It had been sized with something that made one side extra rough. We took those scraps and decided to make our first brassieres with them, shaping triangles and straps based on our measurements. Somehow mine ended up being sewn with that rough side in, instead of out. When I was at home and putting in on for the first time, it scratched and itched horribly! I tried adding a layer of toilet paper between my skin and that rough, itchy fabric to relieve the utterly uncomfortable feeling it was creating. My mother caught me doing this and announced to the family I was trying to stuff my new bra. I tried to explain that was not what I was doing, and the feel of the fabric against my skin, but she wasn’t listening, she had already decided I was stuffing and they all had a great laugh at me. I never wore my homemade bra again.

I was still silently distressed about my budding breasts, and how they showed through my clothing. I finally convinced my mom to take me out to get a “training” bra. I came home feeling so much more protected. I wasn’t ready to share my changing body, my changing breasts to be, with the world. Now, even though I knew my family knew they were there, and all my classmates, with this training bra on I could face the world and keep my “secret” until I was ready for them to be seen under my clothes.

That confidence lasted until I walked in the front door. Four brothers, only girl…. Needless to say there was much snapping of the straps happening that day, and for a few more days to come before I was left alone. Oh, and the comments on my “over the shoulder boulder holder” flew like rain in the wind. I weathered that little storm of growing up in a house full of boys with no scars about the my image of my breasts amazingly enough.

Finally, they were something more than just sore, painful nipple buds, with mammary tissue behind those buds. They grew to a cute, perky little size, not even close to my mother’s gargantuan mounds. I was happy, they were happy, I really didn’t think about them anymore, except at the times boys did things to try to see them without my clothes. One boy ended up with a black eye. I never told my family about those few times. But these were my boobs. I would decide someday if I wanted to share them.

Then, there was the first boy I let look at them naked. They were still those teenage, young perky boobs. Gentle swells on my chest, with barely pink, tiny areola around my nipples. We dated, we talked, we kissed, we eventually started to explore. Then the day came when he asked if I would bare my breasts, I was afraid he would make fun of them, but shyly showed him anyway. He looked at them in awe. Kissed the top of each little swell, then, he went back to kissing me. I felt so special. I had something he adored and worshiped, they were part of me. He worshiped me. All was good with these boobs. I was discovering my sexuality and where my boobs fit in to that picture. It was a heady time, it was empowering. I might have a secret weapon in this world where I was quickly realizing, girls were treated MUCH differently than boys.

Not much more thought went towards my breasts after that. They were there, boys worshiped them, and the ones who didn’t, well they were not worth my time. Can’t worship the boobies that were part of me, then you didn’t “worship” me, and I deserved more.

Then I discovered lace, and different bra styles, and UNDER WIRE. Oh my! The “girls” looked really good in lace and a cut that mimicked a halter style with smaller cups, rather than a full coverage cup and straps that lifted from the center of gravity, so to speak, with only that elastic band around my rib cage for support. A pretty bra that showcased the girls was like a secret weapon under my clothes. I felt powerful knowing what I looked like without the outer wear on, and no one knew but me. Life was good.

Then I was pregnant. The Breast Fairy paid a visit and my cute perky little mounds grew. They felt different, heavier, they had an actual purpose. New bras were purchased to house these changing mounds. I now had grapefruits. Nursing bras came next. I tried several styles before I settled on one type by Olga, it had snaps at the center of the bra, not those funky clips on the straps, that I found I struggled with in the dressing room at Sears. I loved how my now, heavy beasts settled into the soft cups of those bras. The easy snap access at the center of the bra, so I could sweep the cup away to the side to expose the nipple for the tiny mouth that would soon be searching it out. Life was good.

Then my first son was born, and my breasts fulfilled their true purpose in life. I felt like a goddess, not only could I bring forth life, but I could nourish this life and make him grow with a source from my own body. I loved my breasts at that point. They worked perfectly. My little boy grew and grew.

Then came the second son, and my breasts betrayed me. The Breast Fairy was not to be found this pregnancy. When my milk came in about three days after he was born, my boobs became these giant hard melons. It was a Sunday morning and I wasn’t sure I had ANY clothes that would fit over them. (Maternity wear was out of the question at that point, I refused to put another overly large piece of clothing on now that I could get into my bloated weight clothes.) They provided the nourishment for my sweet little newborn for 6 weeks. Then they started to go dry. They quickly deflated back to their previous size, a little bigger than they had been prior to my first son. I felt so betrayed by them, but put them back into my bra and went on with life and finding new ways to nourish this new little love in my life. Life was good.

Two years later, a darling girl was brought forth, and this time the boobs worked as they should. For six months she received life-sustaining sustenance produced by my breasts. I am still not sure if it was her, or my boobs, that started changing first, she started wanting more solid foods and a bottle. My milk supply slowly dwindled as she turned to other sources for nourishment. It was good. My breasts and done their job and now they would just be boobs. I didn’t really think about them again for a while. I was a busy mom, three kids, a job, and then a single mom. Life happened. And I didn’t think much of my boobs. There were there, they looked pretty darn good for having had three kids. They had changed from their pre-children size and shape. They were now more teardrop shape and heavier overall. Larger than before my first child, but not too big, well-shaped. They were now more than just little swelling mounds, but mature women’s breasts. Life was good.

Then I discovered Renaissance Fair. Dress up! I love playing dress up. And the boobs! Oh, the things you could do with boobs in those clothes. They could be a prim and proper merchants boobs, small bulges tucked under a crisp white under gown, or a pretty, pretty princess with her vast tracks of land on display to snag the attentions of men of the court; or a hard-working maid with her stout bodice, holding her beauties snugly to keep them out-of-the-way. A lady, with sheer sheeting hiding those bound beauties, and then a brazen, bare, giant mounded, boobs up to your chin, wench. But I only thought of my breasts when I was playing dress up at fair. Life was still good, and they were there, an accessory to my costume of choice when going out to play.

It wasn’t until I met my second husband that I really started noticing my breasts in more than a functional or accessory way. Kids were heading into their teens, and my new love worshiped all of me. I found new erogenous zones, my body was changing, maturing into midlife, and he made me feel sensuous, sexy, and very aware of my boobs, and the role they now played in my sex life. I started wearing lace and satin underwear again. My secret power was back. Life continued, I found myself in a career, not just a job. And the boobs, they were good. Life was good

A few short years later I was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer. It was ok though, it was slow and easy to treat. It took forever from the first sign that there was something wrong before final diagnosis. Three long months. First my primary care physician doing a routine check up on my recent bout with allergies, feeling around my neck for any swollen lymph glands, asked me how long my thyroid had been that big. That led to an ultrasound, which led to a fine needle biopsy.

Fun story there – one, my blood pressure tends to be on the low side of normal. Two, I have horrible veins, they hide, and collapse at the first sign of a needle. And three, my BP will drop very easily (see number one – low BP). My parasympathetic nervous system being the system that controls this is usually triggered by sound, something that sounds like it should hurt. It doesn’t have to hurt, just sound like it should, and, needles. I get a phlebotomist that is tentative in any way on a blood draw or starting an IV – that vein they think they found is GONE, collapsed in a HOT second. And then, the parasympathetic nervous system sets in. It starts with the color draining from my face, then I start to feel that cold clamminess on my neck, which then radiates down through my body. I’ve learned how to control this through meditation and measured breathing techniques, but if it comes on quickly there is no stopping the process. At that point, I need to get my head down and my feet up, or I will throw up, then pass out. So there I was, to get this fine needle aspiration done on my thyroid so they can see what is making it so big. I was not aware I would be given Demerol intravenously so I would sleep or be really woozy though the process.

I am on a gurney, in a cold room, nervous, and explaining to this nurse all of the above. You find a vein, go for it, do not hesitate, you must be fast. She ties the tourniquet, slaps my hand and arm all over the place, trying to get a vein to “pop”. She finds one on the back of my hand, she’s going to go for it. She has everything set up, I am looking away, no visual stimuli to trick my stupid parasympathetic nervous system, and she hesitates. Vein collapses, she cannot proceed. She stops, pulls out the catheter, and says she’s going to get her supervisor. And leaves… in the mean time, there goes my parasympathetic nervous system, and I feel it coming on, I feel the blood drain from my face, I feel the cold sweats starting, the queasiness comes on strong. I am on a raised, narrow gurney with the rails up. I do this somersault type move to go from lying down with a semi-reclined torso, to inch worming my way down the gurney so I can hang my head off the end and let my feet be higher than my heart. I hang there off the end of that gurney, hand dripping blood all over the floor, with my husband squatting below me, an emesis basin in hand that he found in case I did puke.

In comes the nurse supervisor with the nurse who fled, and she’s a little ticked that I have been left alone in this position. I explain that I put myself in this position after the other nurse left… The supervisor gets a new catheter and is able to get the IV set up started so I can be administered the Demerol before the procedure. Three injections of Demerol later I am wheeled into the room for the ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration. On goes the cold gel all over my neck, doctor says yes right there, in goes the first needle. Ouch, that hurt. “You’re still awake?” I am asked by one of the bodies around my gurney. Yes, I am. Hit her with more. I talked through the whole procedure. When they are finished, they slap band-aids on the puncture wounds and take me to recovery. (They didn’t wipe off the gel…) They take my BP several times over the course of an hour or two, and are worried that it is so low. Then the nurse that administered the Demerol comes in and says to my husband that I have the constitution of a horse. Evidently they gave me enough Demerol to knock a horse on its ass, and there I talked through this whole procedure. They finally let me go even though they still thought my BP was too low, with the admonition; leave the band-aids on for at least 24 hours.

I managed to wait 3 hours before my neck itched so badly from all that gel dried to it I couldn’t take it any longer. I went into our bathroom and pulled off the first band-aid. I looked like I had been attached by baby vampires. Little holes bruising all over the front of my neck.

That led to the diagnoses, which led to scheduled surgery and referral to a radiation oncologist.

Surgery went well, and once my Thyroid Stimulating hormone levels were sky-high, since I didn’t have a thyroid to stimulate anymore, it was on to the Radioactive Isotope to kill off anything that may have remained.

I met the radiation oncologist, he was a serious man. He didn’t get my jokes about gaining super human powers since I would have to ingest a radioactive pill. The Atomic Energy Commission regulates all Nuclear Medicine and had just ruled the year before that patients being dosed with I-238 no longer had to be hospitalized in isolation for the three days they are “radioactive”, starting the year I was receiving this therapy. I was instructed that I could stay home after I ingested the pill, but my family would have to leave the house for three days. Any pets would also have to stay away. I needed to purchase clothes I was willing to throw away when I was done, along with a toothbrush.

Ummm, my kids were in school, how could I disrupt their lives like that. Could I go to a hotel? Sure, why not. I called the insurance company, spoke with my nurse advocate for my case and explained the situation to her. Would the insurance cover my hotel costs and food? She went to bat for me and came back and told me yes, they would cover 80% up to $400 per day hotel costs as well as 80% of a $180 per day food allowance. I was set. This was going to best cancer treatment ever. I could kick back in a hotel room ordering room service and the insurance company was going to pay 80%!

Day arrives to be dosed, and we go to the Radiation Oncologists office for dosing. I am led to a room that is very – clinical. There is a hospital bed, a metal chair, other medical stuff scattered throughout the room, and in the opposite corner a large metal cabinet. I am led to the bed and told to take a seat. In walks the doctor with a lead apron on. He greets me, says all the pleasantries, and walks towards that metal cabinet. He grabs these four-foot tongs off the wall. He opens this 8 foot by 4 foot metal cabinet and inside is an opening about 18 inches by 18 inches. In that niche is a small metal bottle. He reaches in with the tongs and grabs the bottle. With another pair of tongs he then twists the lid off the bottle and then approaches me holding the tongs with the bottle straight out in front of him. He tells me to hold out my hand, and he then tips that practically solid bottle and out comes a pill about the size of an extra-large vitamin, oblong, blue, and now in my hand. This is not inspiring a whole lot of confidence that this is going to good for me. Down the hatch it went, I was then admonished to drink lots of water to help flush the radioactivity from my system.

After that I was driven to the hotel by my husband. He came up with me to my new room for the next three days, set up a VCR for me so I could watch movies, and kissed me a quick goodbye. Within a few hours I was violently ill. I could not keep anything down. I had diarrhea, I hurt all over and I was hot. I had the flu?!?! Did I throw up that stupid pill? I called the Oncologist. I was told that half of one percent of people are highly susceptible to radiation sickness, they get sick from the isotope. So, yeah me… They told me to stay hydrated and drink LOTS and LOTS of water. Easy for them to say. I couldn’t keep it down if I wanted too. When the three days were up I was so happy to see my husband. I was miserable. After a week, I was back to the radiation oncologist.

I asked him about the radiation sickness. He said if I had to do this treatment again he would recommend I be hospitalized so they could provide me IV fluids. Then I said, “so you’re telling me that even though I know how to hunt and fish, start a fire, cook over that fire, build a shelter, grow my own fruits and veggies, if we’re hit by a nuclear bomb” and he cut me off and said “you will die in about two weeks from radiation poisoning.” Well, thank you for that. And I didn’t even get super human powers. There is something very wrong with that situation! He finally laughed. He finally got my dry humor.

That was 19 years ago. I am still alive and kicking and my boobs, right here with me. It worked. No more thyroid cancer.

Back to my boobs. They have grown larger over the years, along with the rest of me. No longer barely a B cup, I am now an E cup. I still enjoy a physical relationship with my husband, and as the years have gone by, my boobs have become more sensitive. I have grown attached to them. I really like them. I touch them all the time. I check them for changes, dimples, lumps. Life continues, life happens. Kids grow up, move out, creating their own lives. Then one made us grandparents. Grandson is now the light of our life.

Husband had an opportunity to help his best friend in Boise, ID flip a house. We decided this would be good for him to go do. Right before he left for 4-5 weeks he promised the grandson a trip to Disneyland.

This was the beginning of August 2017.

Now I am at that age where I’m having my own personal summers and not using feminine hygiene products regularly. I’m not touching my boobs as regularly either. I still touch them, but not as much as I used too. Life. After my husband has left for Idaho, I am on my own in the house and doing things he would normally do. I notice my breasts getting tender. Hmm, wonder if I’m gearing up to have a menstrual cycle. Week or two goes by and nothing. It’s been months since my last one. I now have to record when I have them as they are getting further and further apart and I cannot remember without the note. Then, that last week before Labor Day, I notice my left breast is no longer tender, but my right one is still tender in one spot. Then it was either Thursday or Friday before Labor Day that I had lifted something up and it shifted against my right breast, and hey, that kind of hurt. When I was done I kind of rubbed the area that hurt. The bottom part of my right breast, where it attaches to my chest wall. I’m rubbing that tender area and is that my rib? My rib should not stick up that much. I check the left side, no I can feel my rib under there, but not like the right side. I feel it some more, is that a lump?

Later that night I continue to explore that spot, am I imagining this. I don’t have a lump that big in my breast. I just had a clean mammogram at the end of January, that was just seven months ago. I explore this lump for the rest of the three-day weekend. I know I have a follow-up appointment with my Primary Care physician on Tuesday morning. Maybe this is a cyst or a fatty tumor. Those happen in breasts all the time, right?

There has been no history of cancer of any kind in my blood line going back as far as we remember that I am aware of. I am the first person in my direct blood line of my family to have had cancer. People who have married in on both sides of my family, their descendants have reported cancers, but not in my direct blood line.