So....
Apparently there’s a good chance I have breast cancer. 70%, according to my doctor.
Even now, ten minutes later sitting here looking up at the words it doesn’t seem real. I’ve known about this for 2 weeks now, and minus yesterday when I had the biopsy, I’ve only had 1 or 2 really bad breakdowns.
I had an abnormal mammogram about a year and a half ago and ever since then I’ve been good about getting them every 6 months. So I went, and even when they told me I’d need a follow up, I didn’t think much of it, because this has happened before and it was no big deal. Even after the follow up mammogram when they had me stay for an ultrasound, I figured it was all pretty routine. I didn’t get scared until the 4th time the tech came back into the room with the doctor. She explained that I had 3 suspicious masses, 2 right by my nipple and one on my lymph node, which I was told is enlarged.
Cool. Love this for me.
I know how my imagination tends to run wild, and I really didn’t want to possibly make things worse, so I just kept this to myself and tried not to think about it. And for the most part, I feel like I did a decent job. I did have a meltdown at work the day after I found this out lol. I reached out to a friend of mine from high school who currently has breast cancer and just underwent a double mastectomy. I really wanted to take a tough, head on approach, ya know? Kind of like, alright- I need to man up, face the monster and get an idea of what I could potentially be in for.
Oh, what a mistake that was.
She was very honest with me, for which I was grateful, but I just wish I had thought about it more before asking. She had stage zero (I didn’t even know there was a stage zero. Like wouldn’t stage zero mean not having it? Basically its a cluster of pre-cancerous cells found solely in the milk ducts.) She had to have a preventative mastectomy and was talking about how hard its been to deal with that, which, I can’t even imagine. Saying she feels deformed and like a freak because her breasts are gone and she doesn’t have replacements yet and just sees the scars in the mirror. When I tell you I lost my mind after I got off the phone with her, I am not kidding. Not even a little. I ended up leaving work early that day because I felt like I just couldn’t deal with it. My poor manager lol. I went up to him after break, crying my eyes out and told him I couldn’t stay. He’s a nice dude, but he’s very uncomfortable with emotions, and he was looking at me like he didn’t know what the fuck to do or say lol. He just approved my time and let me go on my way.
If I do have it, I don’t have any other info yet. I won’t know til the pathology report comes back, and since this was done yesterday morning, I’m just gonna assume I won’t know anything else today. Which sucks, because I have zero patience for anything. It’s a virtue I was definitely NOT born with.
I don’t know if I’ll even keep this book if it turns out to be benign. Probably not. But if I do have it, I really want to do my best to document everything. Watch- since I set all this up and have been researching everything, I won’t have it lol (which, ya know, that would be awesome!)
Anyway, that brings me to the title of this book. I’m calling it the Hurdle. I feel like almost everyone else I’ve spoken to about this has referred to this as a journey. And I get it, but I really hate that everything is a fucking journey now. I’m not going sightseeing or anywhere fun. When I think of a “journey”, that’s what I want to think of.
This is a motherfucking hurdle, and it needs to be cleared. Plain and simple.
Let’s hope I can delete this book soon and we don’t ever have to speak of this ever again.
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