The "plot twist" I did not want

I never got around to blogging about all the places I visited in Europe or sharing all the wonderful experience I had there. I went over for my 50th birthday, looking to renew connections to all my friends and family in Denmark and hoping to spend a wonderful time with my sons.

I did have a wonderful time. It was beyond my imagining. I came home feeling fully alive for the first time in perhaps a decade. I was full of inspiration and hope and determined to transform the parts of my life I still needed to transform. Before balancing my checkbook, I ran out and bought $300 in art supplies, determined to bring painting and drawing back into my daily life. Committed to being healthier, I also scheduled an appointment for a physical, including a mammogram, blood work, and an ultrasound of my upper abdomen, which often hurts.

The blood work came out better than it has in years, proving that walking everywhere and running up the countless stairs of the French RER and Parisian Metro systems is actually good for you. The ultrasound came back normal, as well. Whew!

But then I got a phone call from a nurse telling me that my mammogram had an “asymmetry” in the left breast that concerned them. I had to go back for more films.

In the week between the phone call and the appointment I prayed a lot. I spent time with people. I tried to distract myself and tell myself that it was nothing. Some 5 to 10 percent of women get called back after having a mammogram, and most don’t have cancer.

My mother came with me to the appointment. I was shown the area of concern on the mammogram — a little half-circle of white dots that could represent calcifications or cancer. Yikes. They took more films. And when the nurse came back she was no longer looking me in the eye.

“The radiologist wants one more image,” she said, her smile tight.

And I knew.

I went straight from there to ultrasound, where the tech marked a dark area on the screen, and then told me the radiologist would be in to see me.

I felt absolutely sick and shaky and angry. I had such a terrible feeling that this was it. And it was.

The radiologist sat down and said, “It looks like we have a small, stage one breast cancer.”

There were no visible abnormalities in my lymph nodes, he said, and that was good news.

My mind glommed the words “small” and “stage one,” but my thoughts turned to white noise at “breast cancer.” I started crying, while he began outlining what came next. Biopsy. Pathology report. Meet with a surgeon. Possibly just a lumpectomy with radition. Maybe not even chemo.

I managed to send a quick email to my sister and a text to BFF Jenn LeBlanc, who responded with “WHAT????”

I kept my eyes closed throughout the biopsy — injection of numbing medication, insertion of biopsy needle, three clicks for three tissue samples, placement of a metal clip to mark the biopsy site. It hurt more than I was prepared for, in part because lidocaine doesn’t work well on me. I was unable to stop my tears, those words whirling around in my mind. And then it was over.

I had to drive myself and my mother back to my place. I was stunned and felt almost numb. And then the waiting began.

I got the official pathology report the next day: a 2cm mass that was invasive ductal carcinoma and in situ ductal carcinoma that was estrogen and progesterone positive. It was, the nurse told me, the kind of breast cancer you want to have IF you have to have breast cancer.

But the nurse also said they wouldn't know what stage the cancer was at until they had more information. IF the mass is mostly the invasive form of ductal carcinoma, it will probably be considered stage 2, so probably chemo. If the mass is a mix of both invasive and in situ, then it could even be stage 0 or stage 1. If there are microscopic cancer cells in my lymph nodes, it would be an early stage 3 and definitely chemo. At stage 2, my chances of survival are about 85 percent. At stage 3, they drop to 65 percent. The nurse said she thought it looked like a probably stage 2 cancer that has been there for a while.

I asked how something like this could be so advanced when I’d had a mammo a year ago and three breast exams since, and she said she thought it was probably there on my last mammo but not yet discernible. The moral to that story? I don’t know. I did everything I was supposed to do, and here I am.

Now I’m waiting again — waiting to see the surgeon and the plastic surgeon, waiting to get the official pathology report that will tell me what kind of a battle I have in store for me, waiting for surgery and reconstruction, waiting to see how much of the life I rediscovered in Denmark and Paris will still be mine.

They’ve done studies to show that attitude does not affect the outcome of cancer treatment. People who tell me that “attitude is half the battle” apparently haven’t read those studies. Even so, I want to have as good an attitude as possible. I’ve survived childhood sexual assault, two men breaking into my apartment in the middle of the night with switch blades, death threats, two stalkers, a serious mountain-climbing accident, a major operation on my cervical spine. I can survive this, right?

I hope so. I pray so.

But there’s no glossing over the shock, the rage, the grief, and the fear. It’s real. So many people say, “Keep your chin up!” But I’m going to let myself feel whatever I feel, even if it makes other people uncomfortable.

My sister, who lives in Stockholm, is flying home this weekend to be with me for seven weeks. She is my best friend, and no one makes me laugh the way she does. My mother is an RN, so she’ll be able to help take care of me. My friends, readers and family have rallied around me. And that is a huge blessing.

Benjamin, my younger son, will be home from Paris on May 8, and having him home will be a huge help, too.

In the meantime, I’m trying to remember the joys of visiting my friends, the happiness of eating pizza on the banks of the Seine, the bliss of dining in the Eiffel Tower with my two sons.



Thank God I took that trip, because the more than 2,000 photos I took, the conversations I had, the places I visited — they will live in my soul throughout this time, as will your kind words and good wishes.

But FUCK! Cancer sucks!