lizartist's Cancer Blog
November 25, 2006
| Happy Birthday! You have cancer! | Views: 165 |
I turned 40 on September 6, 2006. Less than a week later I went in to see my regular doctor to get refills for my asthma medicine, and she made an appointment for me to have a routine mammogram, because of my 40-ness.
A week later, I go in for this routine mammogram, and they say I have some calcifications in my left breast which are clustered in a way that they don’t like. So right then they do an ultrasound guided mammogram, and they still don’t like the calcifications. Why doesn’t anybody like my calcifications? They’re mine, I grew them all by myself, they’ve never bothered me, as a matter of fact they’re part of me.
I don’t feel sick, why do they want to do a biopsy?
I can’t have cancer, I feel fine! So I’m sure I don’t have cancer, but await my appointment with trepidation.
I’ve never had surgery before. Never did the nose job. Never did the boob job. Didn’t even opt to have back surgery to correct a severe curvature that developed as a result of my having been so sickly (and thus sedentary) throughout my childhood.
I am scared to death of this biopsy.
When I talk to my doctor about it, she says not to worry, she’s sure it’ll all be fine. In fact, she thinks once the radiologist sees my results of the mammogram, she won’t even do the biopsy.
My wonderful boyfriend who brought me to the appointment had to leave to go pick up our daughter from school right as I was taken in to the radiologist’s room.
They told me no one would look at those results and not do a biopsy. First problem. The room starts swimming, getting smaller. And then they poke the holes in me.
When do I get my results I ask. They tell me in 2-3 days.
I go home so angry at having been violated, poked holes in, who the f@#$ do they think they are, doing that to me? I am offended to my core. I don’t tell my 12 year-old daughter any of this.
So I wait. One day, two days. Nothing. At the end of the third day of holding my breath, they tell me I have to come in, that they won’t tell me the results over the phone. Medi-Cal bastards. Next day, my usual two hour wait of torture. The indigent get a different kind of medical care, I can assure you.
A doctor I’d never met before takes me in to a room and tells me they couldn’t find any calcifications in my biopsy tissue, so they have to do another one!
I am very very angry. But duly await the earliest appointment available for another violation.
My boyfriend and I go out of town for two days, and on the second, I get an urgent call from my doctor’s office, that I must come in immediately. I get a call from the radiologist’s office, saying I no longer need to have another biopsy.
Now we’re really scared, but we’re also 400 miles away. We get in the car and drive back as quickly as we can. We worry and speculate for hours, but the doctor will not get on the phone and tell me what’s up. I have to come in. We don’t make the appointment in time, and I have to call in and reschedule for the followinfg morning. More breath-holding torture.
The next morning we wait again for the requisite two hours. When we go in to the room
this same doctor tells me they did a stain test on the tissue and found ductal carcinoma.
She asked me if I had any questions, and I replied “Why didn’t you tell me there might be more results?” and she says she didn’t know. I don’t know if this is bull@#$% or what, but I am definitely in shock and furious at her for how she’s mangled my emotional health over the previous couple of weeks, and I walk out.
I cry crazily in the car, “We need to change our lives, I can’t live here anymore’ I want to move”.
We go to a fabric store to get material for a painting I am working on. He can’t come in he’s so choked up.
When we pick up our daughter from her babysitting job, we try to couch it, but she interrogates me until I tell her they found cancer.
She asks her chosen dad, my boyfriend if men can get breast cancer. She’s already lost two parents, her biological father, who abandoned us, and her grandmother who raised her while I worked. She died suddenly about six years ago, really rocking our little world. Then Mark came into our lives.
Happy Birthday! You have cancer!, 
3 comments)
09.13.08 - 
Thanks for your support -
Welcome Liz! Sounds like you have had a crazy couple months. I am glad you found this site and are writing about your experience. Let me know if you have any quesions. – Jill
Thanks for the welcome Jill. I am surrounded by supportive people, but somehow feel alone. Knowing you and the others are around helps….
You are a very talented writer. Write it all down.
I’m so sorry this is your topic. Make sure you get the best doctor out there. It makes a diference.
Take care.