lizartist's Cancer Blog
November 28, 2006
| I guess I had my hopes up way too high | Views: 828 |
The call I’d been awaiting for two months came last night. I have DCIS in the 9:00 position across from the invasive carcinoma at 12:00, far enough away that the surgeon wants to remove all the tissue in my left breast. My breasts are clocks now, apparently. They are ticking time bombs, if you believe the doctors.
They also want do an MRI guided core needle biopsy on the right breast just to make sure some suspicious looking area on that side isn’t cancer. Plus have a plastic surgeon on hand to do the reconstruction.
Let me make this perfectly clear. I am ABSOLUTELY terrified of surgery. I just think I’ll never wake up. That they’ll be doing all kinds of horrible things to me, and I won’t even be awake to have a modicum of control. That I can’t trust them.
Fact is, I don’t trust any of them. I went in for a routine mammogram. I was not sick, didn’t feel funny, wasn’t losing weight or breaking out in spots. Went in feeling fine, came out, feeling quite sick.
I think they’re giving me cancer with all this poking and hole-making and waiting. They’re killing me anyway, that’s for sure.
I had been hoping my breast could be saved with a lumpectomy. Apparently, I could still do that if I don’t mind “a severely deformed breast” and the possibility they didn’t get all the cancer out. So now my breast has to go, and if these people have their way they’ll probably take my other one and my ovaries too, just for the practice.
I don’t have a family history of breast cancer.
I didn’t feel sick.
I don’t trust doctors.
When I was a little kid, I had severe asthma. But back in those days, the medical community believed asthma was psychosomatic. And that’s what they’d tell me in the emergency room, too. When I sat there, struggling for air, turning blue from lack of oxygen, begging for the medicine that would open my airways, they would say to me, “Why don’t you just relax? This is all in your head.”
I was in the hospital for all of second grade, and many times after that. A month here, a week there, overnighters and weekenders. And every time, a battery of x-rays to make sure I didn’t have pneumonia. I never did have pneumonia as a child.
As a young teenager I developed a curvature in my spine as the result of lack of exercise as a child. The doctors had to do more x-rays.
In my late teens I ended up with pneumonia and bronchitis. More x-rays.
The radiation the body absorbs in tender breast tissue from 10 x-rays is equal to being a mile away from Hiroshima when the bomb went off.
My chest has been x-rayed close to 100 times.
I guess I had my hopes up way too high, 
8 comments)
09.13.08 - 
Thanks for your support -
Oh Liz what crappy news. This time is so hard. You are still adjusting to the first bit of news when they start hitting you with the next bit of crappy news. You will make it through surgery. I think someday we will look back on the treatment they have for cancer and just shake our heads. One book described surgery, radiation and chemo as slash, burn and posion, which describes it so well. Hang in there. Take it one day at a time Liz. We are all here for you and we know a little bit what you are going through, in one way or another.
I am so sorry to hear of the news.
The hardest thing for me was accepting that I had cancer. I had no symptoms. I was very active. I was young. I had no family history of any cancer at all. I rock climbed every week. How could I have cancer? I did though. It is all surreal isn’t it?
My advice for surgery… get the best doctor you can find. Go to the best hospital you can find. I was also scared I wouldn’t wake up. I did. Unfortunately, I woke up to the news I had cancer but you already know that bit.
Again, I’m so sorry you have to lose your breast. It is all very terrible.
Hang in there Liz. Just remember that the doctors ultimately want to save your life. If you don’t trust the one you have, by all means get a second opinion!
I too was in shock with my cancer diagnosis…31 years old, very healthy and active, NO family history, no symptoms, and I have ovarian cancer. I will be having a hysterectomy soon and haven’t had children yet. I too was terrified of the surgery, same fears as you, but I’ve gotten though 2 and have one more. I did wake up, it didn’t really hurt much, and the support from the nurses was amazing.
Get a support system any way you can, if you don’t have friends and family who can help in the ways you need, maybe try a support group. Call the american cancer society, they have AMAZING people who can help in a thousand ways. And keep blogging! We’re here to help!
Hi again,
I just wanted to add one more thing. My husband and I see a therapist every 2 weeks…we were worried that cancer and infertility might be a lot to handle after only 6 months of surgery. Anyway, she’s amazing and helps us a lot. And she’s a 2 year breast cancer survivor herself. I have what you might call “very basic” insurance, and the visits only cost $10 each. It’s the best decision we made to go see her. I don’t know if you have access to anything like that… just a suggestion from my own personal experience.
Hugs to you!
ok, meant to say “after 6 months of marriage”. Ack! Chemo-brain!
; )
Thanks to all of you for your kind and tender encouragement. Never thought I’d be in this kind of hell, and I never thought I’d find such good people! The only thing that gets me through this is art and literature. I wonder if that works for other people too. My surgeon’s office at UCLA has original paintings on every wall, and they bring my soul comfort. I have just finished Howl, the great poem by Allen Ginsberg and am still reading (albeit slowly) Ulysses by James Joyce. Hard to think about cancer stuff when you’re contemplating the meaning of everything, love, relationships, what it means to be human, etc. I wish all of you surcease from pain tonight.
Hi Liz,
I,m Bob and like you I got my news as a birthday “present”, the day after my 55th birthday. I (being male) can’t appreciate all of the emotional and physical agony of breast cancer. I have leukemia. I’m really sorry to hear that your doctors are not giving you enough support. i really like, respect, and admire mine. If there is any chance to change to another physician maybe you should check it out. I know that the current medical insurance situations can be very limiting. One thing, as caring as my doctors are, they would never discuss cancer results by any means other than in person. It frustrated me big time, it’s a 2.5 hour drive to the hospital. Now that it’s done, I can see that the news if given by phone or mail would have been way too impersonal.
I wish there was some way we could help you. The emotional rollercoaster is so difficult.
Like you, I’m an artist and the disease has robbed me of my art for a while. At work I invent and at home, i sculpt and draw, or i did. Now I have no physical or emotional energy for any of it, but I’m going to bounce back. i try too hard and get too tired, but it’ll come.
I have no idea of whether or not this will help you, but trust that some genuine and kind words from a person who wakes up with the little voice inside saying “you’re dying” could help.
I pray for your comfort and recovery.
Bob
Bob,
I hope you don’t give up on everything that you are. I am also struggling with my art. I am in the middle of an existential crisis. Like what point is there in making art when life itself seems pointless. But I guess the only answer is that if life is without meaning, maybe art is the only thing that matters.
That’s my very downhearted effort at cheering you up. Sorry, rough day.
Thanks for all your kind words.
I know you’re going to pull through this, just as I am. We just have to make it to noon, right?
I wake up in a funk every day, and then by lunchtime it all seems bearable.
I’m having a group art show with some friends on December 14, if anyone on this list is in the LA area, you’re welcome to attend. It will be in Chinatown, and a good time will be had by all, even me.
Cheers,
Liz