Aug 18, 2021
In early May I was standing in my closet getting ready to get dressed. As I stood, I raised my right arm overhead and bent toward the left to stretch. For some unknown reason, I decided to feel my right breast with my left hand and that was when I found a brand new, very large lump on the right side of my breast at about the 9’oclock position. I am not new to finding lumps in my breasts. I have had dense fibrous breasts all my life and have had lumpectomies twice to remove fibroadenomas (benign cysts) when I was in my early twenties. All throughout my life I have found benign lumps in my breasts so I became very lackadaisical about getting mammograms because I knew they would amount to nothing. Even when my doctor would get irate with me for not going to get checked. For some reason, this lump was alarming to me. Having visited my gynecologist in December, I already had a work order for a mammogram and decided to make an appointment right away, but after visiting and informing them I had felt a lump I had to return a couple of weeks later with new diagnostic work order before I could get diagnosed.
Having returned to the mammography center, it was now early June, a few weeks later. The radiologist came in to discuss his findings after my screening and ultrasound and recommended a biopsy because he was concerned about the irregular shape of this lump and calcifications found in the upper portion of the breast. I was struck with a great deal of anxiety at this moment wanting further explanation. So we continued the discussion in his office with the images on his computer screen. The ultrasound technicians, radiologists, nurses, and doctors are all trained not to show emotion or interpret what they know to patients until all findings have been thoroughly examined. At this point, I pressed the doctor, and he finally said he was concerned about malignancy because the shape of this cyst was irregular and if I were his wife, he would be very very concerned.
I became very upset internally at this moment. I think I was having an out-of-body experience because I just felt numb. I was sent to an admin’s office to schedule my biopsy for the following week. To make a long story short, I canceled my appointment here at home and got myself an appointment at MD Anderson in Houston to get my biopsy and diagnostics done again. It was a second opinion at the best place I could possibly go to with the best doctors in the world. The biopsy immediately confirmed a diagnosis of cancer in my breast and the lymph node on the right side of my sternum close to the breast. It would be another 2 weeks before I got to meet my MD Anderson Oncologist who would then diagnose me with invasive ductal carcinoma, an aggressive form of breast cancer. I would learn that I would be considered “lucky” to be diagnosed as HER2+, even being Stage3b. I’m lucky because of all the types of breast cancers there are—and I had zero ideas there are SO many—the type I was diagnosed with is actually curable. It is one they have the most data on and is one that has a known standard of treatment. Six treatments of 2 chemotherapies and 2 antibody infusions every three weeks for 18 weeks. 12 weeks of antibody infusions. Surgery that will most likely be a double mastectomy, followed by five weeks of radiation every day Monday through Friday for 20 minutes. In total, my treatment will be one year, but the damage will last a lifetime for however long my expectancy is now with no guarantee that I will not see a return of cancer somewhere else in my body.
My life has changed so much in just 3 short months and yet it feels like it has already been an eternity. I have had to hurry up and wait so many times as I rushed to drive back and forth between Dallas and Houston for diagnostics, biopsies, MRIs, and doctor visits to discuss results and next steps. I have made so many trips back and forth hoping and waiting for answers. As I told the doctors, I am a bottom-line kind of gal. I need to know what the problem is to move forward. I spent so many weeks in worry and wonder just waiting for a diagnosis; waiting for staging; waiting to learn how to treat it because results were not in or because I had to wait to meet the doctors. What no one tells you is that the waiting is the hardest fucking part of all of this, it’s not the treatment. I have enough perseverance to get through anything I set my mind to, but not knowing? No, no, no. I cannot do without knowing. It’s only been three fucking months and it feels like an eternity of a rollercoaster ride of anger, bitterness, and sadness. It took me 2 full months to calm my anger but the sadness comes in waves still; like today, as I sit here and write this so I can remember this journey.
I am exactly 15 days out from my very first TCHP treatment. I am cold capping my head to try to save my hair from falling out. At this moment I have not begun to shed any hair. My first treatment was OK. I survived it with minimal side effects. The first week was not bad, but I had stomach issues, bad acne, minor bone aches, crazy thirst, and was very tired. The subsequent weeks have been fine and I’ve even been able to work a bit.
My life has been altered. It can never be the same. I have changed. I will never be the same. Life feels different. I am awake. Being diagnosed is different than when you go through something devastating with a loved one. I lost my dad to pancreatic cancer and was there to help care for him, and there when he took his last breath. While that changed my life greatly, being diagnosed yourself is a whole different experience. I have felt so numb like I’m just walking through this life while everyone else around me just continues to move on with theirs. I have lost my happiness. I mean, I can laugh and still crack jokes, but it’s harder for me these days. I have a year ahead of me on this journey, only just beginning, and the thought of my body going through a devastating transformation of what is to me mutilation of the temple God gave me is almost more than I stomach right now. But I know it’s going to happen and I will do what must be done because I must. I know I have to be strong, if not for me for my children; for my daughter especially. I am presently waiting on the results of my gene testing and praying to God that I do not have any gene mutations because that would mean it would affect my daughter and my sister too. I don’t want them to ever have to endure this journey.
Angela
