It’s a very long story.
As anyone who is going through or recovered from a health issue can attest. I’ll make it as short as I can for this blog as I am not going to be writing a book on the subject.
This past March I received the shocking breast cancer diagnosis. It was not something that I expected to happen to me especially this year as I had been cleared of other cancers the year before. I was even hospitalised for another health issue last year. I was on my path to recovery and was doing well-or so I thought. In late February I was getting my mammogram, and I knew from the look of the technician and the time spent in the room that something was off. The next day I got the dreaded call back. I was told I had to go to the hospital to get a biopsy on the mass that was detected by the machine.At the hospital the surgeon at the breast clinic looked at my x-ray and said ‘it doesn’t look good’.
A couple of weeks later I was called in to receive the biopsy results in person. I sat at the office of the breast clinic and stared at the paper. There is something surreal about seeing your name and the word ‘adenacarcinoma’ in bold letters on the same sheet of paper.
Around that time I had attended the funeral of a distant Aunt. She passed away from breast cancer. She didn’t catch it early enough and it spread everywhere. I remember being at a wedding a couple of years ago, and that I had sat at her table in the seat next to her at the end of the night. She had a big smile on her face. She told me to dance even if you can’t. She knew. I got up and danced. Not very well, but I did my best. I remember thinking how strange all of that was. She probably knew..
After the diagnosis in March the nightmare begins. There is no time to waste. Your body is trying to kill you and you now have to fight back. There is a short window between the results and surgery, and you have to get every test known to man done, from blood tests, MRI, Scintigraphy, ultrasounds, bone density exam etc.. all before the surgery. If you have a busy life with a lot of obligations everything and everyone takes a back seat.Your health becomes a priority. I was lucky though that I didn’t have a lot of responsibilities or obligations to anyone, so I had could deal with this quietly without too much fuss.
In late March I had the operation. a lumpectomy and I was given a month to recover. It wasn’t too terrible, just uncomfortable. During that month my lymph nodes were being biopsied. After I recovered I was called to see the oncologist and given the results. The doctor told me that four lymph nodes had been removed during the surgery and that out of the four one was not so great. The cancer cells from the tumour had spread to the lymph node. The oncologist told me there is no such thing as ‘perfect health’. She told me it is not terminal. It is in the early stages, it is treatable and is hormone receptor positive. Meaning it was caused by the hormone estrogen, I would be put on estrogen blockers for a few years.. The oncology team came to the decision that I have to do four rounds of chemotherapy, plus, fifteen rounds of radiation.
The news that it had spread was shocking. I couldn’t believe that I would have to go through chemotherapy and lose my hair too. Despite the initial shock, I was not angry or depressed about it. I remained calm as I usually am. But for the sake of survival I put my emotions in the freezer and carried on. So from May until the second week of August I have been in and out of the hospital receiving treatment. The chemotherapy was brutal. No sugar coating it whatsoever. A necessary evil. There are too many side effects that you have to deal with at once. I was like a car without and engine. I’ll never forget the brutal leg cramps, sleepless nights from the pain, as if I ran a marathon I had no business running in. As well as the food aversions and loss of appetite, and the traumatic hair loss. I looked like gollum from Lord of the Rings, some creature that belonged in a horror movie. I could hear the church organs from those classic Hollywood horror movies playing in the back of my mind. You need a sense of humour to get through chemotherapy because it is truly horrible. However, I can’t be ungrateful as it is the best and only thing that they have. The radiation was easier. only fifteen minutes in the machine. Five days a week at the hospital. I had to avoid the sun like a vampire and it was summertime in Greece.
So, it was a very memorable summer to say the least. A cruel summer indeed!
But, my oncologist told me to ‘be positive’. She had been through what I had been through as well. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. So I tried. I had to change perspective and I was grateful to receive the treatment, and I knew that I was in good hands. It was a bit of a downer to be one of the youngest at the chemo wing and radiation wing. I never thought it would happen to me. I thought it was a boomers disease as many of my relatives and their friends got cancer and none survived it. Unfortunately it happens to children, and it will continue to plague people for years to come. Who knows if there will ever be a cure as there are so many different types of cancers. I asked my oncologist why did this happen to me? I am not over weight, or smoke or drink or do drugs. She said that sometimes your lifestyle and habits don’t pay a role in you getting the disease. Sometimes it’s just biology and cancer is a lottery.
