It All Started When... Finding Out I Had Cancer One Year Ago
It all started when…
I saw a dimple in the mirror and thought, “hmm, haven’t noticed that before.” When a few days later, I raised my arm overhead and felt around that area in the shower, noticing, mhmm yeah there’s a bump there. When weeks went by and it didn’t seem to go away. When I made an appointment with my beloved gynecologist thinking little to nothing of it. Time passing and the appointment arriving smashed between meetings and work and life and business. When we exchanged our usual upbeat banter and she felt around, longer than normal, agreeing with me, something was definitely there, but not to worry.
When she scheduled me to see a breast specialist a few weeks later and I seemingly forgot about it until then.
When I went into my 8 AM appointment expecting to miss only an hour of my day. As I kept advancing through mammograms, ultrasounds and other tests and feeling the odd pit in my stomach but swallowing it down because when it comes to medical stuff, I’m just not that scared. When I was asked if I had time to do just one more test, and I said yes after texting my boss, hey I’m going be later than I thought, I’ll just work from home for the rest of the day. When a nurse handed me an after care take home sheet that included care like an ice pack, call if infected and to take time off exercising for the next 24 hours. That’s when worry started to creep in.
When my mom kept texting me wondering if I was still there at the appointment, both she and I knowing she could just as easily check my location on her iPhone closing the 900 mile gap between us. When I felt slightly annoyed she kept asking but also naive of why she cared so much for this particular appointment.
It all started when I let a doctor I never met numb my right breast and stab me with a needle attached to a machine that would suck tissue from me sounding like a lawn mower. When I was stabbed repeatedly in one of the softest patches of skin on my body, not feeling pain, but the worst version of pressure.
When I called my mom on the way home, recapping the appointment slowly and finally putting the pieces together in my head that I was being tested for cancer, but not daring to speak the sentence aloud. When the conversation between us felt weird and I couldn’t put my finger on why. It was never weird with my mom, my best friend. The feeling of words unspoken on the invisible phone line, 900 miles between us.
When I came home from my appointment with an ice pack on my boob telling my husband, “Hey babe, kinda crazy, they had to stab me in the boob and take tissue from me to be tested.” And his response being a simple, “I’m sure you’ll be fine” leaving unspoken fear on the countertop between us as we disconnected wide eye glances.
When I spent the next three, incredibly long days wondering, “Will I? Won’t I?”
It started with my life flashing before me and parts of my 30 years jumping off the page as highlighted clues that were revealed to me as to say… “See, we were here all along. Doesn’t it make complete sense that you’ll have it? Did you accidentally manifest this yourself? Who is to blame for this? Is it you?”
It started when I kept waking up and walking around and going to work and teaching fitness and being there for others and having fun… all the while a grey cloud hanging over head as a reminder, “You might have cancer.”
When I kept a huge secret of worry from my closest soulmates, my siblings. When I acted like it was a normal week in the family group chat. When I didn’t tell anyone that I believed the puzzle pieces of my life were falling into place and to my core, knew I was going to have it.
It all started when, like a naive future cancer patient, I kept checking MyChart on the day they told me to expect results. And even worse, that I would get them before the doctor called. When I vowed to wake up, and workout, and dress in an outfit that would make me feeling confident all day long, yet being unable to ignore the pit in my stomach. Come on MyChart, where’s my notification.
When I told myself I would stop checking, and yet I dragged my laptop meeting to meeting, glancing down and hitting refresh every 10 minutes.
It all started when the test results finally came through. When my brown eyes darted around the screen scanning for the words, “You do or don’t have cancer,” knowing damn well that’s not how a test result would spell it out. When I had to type into Googe, “Does carcinoma mean cancer?” Waiting for the results thinking, why the fuck don’t I know if carcinoma means cancer? Does it? I think it does, right? Maybe not? Maybe it’s a lesser version of the same thing? Why don’t I know what that means?
When I copy and pasted more of this new vocabulary into Google landing myself on the American Cancer Society’s breast cancer page playing bingo as I started to see more words match those from MyChart. Fuck. Do I? Don’t I?
It started when I blacked out for the rest of the meeting, walking, yet floating back to my desk, placing my phone face down, only to immediately turn it back over. When are they going to call me? The phone rining a 317 number I didn’t have saved. Shit.
When I instinctively grabbed my laptop, a pen, notepad and headed outside the corporate office doors to sit on the parking lot curb and answer the phone. When the doctor I had met once started reading me results and telling me she was sorry. I asked her to define and explain words I didn’t understand and we ended the call with me asking, “So, I should tell people I have breast cancer? Like, actual breast cancer?” And her response saying, “Yes.”
When my husband brought my missing pants to my cute and confident outfit to the office in the middle of the day because he was on fall break from his school counseling job. When I looked up at the sky and thought, damn you, God, your timing is so perfect. I cannot believe you delivered him to me, like an angel, in such a perfect way.
When I got to tell Jacob in person, the first human I said, “I have breast cancer,” aloud to. When we sat feeling confused and shocked, and took my hand promising me we would put this above all else. It would be our priority. It would be ok.
It all started when he left, and I attempted to go back to my day. When I stared into the sky and saw a carnival style welcome sign, with flashing bulbs, a fun font and everything. It stated, “Welcome to Cancer Land.” I noticed two warning signs hanging beneath. One spelled out the words in all caps, bold and black, “NO RETURN.” The other, yellow, a warning to prepare to leave behind my natural breasts, hair, the body I’d known for 30 years and to lay down all my visions of what I thought my life would be like.
It all started when the calendar turned to Thursday, October 14, 2021.
