It used to be that waiting for test results was the hardest part. I will admit that my appointment with my oncologist – taking a different turn than I anticipated – absolutely threw me for a loop. But, I have had a few days to get my head around it. I no longer have sweaty palms, nausea and sleepless nights. I had a hard time on Monday night and Tuesday. But, then I decided to snap back into the life I have . . . the truly wonderful life that I have . . . and simply enjoy it. And, I have decided that should the news be bad, well, then the news is bad and I will endeavor to continue to enjoy my life.

I am no longer fearing the results – at least not completely. There is a part of me that is resigned to it . . . to the possibility of receiving bad news. To say that I am not fearful of getting bad news would be dishonest. But, I have accepted that it is a possibility. I have so many friends who are currently facing cancer for a second and even third time and many who are stage IV and who have run out of treatment options. So when I think of my own situation – that there is this possibility that the suspicious area is a recurrence – I really can’t get too worked up over it. What can I do? There are signs that are not good and then again, it could all be fine.

All I can do is hope and pray and ask others to do the same 🙂

Found this sign carved into the dirt yesterday 🙂

I am a bit upset that back in June – when the red spot appeared on my left breast – that my primary care physician did not test for anything other than skin cancer. The lesion – after all – appeared on my breast and  I have a history of breast cancer (DUH)! But, I am also (was anyway) upset with myself for not second and third guessing my doctors like I used to always do.

I have let my guard down. I have become more trusting of my own body and of my doctors – that this was just some routine thing and that benign meant benign. How was I supposed to know that a biopsy of skin on my breast would not detect breast cancer unless it was specifically run for breast cancer markers?!!! But, that is just it, the old, hyper-vigilant patient that I used to be would have asked that “stupid” question. But, instead I trusted my pcp doc. And when he gave me the test results that the biopsy was negative for cancer – well, I presumed that meant any kind of cancer.

My six month check up with my oncologist unveiled another possibility – that the red spot (now being unaffectionately referred to as a “lesion”) could be a breast cancer recurrence. First the nurse examined me. “What about this lesion here, how long have you had that?” I was taken aback by this small red splotch of a bump being referred to as a lesion. What did that mean, I thought. She did not like the looks of  it. She quizzed me about the biopsy that had been run on it:

Had the doctor run ER, PR, HER2 markers? How long ago was this biopsy done? We will need to get that block from the pathologist and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah . . .

I heard nothing after that . . . she left the room.

A few minutes later, I heard my oncologist and the nurse talking outside the exam room: “Her lymph nodes are swollen on the left side” . . . “yes, the lesion is on her left side” . . .

Shit. Shitty-shit-shit-shit-shit! Take a deep breath.

I sat in the exam room, listening to their conversation outside (the nurse filling my oncologist in on what she discovered in her exam of me a few minutes prior) and then the hushed tones that followed that I could not discern . . . were, well, disconcerting not to mention the fact that it made me feel like I was a five year old. I get it. They don’t want to alarm me. I get it. But, it only served to alarm me. And I don’t like it when doctors and nurses refer to me in the third person. It is weird, simply weird. Takes me right back to being a cancer patient, to days when I was too weak to be the person that medical staff talked directly too, too sick to take in the information, too sick to be trusted with it – so they told a friend in the room or my parents. I detest those days. I long for those days to be over forever. And then I think of my friends who are enduring days like that with really no hope of anything more and I feel guilty for even asking God or anyone for something better for myself. Part of that survivor’s guilt – a recent topic in the cancer world.

My oncologist is an amazing doctor. But, her new nurse could use a little work on her bedside manner. I know she is just doing her job and she was (for which I am grateful) very thorough. The last thing I need is for yet another doctor to not run the proper tests. That would not be good. But, I would have preferred her to have filled my oncologist in on her findings either out of my hearing distance – or – to simply have done it in the room with me.

I don’t know how I would face cancer if it were to happen to me again. I just know this: I am happy today. I am healthy today (at least I feel that way) and if someone tells me I have cancer again, then I will still view my body as healthy. I will still view my body as capable of healing. I don’t have any other choice. And, at this point, there is absolutely no benefit in borrowing trouble or wondering “what if”. I spent too much time doing that already. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009 I was urged my my doctors to attend support groups. I tried it. I attended a breast cancer support group but found it pretty difficult. I then attended a support group for young women with cancer (all types). That group was a bit better. But, ultimately I stopped going.

I haven’t gone in a few years. But, I have stayed in touch with the women I met in the beginning. I am the only person from my support group that was diagnosed with HER2 positive cancer that is alive and N.E.D. (No Evidence of Disease). Everyone I met has had a recurrence and is either facing treatment now or is sadly, already gone. That is part of the reason it has been so hard to let go of cancer being this ever present thing in my life – the constant news of friends getting bad news and the loss of so many friends to this shit disease.

The daily pain I used to wake up with also made escaping thoughts of cancer seemingly impossible. It was, after all, the cancer (treatments, surgeries, etc.) that made my days start in pain and end in pain. So, not thinking about cancer was pretty hard.

But, this past year I have lived more cancer free than ever. I am grateful for that, so grateful. It is a freedom that I have longed to feel for some time. I have lived longer than I was told I would likely live and for that I am so very grateful. I hope, of course, to have many more cancerfree years. But whatever comes my way I will do my best to live the way I want to and need to.

To that end, I have decided to do one thing for myself every day and that is to see the ocean. I moved to the beach after I completed treatment. It was a goal of mine to be near the ocean and to live more simply. I am very lucky to be here (in all senses of that word). I go to bed each night with my window open and listen to the waves. That is an amazing and wonderful thing.

Yesterday I went on a four mile walk with a friend. There is a beautiful preserve here – lots of birds, water and grasses and just beautiful scenery and a nice walking trail and view of the beach.

Today was my first official day of “seeing the ocean every day”. Here are some pictures of today (and yesterday’s visit too).

I appreciate your prayers and good wishes. It means so much to me, so thank you.

Much love and peace,

Lisa

Two of my friends are dealing with a cancer diagnosis this week. Both had biopsies last week and both went through the wait only to hear bad news. Those days are so hard, the waiting and the finding out and the seeming finality of it all. There is no going back to before you found out. There is no going back to the minutes before – to that space and time – where you still believed and hoped and prayed that what looms as your worst nightmare does not come true. I remember that vividly. I remember desperately not wanting to have to give my parents the news that their daughter had cancer.

This past week, while my friends waited for results, I prayed and hoped that their news would be good. I told them what many told me when I was waiting for results: “that often it is nothing”

I wanted to believe that in 2009 – despite the fact that my mammogram report stated: “biopsy to confirm malignancy”

I still hung onto hope, after reading those words, that I would somehow escape it. And this past week, I hoped and prayed for my friends that it would be nothing. Sadly, this was not to be. Now there is more waiting for them and more praying for good news within the bad. Good news now would be to find out that their cancers are not advanced, that it is treatable and that the treatment required will not be harrowing.

So this week is tough. Tough to know that people I care about are suffering and tough to know that there is nothing I can do to really relieve any of it for them.

Please pray for my friends and for their families.

Cancer sucks.

Love and peace,

Lisa