Don't Be Me! Take an Hour and Get Your Mammogram
I’m cancer-free. Again. Just mopping up - still a little sore from the surgeries - still tender from the radiation. And tired. I drag myself out of bed, only to fall asleep on the couch a few hours later. Experience tells me it’ll take a few more weeks to regain my energy. Oh, and those meds I’m taking from round one, three years ago – they are causing me grief. My feet ache so badly it’s hard to stand for any length of time. My feet! I’ll bet you weren’t expecting that as a side effect of breast cancer medication – I know I wasn’t. If I stop taking the pills, I’ll have a higher chance of the cancer returning somewhere else in my body. So, I swallow.
When my GP called me in June 2021 to tell me that I had breast cancer, I was stunned. Blindsided. I kept repeating into the phone, I wasn’t prepared for this, over and over, as my doc tried to discuss next steps. I wasn’t prepared for this. I heard nothing he said. And then I was swept into a foreign world. Surgery, pathology reports, my very own oncologist, treatments, tests and years of medications.
My GP called again this past June - precisely three years after that first call - to tell me I’ve got it again, in the other breast, a completely different diagnosis from the first time. This time I wasn’t blindsided. The mammogram with just a few more close-ups and the rushed biopsies weren’t the routine checkups I thought they were three years ago. This time, I was onto them. Déjà vu.
Cancer 2.0 my oncologist told me when I visited him a few weeks later, you can check the box twice. Not a badge of honour I had aspired to.
One in eight women will get breast cancer (and a few men too). That’s a lot. Look around you - there will be women in your sphere who have had a breast cancer diagnosis. They could be any age, from their twenties through their eighties. I used to think one breast cancer was the same as another, but I was so wrong. Each pathology report tells a personal story and needs a tailored plan. Hormone positive, hormone negative, ductal, lobular, in-situ, invasive, metastasized, grade 1,2…, stage 1,2… Some women will need chemo and radiation. Some chemo or radiation. Some women will require a lumpectomy and some, a single or double mastectomy. Some will have reconstructive surgery, and some won’t. Some mastectomies will be nipple-sparing, most won’t. (Did you know there are tattoo artists who specialize in nipple tattoos?) Many women will take years of preventative medication and silently struggle with debilitating side effects.
In 2021, I knew absolutely nothing about breast cancer. It simply wasn’t on my radar. I am not high-risk - it’s not prevalent in my family. I’ve been tested, and I don’t have The Gene. I have the kind of tumours that don’t make lumps and are detectable only by mammogram, and I didn’t get regular mammograms. It was by chance it was discovered before spreading to my lymph system and beyond.
So, today I’m thankful! Thankful that I’ve kicked it to the curb, again. Grateful for ongoing research to find methods of earlier detection, prevention, and more tailored treatments for individual patients. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and you don’t have to look far to find someone who has been impacted by this disease. If you want to donate to the cause, here’s a link in British Columbia and a link in the Netherlands.
