Those were the words I repeated to my doctor on June 21, 2007.
"Tumors in my spine? How could that be? I'm only 44. I have an 8 year-old daughter and a loving husband. How do I tell my husband that the pain in my back was caused by tumors? Am I going to die? Should I be worried? Do I plan my funeral? Or do I live? I choose to live as long as I possibly can. No matter what the doctors say - I am going to live."
Those were the thoughts that went through my mind on June 21, 2007.
I called my husband, as I got the news while at work. "Are you sitting down honey? I have some news to tell you." I don't remember his response, nor do I remember the 45-minute drive home.
Suddenly, my vocabulary was enhanced with new words like: "oncologist," "radiation oncologist," "cat scans," "bone scans," "lesions," "biopsies" ... "cancer." I started spending hours on the internet researching cancer.
After a battery of tests they found the culprit in my right breast. They found a couple of culprits, as a matter of fact. How could I have missed them? What could I have done differently? What the hell happened? How do I tell my parents - especially my mom who lost her parents to this wretched disease at a very young age? My grandfather was 54 and my grandmother was 46. Can I make it to 46?
I called the first person I could think of to help me tell my parents - my brother. Together we came up with a plan of how to tell them. The plan would have us wait until after my parents' 50th wedding anniversary celebration. How could I spoil their fun time? They were happy - and until June 21st so was I. My parents live 3000 miles away in California and that made it especially difficult. My poor brother spent a week hiding the news until he finally couldn't hide it any longer. He had to tell our parents their baby daughter had cancer. I waited for what seemed hours for my mom or dad to call. My mother called a short time later and I could tell by the crackle in her voice that she had spent the last 45 minutes crying, mustering up the strength to call calmly. "Are you okay?" she asked.
At the time, we still didn't know how extensive my cancer was. In the longest 24 hours of my life, we were waiting for the test results that were forthcoming the following day. The news was bad. "Infiltrating ductal carcinoma" - three new words to add to my cancer dictionary. I had lesions on my spine, ribs, cranium, collarbone, breastbone, and of course, the primary source was my right breast.
Appointments were made for me to see an oncologist, a radiation oncologist, and a surgeon. And so my "miracle team" was formed to plan the attack on my cancer. My pain was significant and I was walking with a cane. I was prescribed pain meds and a cancer drug called tamoxifen. There was one bit of good news: no chemotherapy. My cancer was diagnosed as estrogen/progesterone positive-herceptin negative. It was hormone driven and chemotherapy hadn't been very effective in my type of cancer.
