Obsessed

I should be anxious about the results of the MRI scheduled for very late afternoon on Monday...instead I'm obsessing about the MRI itself. This is because the last time I was scheduled to do an MRI, I had a panic attack and walked out in tears just as the machine was about to start. The staff was not pleased, and it was humiliating. I'm terrified the same thing will happen. Yet I have to go through with it; it's important for the surgeon to know what's in there, if possible.

That last MRI wasn't my first; the first was extremely unpleasant, but I managed. What filled me with anxiety the second time was that I knew what it was like. You sit in a room waiting to get the IV, then you're put on a narrow table with your arms immobilized and your head in a donut hole. They inject the contrast dye into the IV, which you can feel creeping into your veins, and the creeping is pretty creepy, actually. What sent me over the edge, though, was the imperative not to move, not a muscle, for the entire time, about 45 minutes to an hour, I think. The horrible banging and clanging of the machine doesn't help your nerves. If you move, they can't get good film and the whole thing is for nothing.

What happens when I get anxious is that my mouth becomes very dry and I feel like I can't swallow, which panics me. At the dentist I can ask to take a break and swallow some water. Sometimes if it happens in another situation (not often), I can put the tip of my finger in my mouth and that helps me swallow. This is all ridiculous, I know: as my daughter A. just told me, no one dies from not swallowing for a short time. But the inability to move for that long (and with no distractions at all) just scares the hospital gown off me. I don't know what to do about this. I should have paid attention when friends wanted to teach me relaxation techniques.

I told the nurse this, and she got a prescription for Valium from the doctor right away; I'm guessing I'm not alone in my anxieties over the MRI exam. But I have no idea if the amount he prescribed will help enough. Thus my obsession.

Or maybe I'm just obsessed because I don't want to think about the results, which I'm supposed to get on Tuesday.

Good News?

That's a question mark after the word "News", because I can't be certain yet. But the visit to the surgeon today went well. He ordered a mammogram right away, which showed only the cancer at the spot already found, and nothing else. I was nervous as a cat, but my daughter C., who took off work to come with me, chattered like a magpie the whole time and I got through it.

I'm not entirely reassured because the doctor said I must also have an MRI next week, since that can show cancer that doesn't appear on the mammogram. So I have to get through that too. And I will definitely lose more of my breast, including the nipple, or have a mastectomy, depending on what the MRI on Monday shows. I'm not out of the woods. But neither am I imagining last letters to my children any longer, or trying to think of someone to take my cats after I'm gone.

Funny what pleasure small things can give when life has just been hanging over the cliff, ready to fall. I came home and cooked myself a good meal and felt enormously happy. As for the poor breast that will fall to the surgeon's knife, right now I am ready to part with it, the same way I parted with the luxuriant hair I had at twenty, or marriage, or money. Life is change and loss, as my brother E. likes to say. Better to lose the breast than what I really value.

Hope/Dread

The breast surgeon has squeezed me into his schedule today, even though his secretary told me he is so overbooked that last week they had to cancel some of his appointments.

I'm relieved to get the process going, though gripped by a mixture of hope (maybe it's not as bad as I fear) and dread (hearing bad news soon).

Here We Go Again...

Just before Christmas I was diagnosed with Paget's Disease, which indicates an underlying cancer of the breast 97% of the time. This is my second go-around with breast cancer; the first was eleven years ago, when I had three surgeries, followed by chemotherapy and radiation. I've been fine since then, increasingly confident it was over. Now it's back.

I don't know that anyone will read this, so I'm treating it as a kind of journal. Writing has always helped me keep perspective, and that's my motive. The advantage of a journal over family and friends is that while they are essential for love and warmth and support, they can't be there all the time. I don't have a romantic or domestic partner who is obliged to listen to me and help me every day (how helpful and nice that must be), so it could be wonderful to have a something to turn to... something that isn't intruded upon or burdened by me when I want to talk or think aloud, so to speak. Technology is interesting that way: no human contact, but on the other hand, always available. And it's not like talking to yourself in a print journal, because someone might hear you, you never know.

To begin with, there is my terror of death. I'm only 64...older than some with cancer but not as old as I'd like to be when I face the end. The very idea of not seeing my dear children any longer, of not watching my five beloved grandchildren grow up, makes me cry. I shouldn't be thinking about this, since I don't yet know how serious this recurrence is, but it's hard not to when your life's on the line.

Even if the news is not as bad as I fear, the best case scenario is serious surgery, and possibly radation and chemo, which means pain, suffering, and a major disruption of my plans and hopes for the next six months. Of course that's a small price to pay for living, don't get me wrong. I'm afraid of it, but it's a good deal if you get life in exchange.

Also, even if I live and go on, I'll never feel safe again. But then no one else should either: they just don't think about it.

My first reaction to this news was dreadful anxiety, difficulty sleeping. Then some bouts of depression, relieved by the distraction of a Christmas trip away with my daughter A. and her family. But a dreadful shadow colors everything...you can't be distracted from something like this for long.

I finally did get an appointment with the doctor, the same surgeon who operated on me three times eleven years ago. So tomorrow I may know more, though not the specific news I most want to know and yet dread knowing: will I live?