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?
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