I’m having that ultrasound tomorrow morning, and hopefully it will show that the MRI was hallucinating when it saw an area of “enhancement.” Hopefully everything will go back to the best case scenario that was presented a few weeks ago: one small tumor, a plan for its surgical excision, five weeks of radiation, and then 30 or 40 years of living happily ever after.
But if the ultrasound confirms the “enhancement” (I hate using words I don’t understand), then there will be a mastectomy, and a whole different plan and prognosis.
I may have given the impression the other day that I was horrified by the prospect of a mastectomy. I’m not. I would hack off both breasts myself with a kitchen knife and deliver them to the Women’s Breast Health Centre in a pail if I thought it would improve my odds of survival.
No, my horror was not at the prospect of mastectomy. It was at the prospect of the cancer being more advanced and more far-flung than we had previously believed. It was the fear that this “enhancement” is an ominous sign of advanced spread. (Which it might not be – as I said before, I don’t even know what it means. It’s just another big scary unknown in a universe of scary unknowns.)
Since the mastectomy got put on the table, though, I’ve spent some time thinking about my feelings about my breasts. I never thought they were one of my better naked features. In fact, almost from the moment I got breasts I started finding fault with them.
But that doesn’t mean I feel good about having one of them lopped off. No. It’s still part of me, and I feel kind of sad to think it might soon be in a pile of medical waste somewhere.
The other night I was lying in bed thinking about all this stuff, and I realized I was polyanthromorphizing my breast. I was feeling sorry for it, poor little thing, getting kicked off the island, so to speak. It’s not like it ever did anything wrong.
Cancer can drive you a little bit crazy, you know, especially in the middle of the night.
Zoom, I’ve polyanthromorphized my breasts for…YEARS now thanks to nursing…which can also drive you a little crazy in the middle of the night.
I’m glad you’re being so compassionate about your breasts. (have you renamed them yet? Mine are “Bubba” and “The Udder Bubba”) I think I’d be livid with mine!
My first visual image of a breaast cancer survivor was the picture I linked you to, Warrior. I don’t think I’d even thought about breast cancer before I saw that as a BIG framed poster in a woman’s apartment in Ottawa. She was letting a gang of us peace punk kids crash in her apartment during a youth anarchist festival. I really do think she’s beautiful and powerful and STRONG, that was my first reaction, that women survive because they are that fucking powerful…and I think my second thought was “if I ever get breast cancer I’m getting a really cool tattoo too.
I think youère that fucking powerful too.
I liked her tattoo. I’d get a lightning bolt Z for Zoom.
Hi,
I am thinking of you. I hope you do not have to wait on news from the ultrasound.
Tried to send an e-mail to you but it keeps bouncing back.
Yeah I thought for a second about a tattoo (even though I now have FIVE, from the radiation) and decided I was never going to willingly have more needles poked into me. But I never was a fan of tattoos anyway. Yes, it can make you crazy, especially in the middle of the night.
I hope the news is good. I’ll be thinking of you.
Hey, just wanted to drop by and wish you luck with the ultrasound.
thinking of you Zoom *hugs*