As I prepare for yet another trip up to Portland to meet with more doctors I’m flooded with a mixture of emotions. Feelings that are all in complete opposition from one another. My thoughts and feelings are like watching an intense Wimbledon tennis match. Just when you think someone is about to score a point, the opponent returns with an equally amazing shot. And that is where I am, one moment I think I know exactly how I am feeling, and then I get a phone call from the doctors office and my stomach drops, or I hear my kids laughing and I in turn am overjoyed that this plight hasn’t taken their joy or amusement.
Preparing to meet with more doctors and specialists has me hopeful and fearful, relieved and anxious, excited and sad, grateful and angry. I’m all of these emotions and more. With all that I’ve been through in this beautiful and complex life I’ve never felt such a fury of emotions as I have with this diagnosis. Let me be clear, I am not down and I am not out, but I do want to be real with you and honest with myself as well. As one doctor explained this is the very best of the very worst situation. Portland is the time to sort out the best and the worst.
This is the time and place where the words Breast Cancer go from being ambient words bouncing around my head like a pinball machine, describing pink ribbons and 5k runs to words that are heavy and grave. Words that mean that my body has turned against me, that it has been infiltrated by the enemy. I do not feel sick or different, but I am, I have cancer and that cancer needs to be removed and so much more goes with that.
These appointments will most likely be the turning point for me. I will meet with 2 breast surgeons and 2 plastic surgeons and I will have to decide whose hands I will put my life in. Dramatic…? Yes, it is, but it’s also the truth. This is an everyday surgery and in and of itself is not that dangerous. But it is very scary, I’m scared about how I’ll feel, how I’ll look, the pain of recovery. This is scary but not dangerous, provided the doctor removes as much breast tissue as possible. They can’t ever guarantee that I my breast cancer wont come back but they minimize the chances to about 2-5%.
I have to choose the doctor that will do my mastectomy, a surgery to remove my God given breasts, and the plastic surgeon that will replace them with what doctors so affectionately (insert sarcasm here) refer to as mounds. Ugh!!! It sounds awful doesn’t it?!
I will be met with facts, figures, best case scenarios, worst case scenarios, measurements and of course my genetic mutation when we discuss what is to come. This will be the biggest reality check of my life. I have read books, blogs, talked to other breast cancer survivors and I know that I will be ok, I will too survive and one day I will look the same in clothing, maybe even better. But this is the time where I learn about the in between.
The in between the diagnosis of having Breast Cancer and the day when I proudly proclaim that I am a Breast Cancer survivor. This is when I will really learn what surgery will be like for me, how long will I be in the operating room? How long will I be in the hospital? How much pain will I be in? What is the best reconstruction option for me? How long will it take? Expander? Drains? Lymphedema? What are these things and what do they mean to me?
Portland is the big reality check, it is where the abstract becomes real and tangible. Portland represents hope for a long and healthy life and cancer prevention, it also brings sadness and mourning. Sorrow that I have cancer, and what that means in my life and for how it affects my husband and children. Mourning over the loss of my breasts, a part of my body, my identity growing from a child into a woman, breasts that fed and nourished all three of my children, a soft place they all have laid their heads when they are sleepy, sad or ill. My Breast represent so much more to me than just a body part and they are being taken away from me.
I feel so grateful to be presented with the best case scenario (even if it’s also the worst case). I will likely not have to undergo chemotherapy or radiation which is amazing and I feel almost guilty for getting off so easy, except I’m not actually getting out of anything. I will be left with scars and close to 2 years of procedures, waiting and surgeries until I am healed from my reconstruction. When all is said and done I will still have those battle scars and while I will have something resembling my breasts they will be an imitation of the real thing.
As I said, So. Many. Emotions. They send me swinging like a pendulum. I’m up and I’m down, and I’ll be up again.
This trip to Portland, the doctors, information and decisions to be made will help to sort everything out, even my feelings and emotions. Portland is my big reality check. Portland is preparing me for battle.
