Finding Out I Have Cancer
The story behind my diagnosis…
March 29, 2019 I went to a walk in clinic to check my left breast due to change in the way it felt. Not quite a lump but an overall firmness. I was told it was muscle and carried on my way. Thinking, “damn all that bench work is really changing my chest.” I thought it was just a crazy imbalance that I would be able to work on at the gym.
Over the summer my chest continued to change but I didn’t think too much of it. Firm on the belief I had in that female walk-in clinic doctor’s opinion. She knew what she was talking about, right?
I had a fun summer. Took some trips around the province. Spent afternoons having beers with friends. Prepared for matt and I’s long process of moving back to Ottawa. He would leave in September for his new job. I would stay with my parents until Spring. It’d be a happy medium for everyone.
Matt mentioned overtime how I should get a second opinion on my chest. It didn’t feel right. I knew that. I told myself it was probably a benign cyst at worst and I’d check it again once his move was over and all that stress was out of the way.
He left a few days before my birthday with our dog Robyn, on September 22nd, 2019. I stayed behind with our cat Ozzy. It was sad but we knew we could do it for our ultimate plan of buying a home in 2020.
I decided to go to the walk-in clinic on my 29th birthday, September 25th, 2019. Just before Matt left, my breast started oozing discharge and I knew that since I’d never been pregnant that this was a major red flag. I asked for an extended break from work that day and bit the bullet. It was a Wednesday and I went to the nearby walk-in clinic right away so there’d be no wait time.
The doctor showed immediate concern. He wrote me a referral to the hospital and sent me there.
I was called a day later to schedule an ultrasound. The ultrasound took place a week later. The nurse there asked if I could stay for a mammogram and I got worried.
A few days later on October 4th, 2019 I was scheduled a biopsy.
I went into the room alone. Two females took care of the procedure. One did the biopsy and one controlled the ultrasound machine. I heard one tell the other that she needed a sample from my armpit region as well. And as I sat there with the needle gun in my side, a wave of emotion flooded through me like never before. I couldn’t control my face muscles and started tearing up. The ultrasound tech just held my hand in silence as I stared at a corner of the ceiling.
At that moment, I already knew the news. I didn’t need a diagnosis.
I went home and didn’t say much to my parents or anybody.
One week later, on October 11th, 2019 I was called in to go over the results. I went with my mother. I told her in the waiting room I thought I had cancer.
So when the three women came in to bear the bad news (a surgeon, a surgeon in training, and a support care nurse), I did not cry when they told me I had cancer. I said okay. Okay. Okay. Tell me it all. What’s the plan? They comforted my mother as she started to cry. They told us how sorry they were.
Within minutes I was told I have a very large cancerous tumour in my left breast. That surgery was not yet an option since it would not be successful in clearing all cancer at this time. That I would be on a 15 month treatment plan in attempt to cease the growth but also shrink the tumour first. That is if all goes according to plan.
I am told I have triple positive invasive ductal carcinoma. Which means estrogen, progesterone and a certain protein fuels my tumour.
That it is aggressive.
That I will lose my hair.
That I will lose my breast. Likely a double mastectomy. Possibly more of me if I also carry a certain hereditary gene mutation but that I won’t know that for months and months yet.
That I will lose the ability to bear children. At least for 5 years. Potentially forever.
All I could think of was how I had failed to take charge of my own life. How I had failed to look after myself for the sake of my partner. Parents. Friends and loved ones.
But I also knew that there is no point in dwelling on the past.
And that my new life chapter starts now.
So this is the new me. The forever changed me. And this is my journey.
Welcome
Thank you for your support!
