The truth is, it doesn’t really matter what the result is.  They’re going to cut open the tumor and see what’s inside.  They are going to look at the cancer cells and see what they really are.  And they are going to look at the three or four or six lymph  nodes that they took from my armpit and see if there is any cancer in there.  I should know in ten days - well, ten days from the surgery date (which is a sunday, so eleven days) what was really in there, and if there is likely to be any more still in there.  But in the end it doesn’t really matter.  If I was four years older it might make a difference to my treatment.  But I am getting chemotherapy anyway.  And I will also get radiation anyway.  So really the only thing that will change - or could change, is if I will also get hormone therapy (which, in extreme cases means a hysterectomy) and if I will also get gene therapy (which would come before chemo).

 Another truth, is that no matter how tough you think you are, no matter how much you think you are dealing with it;  it still knocks you on your ass.    I woke up from surgery and I forgot where I was.  I had been dreaming, and I didn’t think people dreamt when they were asleep because of chemicals.  I know that my dreams were pretty weird, but I don’t remember them.  But when I first was waking up, I thought I was in my bed, and that Kurt was next to me.  But only for a few seconds.   Then the nurse sitting next to me and the other post op. patients on either side of me clued me in.  I thought I’d be in recovery for a lot longer.  It seemed like I was recovery for way longer when I had Indiana, and I hadn’t even been under a general anesthetic.  It went really fast, and they asked me a whole bunch of the same questions over and over, and they told me that my mom was waiting to see me, and for some reason I kept being put right in front of the nurses station so I always knew everything that was going on.  The porter that came to move me to the area of the ward where I would spend the night, was very black and very african and it was her birthday.  I kept seeing her smiling face zip past my bed. 

 I kept dozing off and when my mom came in, followed right behind, by Kurt and Rebecca, I think I had my eyes closed.  But she kissed me and I know she was crying a bit.   It seemed really weird because I really didn’t feel like anything had happened.  There were dressings on my boob and my armpit, but they were much smaller than I expected, and I couldn’t really feel anything, except for the tape from the dressings.  And I could see a bit of an indent where the tumor had been.  It was weird to see the indent because there had been such a visible lump before.       

Relief.      

… Ish.     

The first bit of reality came when I had to pee for the first time (which was apparently a big deal, that I had to pee so soon) .  I was totally freaked out about using a bed pan.  I wasn’t aware that there was this awesome cool thing called a commode that was basically a potty on wheels. I felt I could get to the toilet with help, and it would be a good chance to get me cleaned up. (I was still covered in iodine that made my skin all yellow, and there was this sticky goo all over my face from when they taped my eyes shut)   …  Well, I wasn’t ready to get up.  I peed.  And peed.  It was totally exactly like the scene in the first Austin Powers movie, when he first gets unfrozen, and he just keeps peeing.    I think I might have even laughed out loud.  The pee just kept coming.  Without any encouragement from me.  But then I noticed that my IV was leaking, and when I stood up everything went all swimmy, and luckily Kurt was with me or I would have ended up on the floor.  After that I used the commode.    

The second bit of reality came when I left the hospital.  My mom had hired professional cleaners to clean my house the morning of my discharge.  And they were going to still be at my house when I got out of the hospital. So Kurt was supposed to bring the baby to my mom’s house and the four of us would have lunch before taking me home.  Indiana had fallen asleep on the way over and went down for her nap on my mom’s bed, and while she slept my sister an niece came over, as well.  So when Indiana woke up there were two people that she really didn’t know, plus dad and gramma, and me.  Well she was certainly mad at me.  She wouldn’t even look at me.  She kept going to gramma, and bypassing me entirely.  I kept trying to get her to come over and snuggle me, but not being able to pick her up made it that much harder.  I finally broke down and cried.  I had never been so rejected.  I felt at once sorry for myself and guilty for having left my daughter for 24 hours.  I couldn’t even offer her milk because there was still radioactive technetium in my system.  It took until Kurt took Indiana and me home and we spend some time together on the floor for her to come over and snuggle me.  I’m going to be making up for that one for the rest of my life.   

The final dose of reality (so far anyway) came when I took my first shower.  I had Kurt come into the bathroom with me in case I had another fainting spell, like in the hospital, and I also needed his help getting the bandages off.  The incisions weren’t even that bad to look at.   I think I always envision the horror movie version of incisions, because that’s the kind we see in movies the most.  Even my C-section incision - which I would only glance at for the first week - was much more freaky because there were staples, which will make any incision look like the work of the re-animator.    When I got out of the shower I needed my mom to come and help me get dressed (Kurt needs to shower occasionally too)  and some how that is when it hit me.  I needed to sit down and my mom said I’d suddenly gone very pale.  And I just cried.  Probably the most that I’ve cried so far.  And it wasn’t just that my body was irrevocably changed or that this thing had been removed from me.  It was a bit of loss over what I’d like to think was a pretty well near perfect set of breasts (Kurt says I have just regular breasts now, like everybody else) and a bit of the realness of the cancer setting in.  But I also kept thinking about all of the people who have been coming out of the woodwork to help me during this. My friend Selena, who I went to high school with, and whom I haven’t seen in ten years, offered to help me pack for the move in August.   

 The rest of that day, I was pretty emotional.  The whole family took a nap and we started selectively answering the phone.  And just made a really strong effort to be as normal as possible.  The truth is, that as strong as I am;  As strong as I am determined to be, it’s everybody else that will get me through this.  My mom, Kurt, my brother and sisters and all the friends …  It is the collective strength of these people that will beat this disease.  I know now that I can’t do it without them, and I feel very lucky that I don’t have to.   

Here’s the timeline: 

Week of December 19th - Discover a lump (the size and shape of an almond)that I think is a plugged duct. 

2 -3 days later - visit my doctor.  She feels it and right away thinks it’s a milk cyst of some kind.  Advises me to keep an eye on it and follow up in three months. 

March 29th - Return to Doctors office for follow up.  The l;ump is now the size and shape of a chestnut.  She still thinks it’s milk or fibroadinoma.  I tell her I won’t feel good about it until I know for sure. 

April 18th - Ultrasound at Screening mammography clinic.   Radiologist says “It’s not cancer.  It’s not precancerous.  It’s definitely a fibroadinoma.”  Offers me a biopsy just to be 100% sure.  Since I still think it’s a milk thing (and don’t want a firboadinoma that won’t go away ’til menopause) and don’t want to find another baby sitter to come back and follow up, I opt for the biopsy. 

April 23rd - Very early my doctor calls me herself, and tells me that, to everyone’s surprise, the biopsy showed cancer.  She fits me in for an appointment to see her that day.  Luckily, Kurt happens to be working in Victoria that day. We see our family doctor and then the surgeon squeezes me in, also that day.  I am informed that chemotherapy will be a definite and I will have to wean Indiana asap.(after contacting Dr. Jack Newman, I find out that there is a way to continue breast feeding through chemo, but it is hard and may not work) 

April 28th - Bone Scan.  Show up to be injected to find out that  I will be radioactive for 24 hours and should minimize contact with my 13 month old, and can’t breast feed for 48 hours.  I should have pumped some milk.  (Dr. Newman gives me the precise information and I am able to resume breast feeding after only 30 hours)The bone scan shows “something” on my right shin.  An X-ray confirms shin splints.  But no tumors in my bones.  I finally stop clenching my teeth.In the waiting room before the nuclear medicine reception opens there is one of those “take a number” signs.  The number showing on it is “42.”  I take that as a good sign. (either you know what that means, or you don’t.) 

May 1st - Abdominal ultrasound and MRI  Both of these tests are very quick.  The radiologist did not come in to double check any of the pictures on the ultrasound - which I took as a sign that there was nothing to double check.  The MRI is a bit more involved.  They have to start an IV because a contrast has to be in injected while you are in the machine.  I accidentally wear underpants with metallic thread in them.  They don’t burn me but the silver stripes turn copper.  They recommend not breast feeding for 24 hours because of the contrast, but after looking into it further the risk to the baby is .1 % of .1% 

May 2nd - I request to meet with an oncologist before the surgery to talk about time lines and breast feeding and try to make some kind of sense and order out of my chaotic life. 

May 4th (sunday) - the surgeons office calls me and tells me they want to get a CT scan of my abdomen because one of the ultrasound pictures had a “shadow” on my liver, but they couldn’t find it in any of the other pictures.   In addition, I have an appointment with the oncologist as per my request. 

May 7th - CT scan.  The contrast makes me feel like  I’ve done a tequila shot, but no fun feeling afterward. 

May 8th - My first trip tot he BC Cancer Agency.  We are there for over two hours.  There’s nothing like a 13 month old running around to change the mood in the cancer clinic waiting room.   They weigh me and check my blood pressure - all the usual stuff.  I find out that the CT scan showed nothing. The MRI showed nothing new.  I have no tumors anywhere else in my body.  Excellent news.  My onc wants me to have”lots” of chemo as soon as possible.  If he had his way it would be before surgery. I tell him that just isn’t possible since I am still breast feeding.  But, I now know I have roughly a month to wean.  Dr. Newman’s plan just won’t be possible with the planned therapies.  And besides his plan would require me to have radiation first, which probably won’t happen. 

May 15th - Surgery.  We opt for a partial mastectomy with Sentinel lymph node dissection.  I spend 24 hours in the hospital.   The last three of which are spent waiting for a physiotherapist to come and tell me what I already know and read to me from a book of exercises that I already read.

We really do take our bodies for granted. We live in a time when self improvement is the new religion, but even with that focus on ourselves we don’t really have that much respect for our bodies. So much focus has been put on keeping ourselves young. Youth is supposed to be the thing that is always on our side. But in my case youth is not on my side. Youth is kind of making the problem worse.

I grew up in an age when a sexual revolution had happened, but then the other shoe had dropped so now we were all supposed to be afraid of sex. We now had the right to have as much sex as we wanted before, after, during marriage. Or with no marriage at all. But be-ware ’cause it might kill you. I heeded that message, too. I didn’t really date in high-school at all and I lost my virginity when I was 18. And I married that guy. So many of my friends don’t “date.” They get into long term relationships. And sex is a BIG DEAL. I started late then married young. Divorced young. I think it seemed like if you were in a committed relationship - no matter how much of a mistake that relationship might be, then you were safe. I grew up in fear of this thing that might kill me if I slept with the wrong person and I never considered anything else.

I never drank in high-school. Never did drugs. In college either. I was strait-edge, I didn’t do that. My body was a temple, I respected it. My brain was even more sacred to me. The day I was diagnosed with breast cancer Kurt had our friends bring over some weed and he told me flat out I was going to smoke some. It didn’t really do anything. At all. (shrug.) Maybe next time.

I wouldn’t say I really take care of my body. I don’t abuse it. I eat reasonably well. Though I do enjoy an A&W teen burger once in a while. I don’t actively go out and exercise. I don’t go to the gym. Don’t take yoga classes. But I walk everywhere, and I weigh ten pounds less than I did before I was pregnant. When I eventually did take up drinking I didn’t exactly make up for lost time. I went through maybe a six to eight month period where I had a few parties and really did it up right. But I’m no drunk by any stretch of the imagination. I enjoy a pint down at the pub … or more, in my living room, these days.

I’ve always considered myself to be pretty “in touch” with my body. I had a friend in university who was really impressed, once, when I knew, a day or two in advance, that my period was going to be early. I’m not a vain person. I like to look how I look and I enjoy a compliment from my man, but my sense of aesthetics will not be compromised by the loss of my hair. (In fact I’ve already shaved it, and it looks f#@kin’ good) I do worry that I will lose too much weight, and that, like Bilbo when he gave up the ring, age will catch up with me. Not too long ago I was looking in a mirror in natural light and commented on how I don’t have any crow’s feet, yet. I wondered, today, if that will change. If my youthful appearance will be replaced by someone who is haggard and old.

I’m definitely conflicted about the boobs. I know that the surgery will be done in the least invasive way possible, but the tumor is close to the surface, so some skin will have to be taken.

And that

changes

everything.

And the decision still has to be made about whether or not I will have the whole works removed in the future. Kurt wants me to do it. And it’s understandable. His mother went through a long illness. And according to the letters she wrote to her sister, she kept thinking she was done. Kept thinking they had gotten all the cancer. And Kurt doesn’t want that for me. If all the breast tissue is gone, the chances of the cancer coming back are much much less. But that is a big thing to decide. We’re talking about everything. Nipples and all. I can get fake ones. But it’s a long process. And painful. More painful than the original surgery. It’s a really hard thing to decide. My breasts have sustained my daughter for 14 months. They are my link to motherhood, to womanhood. I don’t have to decide that right now. But I do have to decide.

And then there’s sex. Maintaining a physical relationship is already made difficult by the living arrangement of Kurt working in Vancouver 5 days a week and me living here. We haven’t had sex at all since the diagnosis. He comes home tomorrow but I go for surgery the next day. Before I am even fully recovered from surgery I expect to start chemotherapy, which I have been promised will rob me of my sex drive. I will be getting chemotherapy until the end of September. How does a relationship survive? How do you begin to get back to a physical place when this body is no longer the body it was? Pregnancy changes your body. And it is an adjustment. It alters the nature of the physical relationship, a little. But you sign on for that. It’s expected. … This wasn’t part of the deal. How do you go back? How do you … My body is going to be changed. And it won’t be a gradual change, like pregnancy. It won’t happen slowly so that he doesn’t even notice. It won’t be organic. It will just suddenly be different. Damaged. The tissue around where my C-section scar is, has very little feeling. It is coming back slowly, but it may never come back fully. What if that happens to my breast? What if it is always a bit sore? What if it is so ugly that I can’t look at it? Do I become one of those people who has sex with the lights off? With a shirt on? I worry that Kurt will be afraid to touch me.

I know I am going to be faced with some knew realities about my body over the next few months. Just how tough is it? How do I really feel about how I look? I guess we’ll see…

I have never really been sick. Ever. If I hadn’t ended up with a C-section when Indiana was born, I would never have ever spent a night in the hospital. Three times in my life I have gotten a stomach bug and gotten dehydrated really quickly and gone to the emergency room. But that is all. I’ve never even broken a bone or had stitches. (I had staples for my C-section, which is totally weird, cuz they’re actually staples)

And the thing about cancer is… you’re not sick. If they hadn’t told me I had cancer I wouldn’t have known. I think at this point it’s kind of hard to grasp the concept that anything is actually wrong. And perhaps the reason I’m handling it so well is because I don’t feel like anything is wrong. And maybe all this time, deep down, I have been treating all the tests like they were to confirm the diagnosis, not to determine the extent of the diagnosis. And maybe next Thursday I will stop handling it so well. That is when I will finally have an outward indication that something is really wrong. That is when I go for surgery.

I met with the medical oncologist today. My oncologist. Dr. Attwell. One of two Doctors Attwell in this city, so I have to be very specific about it. I found out that not only is Breast Cancer in women under 35 extremely rare, but it is harder to deal with. The risk of re-occurence is much higher and it can be more aggressive. For this reason I am getting “lots of chemotherapy.” And I am getting it as soon as possible. If Dr. Attwell had his way, I would be getting it first, but I have a baby to think about, and I want the tumor gone. So I will get surgery, then 4 or 5 weeks to heal and then chemotherapy. 6 cycles of chemotherapy, which I have calculated should end right around my 32 birthday. The chemotherapy drugs I will be receiving will be FEC (somehow appropriate) or Fluorouracil, Epirubicin and Cyclophophamide. Thankfully, alcohol does not interfere with these drugs. Not that I plan on becoming an alcoholic, but I think I’ll be needing the occasional beer.

Of coarse this could all change after surgery. If my cancer has either estrogen or progesterone receptors or if it over expresses the gene HER2, then I will get a different therapy.

…

There are so many things to consider. I had hoped that I would be able to continue breastfeeding Indiana. When I started out on this breastfeeding journey I didn’t plan on being one of those long term breastfeeding moms. I didn’t want to have a child who could lift up my shirt and help herself. But when the one year mark rolled around I realized I had no desire to actively wean my daughter. I wanted to continue for at least another year, and on the day of my diagnosis, when my surgeon told me I should wean my daughter - I at first agreed, but then I found out that I may not have to. Breastfeeding through chemotherapy requires that you pump and dump your breast milk for 5 times the half life of the chemotherapy drug with the longest half life. During this time, you offer the radiated breast to the child to “comfort nurse” because the radiation kills the cells that make milk, so the child basically gets dry nipple. If you pump effectively the child can then comfort nurse on the unaffected breast and not get any milk because you pumped it all. When 5 times the half life of the chemo drugs is up the child can have milk again. The reason I asked to meet with an oncologist before surgery was to find out what the half lives of chemotherapy drugs are. But it’s sort of irrelevant now. I won’t get radiation before I get chemo so I’d be trying to pump away the tiny trickle of milk that is left in my right boob, which I probably can’t do after surgery. And besides, I’m getting “lots” of chemo. Dr. Attwell said it will make me nauseous. Not it might. It will. It will make me tired. It will make my hair fall out (which doesn’t bother me. How many times have I shaved my head?). Do I really want to be nauseous with a breast pump hangin’ off my tit? I don’t think so. I was hoping that even if I decided wean that I would have at least until the end of the summer, because surgery plus recovery time plus 4 to six weeks of radiation would take me to the middle of August, which gets me almost to 18 months of breastfeeding. But now I have about a month to wean. I don’t know who it’s going to be harder on, her or me.

Right now I have to focus on getting ready for surgery. I have one week. And I need to make sure I am eating, because I know that when I am stressed or anxious or sad or lonely or worried, I don’t eat. And I have to get back in the habit of drinking lots of water because apparently it is very important during chemo to stay really hydrated. And I have to make sure that things stay as normal as possible for Indiana. And … This has definitely been the hardest day. And I know there are going to be harder days. But I figure, weaker women than me have gotten through this. I’m punk rock. I can handle anything.

Sometimes, someone elses words say what I am feeling, so much better than anything I could come up with. Music is going to be a major factor in keeping me sane through all this. It is really is true that “Music Save.”

Well I Know I miss more than hit

With a face that was launched to sink

An’ I seldom feel, the bright relief

It’s been the worst day since yesterday

If there’s one thing I’ve said

Is that the dreams I once had now lay in bed

As the four winds blow my wits through the door

It’s been the worst day since yesterday

Fallin’ down to you sweet ground

Where the flowers they bloom

It’s there I’ll be found

Hurry back to me, my wild calling

It’s been the worst day since yesterday

Though these wounds have seen no wars

Except for the scar I have ignored

And the endless crutch, well it’s never enough

It’s been the worst day since yesterday

Hell says hello, well it’s time I should go

To pastures green, that I’ve yet to see

Hurry back to me, my wild calling

It’s been the worst day since yesterday

- Lyrics by David King, Music By Flogging Molly, from the Album “Swagger”

I could fill the screen with pop-culture references about fear; The power it has; The power we gain from conquering it. In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, “Fear Itself” the fear demon Gachnar was about 4 inches tall and didn’t have any physical powers. A pretty strong statement. Buffy squashed him with her foot.

On facebook and myspace (and I’m sure other social networking sites that I’m not part of) people are always posting quizzes that contain random questions and how you answer them says a lot about who you are. About 2 out of every 3 quizzes has the question “What do you fear most?” My answer is always, “Being a jane doe.” I actually get a bit panicked if I go out somewhere and don’t have my identification with me. I envision being hit by a car and left unconscious and nobody being able to identify me. I can never think of anything else to really be afraid of. At least twice a day, now, fear creeps into my life. When I first heard the diagnosis I feared the worst things that we know about cancer. I feared finding out that the cancer had spread through-out my body and would not be curable. I feared going through painful treatments. I feared what I didn’t know about radiation and what I did know about chemotherapy.

The only person I’ve ever known while they were going through chemotherapy was a girl in my grade 5 class who had leukemia. I didn’t really know her at all though. She was new to our school (as was I)and got sick early in the school year, and she spent most of that year in Vancouver, at children’s hospital. So what I knew about chemotherapy was that it made you bald, and it made you sick and that the trick was to survive the chemotherapy. I knew that chemotherapy was poison that would hopefully kill the cancer first and leave enough of the rest of you alive that you would recover. What I knew about chemotherapy two weeks ago was based on the way things were 20 years ago. And what I knew then was vague. It was second and third hand information. So naturally I feared it.

The first week of life with cancer is all about deciding what to do with the fear. It took me about a day to decide that fear and sorrow were a waste of my energy. Energy that I would need to heal. But each day the fear creeps back in. So what do I fear? Some people would say that at the top of their list is the fear of death. Not me. I really truly don’t fear death. I fear a lot of the stuff associated with death. But when I’m dead it’s over for me so why fear it. I fear putting my mom through it. Making her have to watch one of her children die. I fear leaving my husband to raise our daughter by himself (the way his father had to raise him and his brother by himself), and to be alone never wanting to find someone else to love. I fear, more than ever, how every thing I do from now on will impact my daughter. I fear a long illness that will tax my family and test their strength and their resolve and their ability to stay together. I fear the financial impact of a long illness. I fear the treatments. I fear finding out just how strong I really am.

People have always seen me as a very strong person. I have always presented myself as a very strong person. But am I really? I’ve never really been proven in the field. I fear pain. Going back to my favorite show (probably not for the last time) “Do you think it’ll hurt?” That’s what Buffy asked when she found out she was going to die. She was a super hero, with “the strength and skill … yada yada…” and pain was still the first thing on her mind. I also fear what all of this will do to my body. I’m not a vain person. I’m punk rock. Fashion and conventional beauty, they’re disdainful to me, right? Lose my hair? So what. I used to shave my head all the time. When the surgeon was telling me my options (which should never be done on the day of diagnosis, by the way) Kurt and I were both, “Fuck vanity! Fuck aesthetics! We don’t care about that. Cut out the disease and be done with it.” But I don’t really feel that way. By boobs are my favorite part. They are the one thing that never looks bad when I see them in the mirror. I was upset that a fibroadinoma was going to spoil my perfect breasts. That’s why I got the biopsy. I was hoping for something that could be drained with a needle and be gone. Every test that gets ordered causes me some fear. Every result of those tests causes me some fear. I fear not knowing, more than anything. It’s the thing that makes me keep asking questions. I fear going through this and winning and then having to go through it again. I suddenly realized I may not outlive my husband. I fear this new statistic that is suddenly in my life that I can not get rid of. That statistic is a sudden dramatic increase in my daughters chances of getting breast cancer. I fear the possibility that, even if it doesn’t come back in me, my daughter may have to make a choice, in her twenties, whether or not to have a radical bilateral mastectomy as a preventative measure.

So what do we do with the fear? We acknowledge it. We express it. We dispell it as much as we can; Learn about what chemotherapy is really like here in the new millenium; Find out what radiation is really all about; And we don’t let it rule us. fear really is the mind killer. Because fear makes things bigger than they are. Fear makes us unable to see the possibilities. Fear stops us from taking advantage of opportunities.

I used to fear surgery. I feared child birth. I feared epidurals. I feared spending a night in the hospital. Then I had a baby. I ended up with a C-section after induction and 12 hours of very painful labour that led virtually nowhere. And every step of the way I just told myself, “other women do this all the time.” When breast feeding hurt and I couldn’t get it right, I told myself, “My mom did it. Other women do it all the time.”

I used to fear anything that might cause me pain. Now I subject myself to a couple hours of pain on a fairly regular basis - I pay my best friend to put be through it. (I’m talking about getting tattooed) And every time there is a little bit of fear, at first. And then I remember that I can handle it.

Knowing that other women have gone through this; Knowing that women I know have gone through this; Knowing that children go through it, will be what gets me through. Knowing that my experience, and what they might learn from my tumor might possibly lead to my daughter not having to go through it; Will help to get me through. If my doctor biopsies every lump that comes into her office from now on, and the radiologist biopsies every lump that comes into her office from now on - no matter what it looks like, that will take back whatever I have to go through.

I am sure that fear will continue to creep in to my daily life for a long time. But eventually it will come only a few times a week and then a few times a month, and then only when I go for my regular breast cancer screenings. But I work hard not to live my life in fear.

Gachnar, the fear demon.

“You’re Buffy, irraticator of evil, defender of … things that need defending.” - Xander Harris.

The thing about being diagnosed with cancer, is that it’s not just your health that it effects. It touches every part of your life. And the lives of the people closest to you. And sometimes the lives of people who are just near you.

Here’s what I mean;

If anyone you know has been through this before - particularly if they have watched someone else go through this fight, and have watched them lose they react the most dramatically. They will have been in this battle from the losing side and will not easily see the possibility of victory. When I was a teenager and my best friend’s brother committed suicide the school brought in a grief councilor. The councilor spoke to the students and said that when someone dies in a certain way it brings back the grief from every other person you know who died that way. My husband, Kurt’s mother lost a long battle with cancer 24 years ago. When I found out that I have cancer (and even when I was going for the ultrasound on what I still thought was a fibroadinoma) I knew that the hardest thing in the world was going to be to tell my father-in-law that I had cancer. When Kurt told him, the day I was diagnosed, he reacted more strongly and more dramatically than any one of us. More than me, more than Kurt, more than my mom.

But a person doesn’t have to be related to me for the grief part of this diagnosis to split old wounds wide open. I used to be on a Roller Derby team, and one of my team-mates lost her brother to cancer. She left me a message today offering me her support and her perspective as someone who has had to watch this battle from the other side. I can imagine how I would feel were I in her position.

Aside from the emotional impact of cancer on the lives of other people there is the practical impact. I’m sure that most British Colombians don’t know that there are several important bills up for debate in the Legislative Assembly, that are on hold because of my diagnosis. My mother, who is an opposition critic, has had to get permission to be away from the Leg. and find substitutes to take her place so that she can take me to appointments. My sister, has arranged to drop everything (leave her job and her children) to drive down and be with me at a moment’s notice when I go for my surgery. My mother-in-law, has already once called in a substitute teacher to cover her class so that she could look after my daughter while I was getting my MRI.

But while the cancer in my boob is threatening my life, it also threatens my world. I was supposed to be getting ready to move right now. I was supposed to be in Vancouver this week looking for a place to live. My husband started his new job two weeks before my diagnosis. He works in Vancouver during the week and then comes home on the weekends (1 1/2 hours on a ferry and over an hour driving). This commuting schedule was supposed to last two months. Now it will be extended at least until I am done with radiation. The costs associated with trying to maintain 1 1/2 homes and my husband’s travel expenses, on top of already being in debt because of Kurt having just finished school and me being in this place of employment limbo (I just came off maternity leave then gave my notice because I was leaving town and then decided not to work my last three weeks because of a cancer diagnosis) is putting extra stress on me personally, and on our already stressed relationship. And I don’t know what effect all this is having on my 13 month old. It’s hard to tell if the interruptions in her sleep schedule are a normal part of the fact that she is teething and discovering everything about her world and trying so hard to talk; or if it is simply because all these appointments are messing with her schedule or if it’s all a response to everything that is going on. All I know is that she wakes up in the night and she doesn’t seem to want anything. She just wants to be held by mama.

So what do you do? I am trying to prevent this affliction from taking over my life. I want to make sure that it has the least possible impact on my life. But it is very hard. I want to continue breast feeding my baby. And there is a way to do it, but getting the information I need to make an informed decision is proving very difficult, and seems to be mucking up the treatment scenario. I want to go to be where my husband is, but my family and my support system is here. I want to get this whole thing over with, but “the fast track” is still very slow, and while it seems like I’ve been dealing with this for months, it’s really been less than two weeks. I’m in this place where I feel like I have no control over anything in my life, and I need to get that control back. It may be the only way I can stay sane through the recovery process.

“I don’t want to be in a battle, but waiting at the edge of one, I can’t escape, is even worse.” So says Pippin to Gandalf on the seventh level of Minas Tirith.

My mother was going to drop me off at the hospital so that I could go for my abdominal ultrasound and my MRI while she entertained my daughter, Indiana, somewhere else. But she suddenly became supersticious about the whole thing. She’s decided that if she’s there nothing bad will happen but if she’s not there it’ll be more bad news. (She was there for my bone scan, she was not there for my biopsy.) So we left Indiana with her other gramma (grandmama) and mum brought a book this time. When I was having my bone scan, it was taking so long, she was certain the news would not be good. This time we had forwarning that it would be a longish test.

The ultrasound was first. The technician said she’d been asked to check my liver, but she was going to check everything. She checked my kidneys, my spleen, my gallbladder, my liver and I think my stomach (she was poking around at the beginning, at what I thought was my liver, but then later she told me when she was going to look at my liver, so I assume it was my stomach at the start). The whole process took about half an hour and involved a lot of deep breaths. The technician said that the Radiologist (the same one that looked at my lump ultrasound and did the biopsy) usually likes to double check her pictures, but she didn’t come in to check mine. So I’m taking that as a sign that nothing appeared on the ultrasound. The doctors usually like to take a look for themselves if something shows up.

The MRI area of the hospital is right beside the ultrasound area, and it didn’t take long for them to ask me in. There was another woman there who seemed very concerned, and I was wondering if she was another breast cancer patient, and if we’d be seeing each other a lot over the coming months. She was waiting at the changing area when I was shown in and I determined right away that she was not a breast cancer patient as her outfit was totally different than my two robes (one open at the front and the other over top to cover the gap.) She started talking about why she was there. A work place injury involving a pinched nerve or a slipped disk. I was kind of annoyed. She was complaining about the fact that they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) just fix the thing. I stood there wanting to tell her how lucky she was to be there for a slipped disk. Finally she said, “You look very worried.” I realized that I had been standing with my arms around myself, rocking from side to side in the same way that all mothers rock when they have a baby on their hip. I was trying to sooth myself the way I sooth my daughter.

I guess I took that as an invitation.

“I have breast cancer.” I said. It was the first time I had actually said it that plainly. I always tell people “I’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer.” Maybe hoping that I if I said it that way that there was still a chance that the diagnosis was wrong. That if I don’t say that I have breast cancer, I can take it back later.

I managed to keep the tears in, but as she asked me questions, I made her cry and then I cried a little. Some how telling people to their face is the worst. I was at our toddler group the other day, and all the way there I had debated telling the group during our introductions. But I didn’t want to hijack the group and turn it into Devyn’s personal support group. But, when one of the mum’s asked me about our plans to move to Vancouver, I some how felt she was the right person to tell. And my instinct was right. Her mother recently beat breast cancer, and we had a bit of a cry and a hug. And she told me that if her mum where there to offer advice she’d tell me to take every treatment they’ve got. She had been told that they got it all with surgery and they weren’t going to do chemo. But she demanded it anyway. (In a battle you don’t assume there are no enemy forces lurking in the bushes)

Back to the MRI. The woman with the slipped disk told me that my daughter saved my life. I wish I’d said, “In more ways than one.” I’m sure she’ll save my life a few more times in the coming months.

The technician came and got me and sat me down to put in the IV. During the MRI they inject a magnetic contrast into your blood so they can get an image. But they take a few base pictures first and they need to be able to put the contrast in without taking you out of the machine, so they put an IV in your right arm. They are pretty particular about which arm it is, because of the way the room is set up. A friend of mine had warned me that they might get a bit … cranky … about having to find a vein through tattoos. Thankfully, my tech was pretty open minded about them, and I have veins you can see from space, (plus she tied the tourniquet so tight the veins were practically leaping out of my skin). I find the whole thing so fascinating. I really am learning so much about modern medical technology. There’s so much stuff that you hear about on medical shows, but you never really know what they are. Because the MRI uses magnets, any metal that is on or in your body becomes very very hot, so the IV that they use has a plastic needle. (I feel so much like Magneto) They ask you a series of questions to determine if there is likely to be any metal in you (like, have you ever had any metal go in your eye?). She also told me that there are some tattoo inks that have metal in them, and while she’s never had a problem with them she had heard of a guy that had his arm start to burn him because of the trace amounts of metal in his tattoo. I realized midway through my MRI that the underwear I had on might possibly have stripes that contained metallic thread, and was waiting for the burning sensation in my crotch. (nice) Later when I looked at my underpants, the silver stripes had changed to a coppery colour.

For the MRI, they lay you down on this “bed” that has cut outs for your boobs. You have to lie very still and they give you head-phones with music (that you get to choose, but they don’t have much choice) and a bulb thing to squeeze if you need help (the girl that was in before me threw up). I hate to say it but I nearly fell asleep. For much of the MRI I felt like I was being gently rocked gently back and forth. I kept my eyes closed and tried to think of myself in great places, like on the beach in Greece. I imagined the heat from the blanket that was over me was Mediterranean sunshine. And out of nowhere I found myself crying. Not sobbing or even really weeping. Just tears falling from my eyes. I was conscious of not moving so the images would be good, but it was the most relaxed, I think I’ve been since this whole thing started … 8 days ago.

The MRI was over before I new it, and the tech and I had a bit of a chat while she took out my IV. She asked me about tattoos (as everybody does) and we got onto the topic of cancer. She said she’s been seeing a dramatic increase in the number of younger women with cancer.

My mom and I have been discussing why that is. I can’t help but think that it has to do with the pace of our modern lives. We work so hard and take few vacations or even breaks. We wolf down our lunch in 10 minutes - or while working and that lunch has more ingredients than the human body. We are completely disconnected from the food we put in our mouths, and most people will never see, first hand, where any of it comes from. I wonder if we’ll ever find the magic combination that causes cancer. It’s like the Joker’s toxic cosmetics in “Batman” or that final chemical compound that turned Lily Tomlin into “The Incredible Shrinking Woman.”

All I know is, my friend told me she knows too many hairdressers who have left the industry because they had cancer. More and more younger women are finding out they have cancer. And the best hope we have, right now, of surviving this battle is to take screening very seriously and don’t listen to our doctors when they say it’s nothing. The medical community may be in denial about cancer in younger people, but as long as we live in a country where we don’t personally have to pay for each test - a biopsy takes five minutes and it doesn’t hurt. You may have a bruise for a few days, but you’ll still have your breast and you’ll still have your life.