April 4th, marks my five year anniversary of being diagnosed with breast cancer. My how time flies! It feels like ages ago that I was sitting in the infusion room getting treatments, waiting for blood counts, etc. Five years is a huge milestone when it comes to breast cancer!!! Heck, every year down is a milestone, but after five years your risk reduces significantly. I don't think I've ever put my whole story down on paper anywhere, so I figure I might as well do it now! And yes, I know this is long, and really it's for my kids, so that when I'm older and don't have as good a memory, it's all right here. :)
It all started December 31, 2006. Kyle and I had just gotten engaged the week before, and we were in Austin for a friend's wedding. While in the shower I felt a lump...a big lump about the size of a quarter...in my left breast. I told Kyle about it, but kind of blew it off. After all, it was New Year's Eve. Fast forward 3.5 months and it is still there. I went to see my gynecologist about something unrelated and at the end of the appointment, mentioned the lump to her. She said she wanted a mammogram and sonogram done.
So the next week on March 27th, I went in for my appointment. Funny side note...I made the appointment for during my conference period, thinking I would be in and out. Well not only were they running behind that day, but they needed more pictures. So I called the school secretary and told her I would be late. After more time passed and more pictures were taken, the doctor told me she wanted to perform a biopsy...the next day! Because I had aspirin in my system, we made the appointment for the following Monday, April 2nd. Before leaving I asked her what she thought it was and she said, "Well, it's either a fibrocystic change in tissue or breast cancer." Um, I'm sorry...WHAT?!? All I heard was breast cancer. I started crying, and called the school to tell them that I was in fact not coming back to work that day. So I left the office, dumbfounded, scared, hoping it wasn't true...but having an odd sense of peace and knowing that it was true. That I wasn't making something out of nothing.
You see, growing up I always felt like something bad was going to happen to me. Whether it be dying young, being in a horrible plane crash, or whatever...I just always knew someTHING was going to happen. Some people might think that is pessimistic, or crazy, or whatever, but it wasn't that way. I didn't live my life in fear, I just always knew that something would happen. So I guess that is why I had a sense of peace about things. Now don't get me wrong, I was worried, nervous, and scared, but deep down I knew everything would be okay, and this was the "bad thing" that I had known would happen some day.
On Monday my mom and Kyle went with me to have the biopsy done. I even remember what I was wearing and my appointment time! I had two different types of biopsies done, and one on each breast. There was not a mass in my right breast, just some calcifications that concerned them. They would have the results in 48 hours, and all we could do was wait for Wednesday. When we got home and checked the messages, there was a message from my gynecologists's office saying that I needed to make an appointment with a surgeon because my lump was "highly suggestive of malignancy". Gee, thanks. Awesome. Way to leave that on my voicemail! Pretty sure that nurse was fired not long after. So we made an appointment with a surgeon for Thursday, April 5th. Even if it turned out the tumor was benign, I would still want it removed. Tuesday my mom and I went to look at veils (I was getting married November 3rd) to keep my mind off things.
Wednesday came and I had my phone in my pocket all day. I kept telling myself it was silly to have my phone in my pocket because it was going to be nothing. But in my heart I knew it wasn't "nothing". As I was walking my students back to class from lunch, my phone rang. I told my coworker my doctor was on the phone, and ran down to my assistant principals office to take the call. The patient care coordinator started with, "Well the calcifications in your right breast were benign..." In that instant I knew. Why would she start with the right breast? That wan't the main area of concern! Then she said, "unfortunately the mass in your left breast is malignant. You have invasive ductal carcinoma..." Crying. Tears. Sobbing. I grab a sheet of paper from my A.P. and try to write down everything she was saying. I called my mom and Kyle. My mom came to pick me up.
The next day I had my surgeon's appointment and it was decided that the best thing was for me to get a lumpectomy. I scheduled my surgery for Thursday April 12th, exactly one week later, so that I could recover in time to get back to work and give my kids the TAKS test. Talk about dedicated! :)
The next week was a blur, trying to balance everything. I had an appointment with my oncologist two days before my surgery, just to check in beforehand. As I wrote about in another post, while in pre-op for my lumpectomy I randomly saw my gynecologist, who mentioned freezing my eggs. She got me an appointment with the BEST fertility doctor, and a week after my surgery Kyle and I were in his office (with my bandages still on!) talking about IVF and freezing embryos. I started my IVF stuff the first weekend in May, had my eggs retrieved on Monday, May 17th, my port surgically put in on Thursday May 20th, and started my first round of chemo on Monday, May 30th. Oh and let's not forget the punctured lung that happened when they tried to put in my port and the ER visit, collapsed lung and chest tube that followed that weekend. Yeah that was fun.
So 18 weeks of chemo plus one month off after I finished, Kyle and I were married on November 3, 2007. I started my 6.5 weeks of radiation on Monday, November 5 (yes two days after my wedding) and finished on December 21, 2007.
There you have it...my story. Sorry it's so long and probably had TMI, but I don't want to ever forget anything about that time in my life. April 4th, 2007 my life changed forever. I honestly can't say that it changed for the worse, because so many good things have happened to me because I had cancer. My mom was not fearful when she received her own breast cancer diagnosis, because she had been through it with me two years prior. I have met some of the most courageous and amazing women; unfortunately some of them lost their battle with breast cancer, but will have a lasting affect on so many's lives. I know without a doubt that I have the BEST friends any one could ask for. They were so incredibly supportive when I was going through treatment, and have been every day since. I also have an incredible husband. A man who went through so much with me before we were even married! At one point right after my diagnosis I told him he could leave me if he wanted to, we could call off the wedding, and no one would think any less of him for not wanting to stick around and deal with a diseased fiance. He told me his vows to me "won't start on our wedding day. They already started when I put that diamond ring on your finger. I'm not going anywhere." Yep, told you he was amazing!
And the most important two reasons...Marshall and Presley. Without breast cancer, I would not have these exact children. And I might not ever have witnessed first hand a friend who was so unselfish and thought so highly of her friendship with me, that she would offer to carry my children and end up having her own life turned upside down because of it.
Y'all I didn't have any of the risk factors: I"m not overweight, I eat healthy, exercise, have no genetic factors...but I still got cancer at the age of 27. Please, don't be naive and think, "It won't happen to me". Don't live your life in fear, just be AWARE.
