In March of 2022, I went in for a mammogram. Now just so you know, this was a BIG deal for me. You see, about 12 years ago, I went in to get a mammogram in my late 40’s. I didn’t think nothing of it but my doctor recommended it since my mom died of breast cancer. So I went in for the mammogram and of course they thought they saw something in the image and wanted to do a biopsy. Needless to say, I WAS TERRIFIED. The days leading up to the biopsy were scary for me. I thought I had cancer and I was leading in my mom’s footsteps. Well, long story short, the biopsy came back with no cancer. It impacted me so much that I refused to go and get another mammogram for many years.
Fast forward to March of 2022, I went into the doctor again and I told her that I had an inverted nipple. She decided it was time to get a mammogram AND an ultrasound at the same time, just in case. My friends had been bugging me for years to go and get this procedure done, but I refused. But I believed my doctor and made the appointment. As you may know (if you are a woman), that mammograms are about as fun as a 300-pound gorilla standing on your toe, only worse. So the mammogram technician (she must have been about 22 years old), had a hard time getting me into position if you can imagine. And it was painful. She had to take several pictures and I hadn’t had one in such a long time, that I wasn’t sure if this was normal procedure. Well, when she wanted the radiologist to look at the pictures to make sure they were good, I had a bad feeling. He said they were good but he was acting funny like this was not good.
Off to the ultrasound and the person doing the procedure was the nicest person. She got me into position again and did the ultrasound, and again I got this creepy feeling that this is not good either. I knew then that I was in for a journey of my life. She said they would be calling me for an MRI. That solidified it to me. A small part of me knew I had cancer but I still held out hope that maybe, by luck it would be fine. A few weeks later I had an an MRI which was the first time I had this done. I was sent to the office where they would be doing the biopsy. The doctor doing the biopsy was great and she told me there were three spots she was going to take a biopsy from my left breast. And I asked her once it was over if she saw something and she said yes but that was all she could tell me.
And so without going into the blow-by-blow details, I did have cancer in two of the three spots. It was stage 2 which was good and also it was a slow-growing type of cancer, in orther words, it was not aggressive. They recommended a mastectomy, which I had done on June 30, 2022. I will never forget the date. And when you have cancer, the big questions is whether it has spread into the lymph nodes in your armpit. So they also took one lymph node to see if it had cancer, which they did. They tested it and found it seemed to have had cancer and, from a lack of a better word, it wasn’t intact. Just to back up, the MRI showed no sign of cancer or lumps in the lymph nodes, and neither did the ultrasound so it seemed weird to me. So my doctor recommended another surgery where they remove more lymph nodes to see if the cancer had spread into this area. If so, that would be bad. The tests came back, and low and behold, they were cancer-free. Halleluiah. This was good news.
So I didn’t have to have chemotherapy but I did do radiation and it was no problem, other than I had to go in every day for at least three weeks. Now I’m on a drug regime where it reduces the estrogen in my body which is what the cancer lived on. So hopefully it will kill any other cancer cells that may be living in my body as some may have flacked off from surgery, as least that was the explanation I was given.
So that is my cancer story. What did I learn from it so far? Don’t take anything for granted and to take care of your health the best you can. If you don’t have your health, it is harder to live a good life.