October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which I am sure the vast majority of the population already knows. A month to bring awareness and hope to a cause that has impacted so many lives. As a breast cancer survivor, I follow several different breast cancer groups on Facebook. My feed is constantly flooded with posts about breast cancer-related content. I feel as though I continually see content that mentions how someone’s diagnosis happened, but I so often see that a lump was missed but was found by a mammogram. What about when the diagnosis comes at the age of 28, just months after giving birth, when regular mammograms are not a thing? The sad truth is, there are women even YOUNGER being diagnosed with breast cancer.
My diagnosis didn’t come after a mammogram or after finding a lump during a self-breast exam, because neither was even necessary at my age. My discovery came during a time in my life when a lump in my breast could very easily be explained. I was 3 months postpartum, and I was breastfeeding. Those of you who have breastfed know that breast lumpiness or other irregularities can be totally normal. When I went to get the doctor to check it, the idea that it could be cancer did not even cross my mind. Leaving the appointment that day, the word cancer still had not crossed my mind.
I was referred to get an ultrasound. Typical next step for an unexplained lump. Heading into the ultrasound appointment, I was still optimistic that this would be easily explained and I would be on my merry way. The radiologist who reviewed the ultrasound images felt so strongly that this was not cancer that he made a point to tell me that there was a single-digit chance of it being cancer, but to cover his butt, he ordered a biopsy anyway. Had he not ordered that biopsy, I fear that my cancer would have been found when it was too late. Even the thought of what if now still makes me feel queasy. I likely wouldn’t be sitting here writing this today. It wasn’t until the radiologist mentioned the word cancer that it crossed my mind. And hearing the optimism in what the radiologist said, I left that appointment still believing it was nothing.
After the biopsy appointment, I felt physically and mentally well enough to go to work. Still thinking and believing that this whole ordeal was nothing. I wasn’t at the doctor’s office sitting down across from my doctor behind a large desk. I wasn’t with people who knew what I was currently dealing with. I was in a room full of strangers, people I had just started working with, people who didn’t know me.
It couldn’t have been more than a day or two when I received a phone call. A phone call I was half expecting because I knew I would get the results of the biopsy when they were ready. Answering the phone that day, I still remember being in a safe mindset. A mindset that still had not considered cancer as the outcome. There were no facial expressions to warn me, no hint whatsoever of what I was about to be told. She didn’t sugarcoat it. The doctor I had initially seen bluntly said, “You have breast cancer.”
I was alone, in a dark office, surrounded by people who didn’t know me. I was in shock. After I attempted to call my husband, my very next call was to my mom. The only words I could get out through the sobs were “Mom, I have breast cancer.” I had just found out I had cancer. I wasn’t in a place where I could emotionally respond the way I needed to. I pulled myself together as best I could, left the dark office, walked past a bunch of people I didn’t know to tell my boss that I needed to leave. My first safe space to emotionally fall apart was in my vehicle.
I was alone with the news I had just been given and my thoughts. I was alone to cope with being diagnosed with cancer at age 28, with a newborn at home. I was alone long enough to let my thoughts turn to Google. Google was definitely not my friend in this situation. I was alone at a time when I needed someone, anyone who could provide any sort of comfort.
I have relived that moment so many times. It is a moment that will, in some ways, haunt me for as long as I remember it. As I welcomed my 7th year of being breast cancer-free, I also welcomed my 4th year of being leukemia-free. While they are two completely different cancers, I have found that I can’t tell my breast cancer story without sharing what came after. Both of my cancer diagnoses are intertwined in a way that cannot be separated. I may be breast cancer-free, but it’s hard to celebrate that when the very treatment that eradicated breast cancer from my body left behind something just as sinister.
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