The Difference a Year Makes

Before the appointment…

Today is the one year anniversary of my mastectomy. Tell me how I’m supposed to feel about that? Happy that the cancer is out of my body. Sad that I had to sacrifice a breast to be able to say that. Worried that it didn’t make any difference.

Today is the first post-cancer mammogram appointment. What used to be a once-a-year easy-breezy self-care appointment is now a ‘super scary, please don’t make me wait for results’ day that I’ve been stressed about for a week now. The last one didn’t go so well. While I want to say “well it can’t be worse than that”…it can. What if they didn’t get it all like they thought they did? What if they find it in my other breast and I have to start all over again? What if it comes back and this time it’s aggressive?

So many what if’s. The optimist in my head is screaming at me, “But baby girl, what if everything is fine?” But the devil in me is shouting that I didn’t make enough positive changes in my life. I didn’t learn all the lessons I needed to learn fast enough. What if this time it’s not an easy out? What if this time I really have to fight?

I know I got off easy. When I hear the experiences other women have had; the multiple surgeries that didn’t end with clear margins and they had to go back in, the chemotherapy and how weak and sick they felt after each appointment, the hair loss, the radiation burns. I had none of that. I’ve been very lucky. I try to leave my brain there – just feel lucky. My life has been a series of good fortune, I can’t deny that. But for some reason, in the face of all that good fortune I just keep wondering when it will end and how badly the trend will reverse itself.

I’m trying like hell to channel all the people I know who will tell me “just focus on gratitude”. But fuck that, I’m focused on being terrified. And its about damn time. I am terrified that I will get cancer again. I am terrified that my habits aren’t healthy enough to keep me healthy, or even alive. I’m terrified that I’m not able to change enough or change fast enough to keep up with what my body seems to be demanding of late.

Breezing through everything that’s ever happened to me has been my norm. I seem unaffected; easy to adapt and overcome and still walk away with a smile on my face. But part of me believes THAT may be what’s actually killing me.

I have been affected. Deeply affected. By everything that’s ever happened to me. And I find it easy to rise above. To move on. To focus on the next thing, the next challenge. But what I’m beginning to see is that I’m not letting go of anything. It’s all still there waiting for me to react. To deal. To scream. To be sad. Angry. Terrified. In my effort to love myself I’ve built a cocoon around me. The problem is, I’m locked in this fucking thing with every feeling I’ve ever had.

It's time to break free. To let go. To deal. To truly move on.

To change.

To heal.

Before it’s too late.

I have been in so much pain for so long that it’s become my norm. You should feel my shoulders – there is so much tightness. I’m sure my shoulders are half of my body weight at this point. They are carrying so much from my past. It’s where I pack all of my unwanted situations and feelings. I don’t get massages because it hurts so much it makes me cry.

And my neck. I feel bad about my neck. Turning my neck sounds like crumpling up a plastic shopping bag. That can’t be good. I’m pretty sure my shoulders have decided they’re full and can’t take any more, so they’re sending the excess baggage to my neck. Sometimes I wonder if my posture is so good because I’m just packed so tightly. Loosen me up and I probably look like a scarecrow three months after Halloween.

I want to be different. I want to feel different. I want to love myself more and take care of myself better. I have plans. It’s time. It’s time to make some real changes. My half-hearted, noncommittal changes aren’t getting me anywhere. Something’s gotta give. And I’ve already given a breast, so…

Maybe this time I can give up holding on. Holding on to all the things that are adding weight to my shoulders. It reminds me of the saying, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” And as my previous therapist would remind me – I’ve been shoulding all over myself for quite some time now.

I know this is a rambly post. I’m all over the place this week. I just need to get past today’s mammogram and the results so that I can be more positive. Less terrified. More grateful. Less holding on. More healed.

After the appointment…

I came prepared this time. Book in hand to keep my mind occupied and shawl to keep me warm while I sit in the waiting room in nothing but a thin gown-thing on top. But still, I could feel the trembling in my whole body.

What would the images show? Cancer? No cancer? Implants? Missing implants? Some other god-knows-what that I can’t even think of?

The lady performing the mammogram was absolutely sweet and lovely with a great sense of humor. Right away she answered my questions and gave me one absolutely lovely nugget of a fact that I feel I should have already known, but I didn’t. From now on, mammograms will only be performed on one breast. There is no breast tissue remaining on my left because of the mastectomy and you can only get breast cancer in breast tissue. So right there, 50% of my worry faded away. She also confirmed that I would have the results of the imaging before leaving my appointment. Which was also wonderful news; I don’t think I could have survived another week of waiting for results like I have at every previous mammogram. The stress would literally have killed me.

After a very reasonable waiting time, she came back to me to confirm that the surgeon did, in fact, place an implant on the right (if you remember from a previous post, I was left wondering) AND that my right breast is perfectly healthy.

I drove home sobbing.

It occurred to me that a year ago I drove home in shock and then immediately jumped into “what are we going to do about it” mode. I put on the tough girl façade and just marched forward.

I’ve always been this way. Chin up in adversity. Sobbing like a baby when the universe shows me kindness.

I’ve also come to realize that for a year now, through all of the diagnoses, biopsies, surgeries, recovery periods, stressful waiting times I’ve not made a commitment to myself to make necessary changes in my life and lifestyle. I’ve thought about it. I’ve identified what should change, but then went about my life as usual. Sort of my stubborn side throwing cancer the bird and yelling at it ‘You can’t change me!’

But it has. It has changed me. In quite obvious ways and also in some very subtle ways. I have come away and realized that I am proud of myself for how I deal with adversity but that my stubbornness sometimes holds me back. I expect bad things to happen as if I deserve them and I’m thrown for a loop when good things happen – because that’s the shit I’m unprepared for.

But the narrative in my head is evolving and it has been for some time.

I deserve good things. I’m a good person. I deserve to be happy and healthy. I deserve the best possible care that I can take of myself. I deserve all the wonderful things I would gladly,

easily give to others in my life that I love. I deserve to love myself even more than that.

Imagine how much and how well I could love the people in my life if I loved myself more, if it was radiating from within at double the wattage you see now? I deserve to make a commitment to my health and happiness without one iota of guilt.

I deserve to put down all that weight on my shoulders I’ve been carrying around for, well, let’s see…50 damn years! Because here’s the thing, maybe my lifestyle and stress is what caused my cancer, or maybe it had absolutely nothing to do with it. But why wouldn’t I love myself enough to commit to the things I truly want which would bring me more happiness, additional health, and the best odds of keeping cancer at bey? And not just cancer. I’m so done with the boulders where muscles should be in my body. I’m tired of the pain in my heel that I’ve worked really hard to ignore. I’m so sick of hearing myself tell people I don’t want to drink as much wine anymore and then pouring another glass.

I can’t move forward and pretend that cancer hasn’t changed me. I won’t be one of those people who look back one day and am sorry I didn’t learn anything from this experience or make any of the positive, lasting changes I deserve.