It was somewhere back in October of 2023 that I could feel something was not right, and like 20% of adults in their mid-fifties – I just shrugged it off. By April of 2024, the lump became undeniably bigger and harder and more painful. It took an emergency visit to my primary care provider who advised me to head on over to the nearest ER. May 2, 2024, was my official diagnosis to me learning that I had Stage 3 Invasive Ductal Carcinoma … and the rest is history.
Since then, everything has been a whirlwind from series of scans and x-rays to my first chemotherapy – all in 20 days since the diagnosis.
Now, on my 7th of the 12 cycles on Taxol, the journey continues, and still I am processing it. I have good days and bad days. I take each one day at a time – each infusion one day at a time. I have concluded that cancer is something I cannot control. However, what I can control is how I react about the situation. Over the past six months people have asked me how come I look so calm – my doctor and nurses would write in their outpatient report “this patient is upbeat and is in high spirits.” The knowledge and information I have gained about breast cancer, the language, the numbers, and what questions to ask are all credited to my three-month stint as a medical scribe at the Rush Breast Cancer Center in Chicago.
I have been very lucky to have great support from my husband and daughter. Their continued presence of being by my side has kept me mentally and spiritually calm. They both have taken turns to be at every one of my appointments/chemo sessions. When my hair started falling off after the 2nd session, my husband took his time to shave my head and then told me that “it will all grow back, so don’t worry about it.” Telling my daughter, on the day of her college graduation about the “big C” was the hardest thing I had to do in my life. Both my husband and daughter have been with me during the lowest of my lows and during those little victory times. I realized then, that I am stronger because of them and that we all will be a bit stronger together while getting over this formidable “bump on the road.”
I still have some ways to go, but I still remain confident and positive with what lies ahead of me.
What I have learned and still am learning — the diagnosis may be the same, but everyone’s body is quite different. Chemotherapy may be all the same, but all bodies react and respond differently. So, you have to be kind to your body – you have to be patient with your body – you need to let it react the way it should – AND let it heal the way it should.
Cancer taught me a few things:
- To closely look and listen and trust what I feel about my own body,
- To be calm and not to overthink stuff,
- To stop consulting “Doctor Google” as told to me by some amazing doctors over at Rush Medical Cancer Center.
In the end … I would like to say – “Breast Cancer…been there and beaten that.”