day 1: it's going to be ok
7/2/12
Lesion – cut, graze, scratch, laceration, abrasion, wound, injury, gash.
Breast – tit, boob, jug, bosom, bust, chest, front, mammary glands, mammilla, nipple, teat, udder
Cancer – carcinoma, growth, tumour, malignancy, melanoma, sarcoma, canker, scourge, blight.
My eyes just stare widely back at V- the gentle doctor who finally convinced me to have a pap smear after all these years, and who has just told me I have breast cancer.
“Ok… Ok, right…”
In the silence I think what a calm and poised manner she projects with her voice, smooth like molasses and her face kind and open. I wonder how she can be so certain. I guess science is like that, so very different from policies I can argue with or strategies I can redesign. There’s no arguing with this.
I convince myself that her eyes are pleading with me to be Ok. They are a soft blue-gray, and despite the clinical setting, they connect with mine, hold me, and don’t waver with cowardice for a moment. I am less brave about catering for a training function than she is about delivering this news.
My voice is coming from somewhere else, it’s the work voice that sounds so confident even when I’m just trying to see if spoken words add up to the truth. Somehow you can tell when you say things aloud, whether they’re a match with the truth or whether they just don’t fit, like a recycled lunchbox that dribbles pasta sauce on to your car seat in the morning.
“OK, so…there’s loads of cancers right? Tell me something about this one.”
My thinking is that this will help her along, keep her focussed on her role, and give me time to try to reconnect with my body which seems to have disappeared somewhere. I have been just eyes and a brain for the past five minutes, my body drifting slowly to the right.
“Well the next step is to see a surgeon, and we’re going to arrange that right now. But as far as these things go, I guess if you’re going to have breast cancer, this is the best kind you could have.”
She has no idea how fast I leap at this offering, the weight of my 65 kgs hanging, dragging off it like a polar bear clinging to the last vestige of his ice-board in a sea of blue. Yet for the moment it works. I listen, ask questions, stay engaged and DO NOT LOSE IT through the rest of the appointment.
We discuss the basic process, all of which could change when I see the surgeon later on this afternoon. Surgery to remove the lump and some lymph nodes. Tests on the lymph, to determine how far the cancer has spread. Tests on liver and brain, to determine if it has metastasised. Chemotherapy, radiation.
“It’s usual with younger women like yourself that they would hit you with everything.”
I start a mental list of the positive things about being diagnosed with breast cancer at 37 years old.
- Being called young several times a day.
- Prognosis is better – isn’t it?
- Best reason I have had to stop smoking and drinking in my entire life.
- Excuse to spend heaps of money on my credit card at the naturopath.
- Impetus to finally become a yoga guru.
- Impetus to learn to surf.
V- busies herself calling the hospital and making arrangements. Do I have private health cover? Where are the radiology films? Can I be at the hospital this afternoon?
At this point my girlfriend R- pipes up, wondering if everything really needs to move this fast.
“It’s been there for a while, I guess it’s not going anywhere today…”
“We just don’t know,” says V-. “But it’s not something you want to fuck about with.”
I look at R-, and for a second her face betrays absolute horror. Her eyes wide, jaw dropped and eyebrows arching uncannily high. Later I start to realise just how frightening this situation could be for a girlfriend. How sick is she going to get? Will I be able to give her the support she needs? What will happen to the rest of my life, my work, my identity?
I squeeze her hand and inwardly blame Nichole Sullivan who convinced me in Year 7 that I wasn’t eligible for entry to the great halls of the Smoker’s Club if I didn’t inhale.
V-’s fingers tremble as she punches numbers into the phone, radiology, hospital, reception. These little weaknesses make me feel stronger, give me a reason to hold it together and just keep looking outward. The last thing I want to do is look inward right now.
“It’s Ok we’ve found the films. Would you like to wait in here while I go and grab them? You don’t have to leave yet.”
“No, no it’s Ok. I’ve got the appointment and the referral. Thanks, thanks so much.” I squeeze her arm on my way out. “You did a great job, thanks.”
I spend the rest of the day passing on the news, trying to keep people calm, and researching naturopathic detoxes for breast cancer. Vitamins seem to be important, as well as enzymes, parsley, beetroot, juices, brassicas, mediation, Spirulina, chlorella, fruit, macrobiotics, fish oil, evening primrose oil… I go and spend $150 on my credit card at the herbal shop and manage to not tell everyone in Bangalow my news.
Later that day R- says something that sends me into a spin and white-hot rage spews forth from some central engine in my heart for the next hour and a half. I drive home alone in an adrenaline cloud.
***
Writing this I start to wonder about all the women who have had this same experience before me. Did they feel disembodied too? Did they feel powerless? Did they rage? Were they given such kindness and respect?
Making my way through the blessed normality of cooking, eating, pyjamas, cleaning teeth and settling into my life raft of a bed, I realise that all those women before me are the reason this experience was OK. The reason I can call my doctor ‘V-’; that she knew how to behave with me today; the reason the lesion was triple tested and the cancerous lump was diagnosed. The reason there is a female surgeon and free breast nurse who will be at my first appointment. Because so many women have come before me and smoothed this road for me.
And there it is again. A wave of gratitude wells up inside me, just as it did the day of the biopsy, spreading sweet warmth all the way to my fingers, nose and toes. I feel gratitude for the women who made this road possible and for those who I spend the next hours with on the phone, sharing the news. By the time I get into bed, I have lined up kinesiology, macrobiotics, yoga meditations, beach visits, and have streams of love and healing vibes floating over the green hills to hold me in my dreams.
