I sat down to write this first post and googled "Can lightning strike twice?" This is what I found on the google Britannica site:
"Lightning never strikes the same place twice” is a common phrase you’ve probably heard before, often used to reassure someone that whatever bad thing has happened, it won’t happen again. It can even be used when something good happens, such as winning the lottery, but the underlying truth remains. What are the odds that something extremely unlikely, such as a lightning strike, will happen more than once? After all, a thunderstorm travels across an area. So after lightning strikes one place, it’s probably safe from another strike. In reality, lightning can and will strike the same place twice, whether it be during the same storm or even centuries later."
October 30th
I was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma. After getting off the phone with the doctor I looked at Kaden and said, "Is anyone even going to believe us?!"
Rewind one month ago
I turned 40 in May of 2019, but that was the same time that Kaden had been diagnosed with appendix cancer (May 28th). I felt like I had more important things to deal with, so I put off my screening. I figured I was young and I have no family history of breast cancer, so it wasn't a huge priority, but as my 41st birthday came and went, I loosely put it back on my "to do" list.
At the end of September, I was with my girls at the allergist. There were posters advertising that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and that there was an upcoming "mobile breast cancer screening clinic" in some parking lot near by. I chuckled to myself thinking "Who would go get screened in the back of a van?" but decided that it was as good a time as any to make an appointment with the hospital. (As a side note, now that I have a diagnosis, I would go anywhere there was a mammography machine. It doesn't matter where it is! Just get it done!)
October 5th
I scheduled my appointment with the Hospital Mammography Clinic. I checked in at the front desk. A nice lady escorted me to a locker room and instructed me to undress from the waist up and put on a gown. I was then taken to a room where the mammogram machine was. She told me that I was lucky that I got this room. They had just got a new 3D mammogram machine and this was the "Cadillac" of machines. The actual exam took maybe 10 minutes, was rather painless, and I was on my way.
I received a call the next day that there were some clusters of calcifications that were evident, and that they needed me to go back in for another evaluation so they could see the clusters under a more magnified view. At that point I didn't think much of it. I have had many friends who have been called back in after their first mammogram because they have dense breast tissue. They try to get a good "baseline" for further mammograms down the road so I figured this was routine.
October 13th
I again went to the room with the "Cadillac Machine" where they took some more pictures. The nurse escorted me back to my locker where my clothes were and told me to wait to change because she wanted the radiologist to look over the pictures. She said, "His office is in a different part of the hospital, and sometimes we have to track him down, so don't worry if it takes me a little longer to get back. That is not necessarily a bad thing." I had waited for about 20 minutes when she came back and told me that the radiologist would like to speak with me. I got dressed and followed her to the radiologists office.
The room was dark and there was a picture on the screen. It was the scan of my right breast. He showed me that I had a couple of clusters of micro calcifications. There was one bigger cluster and one tiny little cluster. He said that he wasn't necessarily worried about the bigger cluster, but the smaller one was where he was concerned. He recommended that I have a needle biopsy to determine if it was malignant or not. The mammogram technician had me follow her to the scheduling office, my biopsy was quickly scheduled for the 27th of October, and I headed home. One thing that I thought was weird is they kept asking me if I had any neck or back problems, because the procedure would be "harder" on me if I did. I didn't really understand why but figured I would find out soon enough.
Honestly, it was a bit of a whirlwind at the hospital, so when I got home I took the time to google what it said at the top of my biopsy paperwork that they sent home with me. I googled "Stereotactic Biopsy." This is what I found: (click the link to see the procedure)
https://youtu.be/69cNo1h5pzc
October 27th
The day of the procedure I was very nervous. I didn't know how painful this would be, but getting clamped under a table and having shots in my breast didn't sound like it was going to be "nothing." I knew I couldn't take any pictures while I was there, so I took a selfie at home before I left. The look I was going for was, "Whelp, here goes nothing." :) (And yes my shirt says "More Cowbell" from one of my favorite SNL sketches.)
Kaden drove me to the hospital that was in Provo (about 20 minutes away) because that was where they had the biopsy machine. As we walked inside, I mentally noted that we were here last year at this time for a procedure that Kaden had relating to complications from his appendix cancer surgery. I remembered because they were putting up the Christmas tree in that very lobby last November. I looked at Kaden and said, "Who would have thought we would be back here almost exactly one year later, only for me this time?" Then I said, "This is bullshit." (Excuse my language, but that is when the fear turned to anger and my fight or flight response kicked in.) Kaden just gave me a hug and said, "Agreed."
We waited in the lobby and watched the weather channel that was playing on the TV above our heads. It was weird how I was so worried waiting to have a test for breast cancer, yet everything around me seemed so mundane. Kaden and I watched as some hurricane was barreling down on the south coast and we made comments about wether it was "worth it" to live in the coastal towns where you have to worry about this type of thing year after year. To be honest, I was looking at those pictures and watching videos of that hurricane feeling like I would give anything to be there instead of here.
The nurse-- or technician (I'm not quite sure what her actual title was) called me back. I had to go behind the door with her and without Kaden. I was about to do something totally scary, and totally alone. I was taken to the dressing room and told to again undress from the waist up, put the gown on, and wait in the second waiting room. There was some HGTV show on and for a moment I thought, "Don't get too invested in this, you won't get time to see the big reveal at the end." It's funny how our brain can go from fear and nervousness, to disconnecting like that. Like not getting to see some random reveal was the biggest problem on my plate.
After a short wait, I was taken back to the biopsy room. It was cold and sterile. The nurse tried her best to explain what was going to happen. I heard about 1/2 of what she said and was relieved when she said the Dr. would come back in and reexplain it to me. She asked if I needed to use the bathroom before I got on the table and I told her I did.
I was escorted to the bathroom and for some reason, that is where my body decided to rebel. I started shaking a bit and my eyes started leaking! I tried to cover up the fact that I was crying and was for the first time grateful for the masks they make us wear for Covid-19. I thought, "At least the mask will cover up the betrayal my body was handing me." I pulled it together and tried not to make eye contact when I went back into the biopsy room.
The nurse asked if I was "ok" and I said in a shaky voice, "I'm nervous." She didn't really say much. I think this was so routine for her, she really didn't have a lot of empathy and really the only answer she wanted to hear was, "Yep, I'm ok!" The doctor came in, explained the procedure to me again where I think the only thing I heard from him was random words like "clamp...shots... burn... needle the size of a pen...and above all else make sure you don't move." He said, "We are talking millimeters here, so the most important thing is that once you get on the table you do not move a muscle."
The Dr. left the room and the nurse pulled out a ladder and had me crawl onto the table. I laid face down and put my breast through a hole in the table. We positioned my arms so that I could be "comfortable" for the next 45 minutes to an hour. They then jacked the table up to the sky so they could work on me from below. It was like I was a car going in for a lube job where you drive your car in and they lift it up to get under it. In the days leading up to the procedure, we jokingly referred to it as a "boob lube."
I laid on my stomach, face turned towards the wall, and had someone positioning my breast from underneath. They would position me, get me clamped up, take a picture and then say, "We don't have a clear path, we need to try again." Initially, they were going to go in from the top, but later decided to do the biopsy from under the breast, so there was a lot of repositioning equipment and moving cords around etc.
Once they got a clear path, they called the Dr. back in, making sure to remind me that I needed to stay absolutely still. The Dr. proceeded to give me multiple shots in my breast to numb me up. I tried my best not to recoil--I didn't want to have to redo all the positioning again. Finally, I was numb. I was told that was the worst part and for the most part it was. --Minus all the worry, the positioning and the clamping---Oh and the staying perfectly still with your neck cricked to the side for an hour. :)
The nurse came and stood between me and the wall, put her hand on my back and said, "You are going to hear a loud click. I just wanted to let you know so it doesn't startle you and make you move." She looked at the Dr. and said, "Are you ready to fire?" He said, "Yep." Then I heard a loud "PSSST" noise, kind of like an air soft or paintball gun. I braced myself for the pain but it wasn't there. "Whew," I thought. Then I heard multiple noises whirring like a sewing machine. "whirr, whirr, whirr." I could feel slight tugging but no pain.
As I stared at the wall, and the nurse who stood in between, I think I had every stage of grief. I thought, "Is this really happening? Is this my life? I am only 41. My Husband is only 37. How could it be that both of us would have to go through anything cancer related? Is it environmental? Is it something we are eating? Heavenly Father, help me to know what it is so I can stop! I will do anything that you say. Anger came in as well. What in thee fresh hell was I in? I am SO angry! It's not fair. Why me?! It's someone else's turn! Well...if not me, then who? I wouldn't wish cancer on anyone. At least I knew some things about what I was facing. etc etc etc.
I didn't notice until the whirring stopped that my eyes had closed and the table underneath my face was wet with tears. You know a bit of what you will go through physically, but I wasn't prepared for the emotional aspect of it all. I was surprised though that the nurse still didn't say much. I thought, "Wow she is heartless," but then I thought, "What would she even say? I surely wouldn't know either and I am the one going through it!"
I laid on the table for another 10 minutes still clamped waiting for the bleeding to stop. The Dr. had left the room and the other nurse that was helping left to run my samples down to the pathology lab. Finally the nurse who was left in the room with me, unclamped me and started to lower the table. She said I could move a bit, so I took that to mean that I could get up. She said, "Oh wait! Hold on, I have to get the table completely lowered before you can get off." This is the part that makes me laugh. Lowering the table went SO slow. It took a good 2 minutes to get the table lowered back down and I rode the whole thing down on all fours, no shirt, breasts sagging toward the ground! What a sight that was I am sure! I was taken to a mammography room where they had to take two more pictures, then escorted me to the dressing room, and back out to the waiting room where Kaden was.
On the way home, I cried angry tears to Kaden and lamented the fact that we had to go through this crap again just one year later and how it is the perfect punctuation mark on the end of this year. We tried to be positive and say that, "It's nothing...and if it is something, at least we caught it early."
Waiting....
I waited 3 days for my results. A short amount of time by comparison to other women's biopsy's but still every day felt like a year. Our hospital has an app where you can get results most of the time even before the Dr's office calls you. I am not sure how many times I checked that thing. Finally, Thursday evening (29th) a new "pathology report" popped up. I clicked on it not knowing what I would read. It said "click the link" for results, but there was no link! Only the Dr's office would see and be able to click the link. I tried to keep my mind off things and made a deal with myself that I would call the Dr first thing in the morning after I got kids to school.
On Friday the 30th, at 8am, I called the Dr's office. A young front desk girl answered and I informed her of my situation. She looked up my results and said, "Your results came in late last night, and the Dr hasn't had time to review them. He will do that and then we will call you." I told her that I was anxious to know the results and would she please tell the doctor to look at them today and not make me wait through the weekend. She said, "I will put that in my notes" and we hung up. I was super nervous!
An hour passed by and I hadn't heard anything. I thought, "I will call the mammography place and they can give me my results." So I called them. I told them I knew they had my results, but there wasn't a link I could click. The lady on the phone said, "Oh Sure! Let me get you over to Dorothy." I waited, but Dorothy never picked up. Instead the same lady got back on the phone and said, "Dorothy called your Dr office and talked to a nurse named Nikki. Call her. She knows everything about it."
So here I am debating whether or not to bug the Dr's office again. I decided that I would call because I am the only one who is advocating for me. I got the same young girl from the first time. I asked for Nikki and she put me on hold. After a couple of minutes, the young girl popped back on the phone and told me that Dr. Elswood was going to call me on his lunch break. "When is his lunch break?" I asked. "Noon. He will call you around noon." I hung up the phone and burst into tears. Surely if it wasn't cancer they would just tell me right?! I was also angry at this point because multiple people knew my result but wouldn't tell me and it was my health!
I went into Kaden's office (he is working from home right now) and told him what had just happened. He told me to get ready and we would go for a drive to pass the time and take my mind off things. We got a soda from the gas station and stopped at the bakery. Kaden asked what I wanted and I told him, "A chocolate cake doughnut, and a chocolate bar." He said, "Two donuts?" because he knows I am on another health challenge, and I said, "Yes, I am eating my feelings today." He laughed and said, "Fine by me! Sounds like a great plan!" and went inside to grab my order. While I waited in the parking lot I saw my dream car, a fixed up old Ford Bronco. I was drooling over it while I waited. I took a picture of it and thought, "If I get through this health crap, I am going to get me one of these and run away from here!"
Results
My primary care doctor called me just a few minutes after noon. He asked about why I went to be tested and if I had felt a lump or anything out of the ordinary. I told him, "Nope, just went in for a routine screening....It was my first one." He said, I usually don't like to do this over the phone, but I didn't want you to have to go through the weekend. The results came back and it was positive for Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. Grade 3." He told me that the grade was not the stage. The grade just describes how it looks under the microscope. (see below)
He told me that he already had scheduled an appointment with the surgeon for me. I meet with her on the 12th. He told me that she would probably have an oncologist recommendation for me as well. I informed him that we already had a fantastic oncologist because my husband had cancer last year. He responded with, "What? You are kidding me?!" (Kaden and I see different primary care doctors so he had no clue about Kaden.) He said, "I am so sorry. Hopefully, you can meet with the surgeon and we can get you some more answers." I thanked him for calling me back and hung up the phone. Kaden and I cried together and decided to let the girls know as soon as they came home from school.
Lightning
So here we are, back to my point at the beginning of the post. Lightning really can strike twice, and as the Britannica says, "Lightning can and will strike the same place twice, whether it be during the same storm or even centuries later." Although this seems too fresh and that we are still in the same storm we have already been in for the last year, we can and we will get through it. The good thing about lightening striking twice is that we already know some of what to expect. We have been through this. Who better to go through this than someone who has knowledge of cancer, knows about therapy, already has an oncologist, and has researched the crap out of anything and everything cancer related? I already know that I do not have to go through this alone. We have a tribe of people both here on earth and special specific angels who watch over us. I am sad we have to call on them again so soon, but am grateful for all who are willing to help when called upon, and for those who are willing to help even when our pride gets in the way of asking for help. We can and will get through this storm!
