Surviving Life Through Cancer and Beyond
I sat on the edge of the exam table with my feet dangling towards the floor. From the waist up I was topless minus a paper gown that was open in the front. The air conditioning was on full blast which seemed odd for an early January day. I was freezing cold and nervous as I waited for my doctor to come in the room. How did I get here?
Flashback to July of the previous year. I suddenly developed an excruciating pain in my right breast. A pulsing unbearable pain that no amount of painkillers would make go away. I couldn't sleep and spent weeks popping six to eight ibuprofen and eight acetaminophen per day and massaging my breast all day and night trying to get the pain to stop. Finally the pain stopped and that's when I began to notice the lump. It was small at first, maybe the size of a nickel but I wasn't sure what it was. Common sense would say to have it checked out, but I didn't want to over react to something that could be as simple as breast tissue breaking down (I was 37) or a swollen lymph node so I decided to wait and just monitor it.
By September the lump had doubled in size and now I was genuinely scared. I still put it off for another month before I finally made an appointment to see my doctor. During the exam I asked her to check my right breast because I was a little concerned. She performed a breast exam and told me this wasn't a lymph node or broken down breast tissue and I needed to go get a mammogram immediately. She gave me a referral and I set a mammogram appointment for a week later. I had never had one before and the fact I needed one didn't seem like a good thing.
During the mammogram I watched a concerned look come across the face of the examiner. After the final shot, she excused herself and left the room. She came back shortly and advised me I needed to have an ultrasound. Still dressed in a gown, she sent me down the hall to the ultrasound room. As the scope rolled over my right breast I looked over to the monitor and saw a large black spot inside my right breast appear on the screen. I asked the examiner what was I seeing. He refused to answer and said I needed to wait for the radiologist to interpret it for me. I knew right then something was very wrong. When the exam was done the examiner disappeared and five minutes later the radiologist appeared. He told me that the black spot wasn't normal and that I needed to have a biopsy done.
Two weeks later I was at the hospital getting a biopsy done. I was given local anesthesia and then a long tube was inserted down into my right breast twice to extract two samples of tissue from the mysterious spot. I was told to come back in a week for my results.
Which brings me back to this cold January day as I sat on the exam table waiting for my doctor to come in my room and give me the results of the biopsy. Friends, family and co-workers had all reassured me that it was nothing, but deep down I already had a bad feeling of what I was going to hear. As my doctor walked in the room she looked at me and told me the bad news, I had breast cancer. She told me to get dressed and to meet her across the hall in the grief counseling room while she calls a social worker. For a minute I sat in shock with my hands shaking badly. I got dressed and called my office to inform them that I wouldn't be coming back to work that day because of the news I had received. I went across the hall to the counseling room and sat down. The social worker walked in and sat down next to me. My doctor slid a pink piece of paper to me pointing at the picture of the breast explaining to me I had Triple Negative Stage 2B Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. I wasn't hearing the words I was still in shock and the words seemed to be hanging in the air. My mind is wandering, I'm thinking about my boyfriend, my family, my job, my life. Finally as she was discussing treatment options the word mastectomy hit my ears. I snapped back into reality and realized my doctor was saying she wanted to cut off my right breast. Suddenly my numb shock turned into sorrow. I was 37, single and childless and I was losing my right breast. I couldn't process what she was saying. I kept shaking my head as the social worker tried to console me. Finally my doctor said I had the option to go another route. This would require me to go through chemotherapy, lumpectomy and radiation therapy. She told me to think about it and I informed her I'd rather go that route. I know looking back it seems stupid to fight to keep my breast, but I wasn't ready at that time to accept the loss of one.
Two weeks of extensive blood work, CAT scans, PET scans, MRIs and another biopsy later and I was ready to begin chemotherapy. I had asked if I could be given time to receive fertility treatment and freeze my eggs and my oncologist informed me that due to the rapid growth of the tumor (which was now the size of a golfball), I did not have time. That they needed to begin treatment immediately and in so doing I would lose any chance of ever having a child. I had consciously decided not to have kids prior to getting sick, but now the choice was being taken from me. I cried my eyes out at the loss but came to accept my fate. I cannot cry for a child I had never had if it meant I would lose my own life. To fully accept the journey I was getting ready to endure I cut off my long brown hair which hadn't been cut in more than a decade. The shock made my father cry so hard I ended up consoling him before going off to have the port inserted into my chest for chemotherapy treatment.
Flash forward to seven weeks later and I was second of four chemotherapy treatments. My hair had fallen out in handfuls two weeks after the first treatment and I had shaved the rest so that my head was completely bald. I had taken to wearing scarves or wigs all the time since the bald head was very cold. I had lost my sense of taste with everything having a salt water taste to it. The neuropathy in my fingers and toes made it hard for me to judge if something was hot or cold and my black nails freaked people out so much I kept them polished all the time to stop people from staring at them. My teeth were shifting in my jaw, my thoughts were often jumbled and I couldn't remember things from minute to minute (called chemo brain). I was suffering from nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and nonstop excruciating pain. I didn't know what was worse, the cancer that was invading my body or the treatment that was trying to cure me. The oxycodone prescribed to me for pain either left me so high I felt like I was moving in a dream or crashing so hard that I was doubled over vomiting, sweating, shivering praying for some kind of relief. When I asked to be taken off of it, my doctor told me I would have nothing left to take but over-the-counter ibuprofen or acetaminophen which did absolutely nothing to relieve my pain. Many days I thought I was going to die. Sometimes the pain and suffering was so bad I wished I would. I went so far as to plan my funeral and share those plans with my dad who was devastated to hear me talk about my own death.
Meanwhile I was still continuing to work at my day job. People thought I was crazy to keep working through treatment, but the other option was to stay home and wallow in misery and I couldn't bring myself to do that. I only took off the day of treatment and the two days following. The rest of the time I would go in and occasionally I would even wander over to the gym and walk on the treadmill for 15 minutes. That was all my body could do. I would have to take breaks at work to go be sick in the bathroom and most lunch periods I spent napping trying to push myself through the day.
During this time I cried and prayed a lot.I made a promise to God that if He let me live I wold live my life to the fullest and never let anything stop me. I had been stuck at my dead end job unhappy. I had finished my associates degree and was debating where to go between Maryland, Houston and Tennessee with me leaning towards Houston. If I survived God, I thought to myself, I would move away, I would take a chance on myself, I would finally live a life free of fear.
Six years later I've finished college at the University of Tennessee and received my bachelors of science in journalism and moved to Los Angeles for my dream career in professional football. Over the years I have donated and participated in more than a dozen cancer walks and helped several friends through their own battle with breast cancer. The journey to here has not been easy, but looking back, even through all the hardship, agony and misery, I wouldn't trade my experience for anything in the world. All of it, good and bad, have been the most rewarding thing I have ever done. Who I am on the other side of cancer is a stronger, braver more fearless fighter, a warrior and survivor. While I will always be a work in progress, I am proud of the woman I am today.
Flashback to July of the previous year. I suddenly developed an excruciating pain in my right breast. A pulsing unbearable pain that no amount of painkillers would make go away. I couldn't sleep and spent weeks popping six to eight ibuprofen and eight acetaminophen per day and massaging my breast all day and night trying to get the pain to stop. Finally the pain stopped and that's when I began to notice the lump. It was small at first, maybe the size of a nickel but I wasn't sure what it was. Common sense would say to have it checked out, but I didn't want to over react to something that could be as simple as breast tissue breaking down (I was 37) or a swollen lymph node so I decided to wait and just monitor it.
By September the lump had doubled in size and now I was genuinely scared. I still put it off for another month before I finally made an appointment to see my doctor. During the exam I asked her to check my right breast because I was a little concerned. She performed a breast exam and told me this wasn't a lymph node or broken down breast tissue and I needed to go get a mammogram immediately. She gave me a referral and I set a mammogram appointment for a week later. I had never had one before and the fact I needed one didn't seem like a good thing.
During the mammogram I watched a concerned look come across the face of the examiner. After the final shot, she excused herself and left the room. She came back shortly and advised me I needed to have an ultrasound. Still dressed in a gown, she sent me down the hall to the ultrasound room. As the scope rolled over my right breast I looked over to the monitor and saw a large black spot inside my right breast appear on the screen. I asked the examiner what was I seeing. He refused to answer and said I needed to wait for the radiologist to interpret it for me. I knew right then something was very wrong. When the exam was done the examiner disappeared and five minutes later the radiologist appeared. He told me that the black spot wasn't normal and that I needed to have a biopsy done.
Two weeks later I was at the hospital getting a biopsy done. I was given local anesthesia and then a long tube was inserted down into my right breast twice to extract two samples of tissue from the mysterious spot. I was told to come back in a week for my results.
Which brings me back to this cold January day as I sat on the exam table waiting for my doctor to come in my room and give me the results of the biopsy. Friends, family and co-workers had all reassured me that it was nothing, but deep down I already had a bad feeling of what I was going to hear. As my doctor walked in the room she looked at me and told me the bad news, I had breast cancer. She told me to get dressed and to meet her across the hall in the grief counseling room while she calls a social worker. For a minute I sat in shock with my hands shaking badly. I got dressed and called my office to inform them that I wouldn't be coming back to work that day because of the news I had received. I went across the hall to the counseling room and sat down. The social worker walked in and sat down next to me. My doctor slid a pink piece of paper to me pointing at the picture of the breast explaining to me I had Triple Negative Stage 2B Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. I wasn't hearing the words I was still in shock and the words seemed to be hanging in the air. My mind is wandering, I'm thinking about my boyfriend, my family, my job, my life. Finally as she was discussing treatment options the word mastectomy hit my ears. I snapped back into reality and realized my doctor was saying she wanted to cut off my right breast. Suddenly my numb shock turned into sorrow. I was 37, single and childless and I was losing my right breast. I couldn't process what she was saying. I kept shaking my head as the social worker tried to console me. Finally my doctor said I had the option to go another route. This would require me to go through chemotherapy, lumpectomy and radiation therapy. She told me to think about it and I informed her I'd rather go that route. I know looking back it seems stupid to fight to keep my breast, but I wasn't ready at that time to accept the loss of one.
Two weeks of extensive blood work, CAT scans, PET scans, MRIs and another biopsy later and I was ready to begin chemotherapy. I had asked if I could be given time to receive fertility treatment and freeze my eggs and my oncologist informed me that due to the rapid growth of the tumor (which was now the size of a golfball), I did not have time. That they needed to begin treatment immediately and in so doing I would lose any chance of ever having a child. I had consciously decided not to have kids prior to getting sick, but now the choice was being taken from me. I cried my eyes out at the loss but came to accept my fate. I cannot cry for a child I had never had if it meant I would lose my own life. To fully accept the journey I was getting ready to endure I cut off my long brown hair which hadn't been cut in more than a decade. The shock made my father cry so hard I ended up consoling him before going off to have the port inserted into my chest for chemotherapy treatment.
Flash forward to seven weeks later and I was second of four chemotherapy treatments. My hair had fallen out in handfuls two weeks after the first treatment and I had shaved the rest so that my head was completely bald. I had taken to wearing scarves or wigs all the time since the bald head was very cold. I had lost my sense of taste with everything having a salt water taste to it. The neuropathy in my fingers and toes made it hard for me to judge if something was hot or cold and my black nails freaked people out so much I kept them polished all the time to stop people from staring at them. My teeth were shifting in my jaw, my thoughts were often jumbled and I couldn't remember things from minute to minute (called chemo brain). I was suffering from nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and nonstop excruciating pain. I didn't know what was worse, the cancer that was invading my body or the treatment that was trying to cure me. The oxycodone prescribed to me for pain either left me so high I felt like I was moving in a dream or crashing so hard that I was doubled over vomiting, sweating, shivering praying for some kind of relief. When I asked to be taken off of it, my doctor told me I would have nothing left to take but over-the-counter ibuprofen or acetaminophen which did absolutely nothing to relieve my pain. Many days I thought I was going to die. Sometimes the pain and suffering was so bad I wished I would. I went so far as to plan my funeral and share those plans with my dad who was devastated to hear me talk about my own death.
Meanwhile I was still continuing to work at my day job. People thought I was crazy to keep working through treatment, but the other option was to stay home and wallow in misery and I couldn't bring myself to do that. I only took off the day of treatment and the two days following. The rest of the time I would go in and occasionally I would even wander over to the gym and walk on the treadmill for 15 minutes. That was all my body could do. I would have to take breaks at work to go be sick in the bathroom and most lunch periods I spent napping trying to push myself through the day.
During this time I cried and prayed a lot.I made a promise to God that if He let me live I wold live my life to the fullest and never let anything stop me. I had been stuck at my dead end job unhappy. I had finished my associates degree and was debating where to go between Maryland, Houston and Tennessee with me leaning towards Houston. If I survived God, I thought to myself, I would move away, I would take a chance on myself, I would finally live a life free of fear.
Six years later I've finished college at the University of Tennessee and received my bachelors of science in journalism and moved to Los Angeles for my dream career in professional football. Over the years I have donated and participated in more than a dozen cancer walks and helped several friends through their own battle with breast cancer. The journey to here has not been easy, but looking back, even through all the hardship, agony and misery, I wouldn't trade my experience for anything in the world. All of it, good and bad, have been the most rewarding thing I have ever done. Who I am on the other side of cancer is a stronger, braver more fearless fighter, a warrior and survivor. While I will always be a work in progress, I am proud of the woman I am today.
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