As I lay here in my bed ,waiting for my little savior, Ambien to finally knock out the big,bad beast of insomnia for the night,I find myself contemplating....
My Grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer years ago.before there were more treatment options available. She had a Mastectomy and radiation therapy. She also had the drug Tamoxifen to take for pretty much the rest of her life. She also developed it in her lymph nodes and eventually her bones which ultimately killed her. Six years ago my Mother was diagnosed with the same. She had a lumpectomy and thirty-three radiation treatments.I'm so very happy to say that she is doing wonderfully! You know they say (whoever they are) that one in three women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime.I have two sisters. Sometimes we would sit around and jokingly tell one another that "oh,I can't get it,I'm the pretty one" or "it's not gonna be me,I'm the comic relief and you need me". My sisters and I have an extremely sarcastic sense of humor.We even thought about taking bets on which sis would get that "gem" of a prize first.We are all very diligent with our Docs and mammograms but,that special little booger come gunning for yours truly. Yep, lucky me!
I already knew when my nurse took me back into a room.She just looked at me with a sadness and I just knew. The Doc confirmed it and from that moment on, my life became a whirlwind of activities. I was scheduled for ultrasounds, blood-work and another mammogram to put a 'guide-wire in for the surgeon to follow while doing the first of my two lumpectomies. Having accomplished the first lumpectomy,the next step was getting my sample sent to the lab so that they could diagnose that bad boy. And a boy,indeed he was....and the rest of him, a lymph node, and the surrounding tissues came out in my second lumpectomy. I am now and for at least the next fifteen years will be on the oh so lovely drug Tamoxifen .Are we done yet?? Oh,how I wish we were.
I was 'stuck' more times than I can count. I also started in on 33 radiation treatments at The Cancer Treatment Center. I had to go in and be evaluated and marked. Marked they said...I was confused. They explained how I would have to position my body just right to get the radiation where it needed to go and nowhere else, then they would mark it with a tattoo so the next day and subsequent days that I came in after that,they could just line up all the marks. Okay I thought,cool...I'll get some tats for free.....right, I got little pin point dots that look like I accidentally bumped into someone holding a ball point pen and I just happened to be naked...not very cool ink,I tell ya. I had blood drawn so regularly that I looked like a pin cushion and no matter what office I happened to be in,I'd just stick my arms out and say go ahead even when they didn't need any...even if I didn't happen to even be in a Dr.'s office at all (sorry about that one time Mom). By the time it was all said and done...I had an entire team of professionals working with me.And truth be told,any one of them could have seen me with my face covered, my body topless and they would've known EXACTLY who I was . Yeah, we got to know one another pretty well.
I'm coming up on the fourth anniversary of my diagnosis.Someone once told me that you celebrate your very last treatment ( which I did, by going to an Avett Brothers concert that very night) and the fifth year of surviving it all. I was told that if it doesn't show back up within 5 years you've got it whipped and can call yourself a survivor. So,I guess for now I'm just a warrior but,damn, thanks to the wonderful healthcare professionals I worked with,I live to fight another day!