Oil Paints...

I was sitting in my comfy womb-esque downstairs studio, working in Impasto Oils on a rose for my beautiful Daughter-In-Law's Mother when the call came. My heart sank to my ankles when I saw the caller ID; it was the hospital calling with results of my biopsy.

I'd had an abnormal mammogram back in August, a tiny spot, they said...nothing to get excited about;  "We're just going to watch it for now and you come back for a repeat mammogram in January".

    I honestly wasn't worried; it didn't make even the littlest wrinkle in my brain. Like a good patient, I went back for my follow-up mammogram January 23rd, 2018.  I noticed the tech, a very kind lady, taking multiple views of the same area. My RN brain started sending out alerts. I'm like, nah...let's don't get all paranoid here. Then the tech left the room but left me sitting in the room.

     That never happened before. Usually they have you go out in the special private lounge to wait on the radiologists' ok before you get dressed. RN Brain said "WHOA!" I'm still like, shut up, you.

The tech comes back in after about 15 minutes and without making eye contact (I am schooled in neurolinguistic programming and tend to notice such things; even people who don't have that training notice such things), tells me I must have "special UltraSound study". Like, right then I had to have it. My eyeballs bugged a lil bit but I'm still telling RN Brain to shut the hell up. No biggie, right?

       I get a whole new room, whole new tech, but she's a lady who's done many studies on me in the 16 years I've been going to this radiology group. She was unusually crisp, business-like; we usually talk about my farm as she works 'cause she used to be a lady farmer herself. No chit-chat this time. Just tense silence. I could see the screen; they always allow me to look if I want to and I always do look. I could see this awful black, totally opaque area, kinda triangular-in-shape mass that made my stomach cramp up. I've years of experience looking at ultrasounds and although not skilled sufficiently to conduct one, I know what doesn't belong there on that screen. This thing didn't belong there.

She concentrated on that triangular area. RN Brain was now having mini-seizures and I'm doing deep breathing to quell it.

    "The Radiologist wants to see these. Just stay here, I'll be back", she said. I know damn well that leaving me on that table instead of telling me to get dressed is a bad sign, or at least, not a very happy one. I laid on the table doing a mantra;"It's absolutely nothing to be worried about...it's nothing to be worried about...don't get your panties in a wad, nothing to be worried about", as I counted the ceiling tiles overhead.

   About twenty minutes later ther Radiologist comes in the room with my tech. I gulp hard and try for a nonchalant look. "We're going to need a biopsy, Susan". She (kindly) went over the film with me and sure as shit, it was that nasty opaque black area she was concerned about. Looking at that area, it seemed so...dead. Like, total absence of life compared to the jazzy stuff in the rest of my ultrasound. The interior of my breast was alive and vibrant with criss-crossed, swirling white lines, tiny maps and roads and ducts and all the glorious, wondrous structures that allowed me to nurture life, to breast feed my six children.

I was matter-of-fact. That's my go-to in any kind of crisis. The tech told me to get dressed and the Radiologist was on the phone with my Dr while I was getting dressed. Knowing how the medical heirarchy usually functions I didn't take that as a positive sign, except for the idea that something substantial was already being done to help me learn what was going on in my breast.

                                                           Biopsy.

Not a word I ever expected to hear in connection with my name. That happens to other people. (<---a common conceit among health care professionals; we're usually pretty shocked when it  happens to us. Like we have some special sort of professional immunity from life-threatening disease because we save lives and tend the sick for a living. I should know better. Cancer is an equal opportunity killer, spares no one, has mercy for no one. Babies, old folk, researchers, toddlers, Nobel Peace Prize winners & Supreme Court Justices, the lady who makes your print copies for you, the high school friend of many decades, your own children or your parents, grandparents---- no one is spared.
                                             
                                                 No one is spared.

By the time I got dressed and drove home, a message was waiting on me from the hospital, scheduling my biopsy.  My first thought when I heard that message was "Damn. This is really happening".

February 2nd. My biopsy date. Stop taking daily aspirin, advil and my daily fish oil ( it can promote bleeding).

As the Breast Health Coordinator on the phone instructed me and told me what to expect, my brain was whirring with the "what-ifs". I was struggling to shut off the RN segment of my grey matter and just be a patient, but it felt like a Mixed Martial Arts match to accomplish that; my consciousness was getting slammed to the mat.

   Suddenly my brain crash-landed on the topic that would rend my heart all the way through.

                                     My kids.   I have to tell my kids.

They're all grown, but still...the idea of not telling them felt so....selfish. I've always been about the facts. Information is medicinal for me; I am soothed by it, crave it. I earned the title of 'Research Junkie' in Nursing college; it was never enough just to learn about the topic at hand; I yearned to know everything about that disease process/technique/medication/medical history I could lay hands on. I've been a rabid bibliophile my entire life, since I taught myself to read at age four.  As a little girl books were my very best friends. Books, data, information...all comforting to me.

     My kids always hated my library because moving all those books was such a chore whenever we moved. Had to have those books, still have them plus many more added over the years. Information, the printed word, is sacred.

    Keeping my love of information in mind, and what I witnessed too often in my Nursing career: patients deciding to keep their medical status from their loved ones, being a martyr really, based on their judgement that the loved one couldn't Jack Nicholson. (handle the truth).  Then later on when the awful secret couldn't be kept any longer and loved ones had to be told, the outcome was always the same: utter devastation, far more difficulty coping than if they'd had any preparation to begin with.

                               Nope, I was not going to do that to my children.

                                     I let them know about the biopsy. If it turned out to be a nothing-burger, so much the better; we could all laugh and go "WHEW! THAT was close!" and go on with our usual life patterns, relieved and grateful. If it was malignant, then at least I'd have given them as soft as landing as possible under the circumstances.

Three to five days max after my biopsy, the Breast Health Lady told me, and she'd call me directly with my results. I should mention she runs the Breast Health Program and has a Master's in Nursing, so big props to her. I settled myself in for the three to five day wait. That was Friday, Feb 2nd, 2018.

         Monday, Feb 5th, while I was painting a rose, the phone jangled. The hospital. But it's only 72 hours. My heart thudded hard against my rib cage; I could hear my heartbeat rushing in my ears.

                                       "You have invasive breast cancer. I'm so sorry."

I was holding my palette knife with my other hand and stupefied, I realized I was holding it aloft and as she continued talking, I laid it down.  I couldn't react. I was matter-of-fact. What happens next, I queried? She told me I'd have a meeting with her Wednesday to discuss treatment and other pertinent details.

                              I have breast cancer.  I am now a cancer patient.

                                                 My new reality.

                                           Every thing has changed.

My dear friend of many decades, Maya Breuer, told me "Susi, we are Throw-Down Women--you'll get through this. We've been Throw-Down-Women all our lives, we've survived plenty."

               I agreed through tears.  Yes, I am a Throw-Down Woman. I'm going to have to live up to that daily, over the many months of treatment ahead of me. The next year of my life will determine  what all the rest of my life is going to be.

                It takes an awful lot to shake me but I admit, I'm shaken to my core.

I want to get out the shiny silver Joan of Arc armor and gallop horseback across the field, wind in my hair, long spear in hand.

   I'm no sissy, I got this.

                                                But.......Cancer.