My Personal Story
It was February 11th, 2013, 10:00 am, and I am in my office preparing for my Spanish 102 class, which starts at 10:20; then, the phone rang. I picked it up, and it was a doctor from the breast imaging clinic; she says: do you have a moment? I say I do, but I have a class starting in 20 minutes; she says: I can call later, and I say: no, now will be okay. What comes after would change my life; back then, I didn’t know whether it would be for the better or, the worse. The doctor told me she had some bad news; I have breast cancer. A second later, she said, although it’s not good news, my cancer was treatable. That is all I heard or all that stuck in my mind, “treatable” so, I responded: Let’s treat it then!
I could have gone home, get in bed, and start crying. Instead, I taught my class and the other two classes I had that Monday. That was the beginning of my breast cancer journey. I started it on a high note. The Friday before the Monday diagnosis, I had spent all afternoon and early evening in the breast imaging clinic. They performed a mammogram and an ultrasound. The doctor came in after the ultrasound was performed by the technician, and right then and there, looking at the doctor checking the screen, I knew there was something wrong. We went on with the biopsy that same day, and she said that we had to wait until the biopsy results came back to confirm anything. However, I asked her what she thought she saw, and she said that the tumor looked malignant. I left the hospital and drove home, crying all the way; I could hardly see the road. I did not need to wait for the biopsy results; I knew I had cancer; my intuition is always right. A week earlier, I was changing clothes one evening, and when I was putting my bra on, I noticed a lump. I called my gynecologist first thing the next morning to schedule an appointment. He checked me and referred me to the hospital right away. I dedicated that weekend to process the information, and I decided that this diagnosis was only an inconvenience, an obstacle in my life’s journey. It is worth noting that I was a single mother of a five-year-old boy. If nothing else, he kept me positive and strong.
This type of news was totally unexpected. I had no breast cancer family history. I was 44 and otherwise healthy, so all of this came over me like a bucket of ice water. And, of course, I didn’t have a plan, and I didn’t know what was going to happen. So, I lived the present and confronted my new reality day by day. But I am a goal-oriented person, so for me, the goal was to overcome all of this; I had to beat this disease, one day at a time. I must add that, at any point on this journey, not once, I thought of death. Deep inside, I knew from the very beginning that I was going to be all right. I firmly believe things happen for a reason, and in my case, it turned out to be that way. A straightforward way to put it in words is that I took my cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery as a transitional process or, rather, a journey of transition. In future posts, I will elaborate on this affirmation, which connects with the concept of ageism and the benefits of positive thinking.
And now, almost eight years later, I am writing about it for the first time. It was a very long journey because I went through a lot, both physically and emotionally. A mere month after the mastectomy, I started the chemotherapy treatment -over three months- and after that, six and a half weeks of daily radiation sessions. I kept myself positive and strong the whole time. Although it was tough to see myself bald and missing one breast, I never stopped looking in the mirror. Again, I knew this was temporary, and in no time, the hair would come back, and after all the reconstructive surgeries, so would the breast.
Six months after I finished the treatments, the breast reconstruction process begins. I went through multiple surgeries before I could see the final result. In hindsight, although I see that journey as part of a far past and somehow surreal, it’s still very present in my memory. To be truthful, I was never afraid, except for the set back I suffered after the primary breast reconstructive surgery. A few hours after the operation, I lost consciousness. When I woke up, several frantic nurses were around me in the room, and I felt like a trailer truck had run all over me. I asked what was going on, and they told me to calm down and relax; the doctor was on his way. I was taken to the operating room again after being there earlier that day for almost four hours. I had an internal hematoma and had lost a lot of blood, and my blood pressure was dangerously low (I could have died then and there). And here we go again, another round of general anesthesia, and two and a half more hours in the operating room. I remember vividly telling the anesthesiologist and my plastic surgeon that I couldn’t die, that I had a five-year-old boy depending on me. And the next thing I remember is waking up from the anesthesia and seeing a beautiful, blonde nurse smiling at me, and her name was Angel. The relapse was the lowest point of my journey with breast cancer. I only wanted to summarize what I went through, not to victimize myself- I can’t stand victimization – but to emphasize that I overcame the whole ordeal. As a result, I came back as a much better version of myself. As I said at the beginning of this post, I firmly believe that things happen for a reason. It was the first time I confronted mortality, and as a result, I stopped sweating the small stuff. I had always been an anxious person, and after this whole odyssey, the anxiety went away. I could focus on more important things instead of worrying about everything. Now I couldn’t care less about what other people think. I was raised that way, that what other people thought of me or my actions was important, that reputation was a thing. In short, I am now free, and I am myself.
Writing my cancer story is very therapeutic to me; that is why I share it with whoever wants to read it. As of today, I am very healthy and thriving. My goal is primarily to reach the women who are either going through it, were just diagnosed, or the fortunate ones who survived it, like me. If I could only help one woman with my story or my suggestions, that will be more than enough for me. There is plenty of information about this topic on the internet, but it’s overwhelming. I think the real stories count a lot more than unlimited data.
I will be posting more blogs on the breast cancer topic in the future. Stay tuned, and don’t hesitate to contact me if you need my help regarding this topic.