MRI Day

January 23, 2009

The story on how I got to this point is on hold. Sorry about jumping around, but my mood today is at an all time low and trying to focus on the details of how I got here are seemingly impossible.

This is going to sound so depressing and I'm sure a few of you will laugh, but today was the day it finally hit me. I have breast cancer. YES! I know! I've been writing this silly blog because I have breast cancer. But those were just words that some doctor told me and in my head they were wrong. I didn't have cancer. I couldn't. It wasn't right. How the HELL could this be going on?

No, no, no, no, NO! The phone was going to ring and someone was going to tell me this was wrong. The tests were wrong. I just knew it. Someone was going to call. Please, God, please, let someone call me and tell me this was just a mistake. Oh, God, please.

Today was the day I finally had to give up hope. Today I had my MRI and spoke to my oncologist. She sat down and calmly flipped through my chart while talking about all my options. I was listening, but not really. I was waiting for her to hit that page that would show her that there was an error on the report. Instead she kept talking and pointing up at poster on the wall of a woman who had the insides of her breasts showing.

All I needed today was one small shining glimmer of hope to keep me going. All I got were the options I had ahead of me: remove the lump, remove the breast, remove both breasts, radiation, chemotherapy, how much chemotherapy, how much hair will fall out, and on and on and on. Inside my head I was screaming for her to shut up! This was so wrong. How could I see this, but no one else could? I feel fine! Why do people keep telling me I have this disease that could kill me when I don't feel sick at all? This doesn't make sense.

She stops talking and asks me a question regarding one of my horrible options and that was my opportunity to ask her, to plead to her: double check for me? Isn't it possible my healthy tumor got switched with someone else's? I mean, heck, it happens with babies! I was crying. Again. And she said no. No. It was my tumor. I have cancer. My tumor showed cancer cells. And she didn't freakin know why.

Why won't someone tell me why? I'm not asking "why me?". Honestly, I get that people get sick and I'm no better than anyone else. I want to know what caused this damn thing to grow in my breast. I want to know why I can't wake up from this nightmare. Women much older than me get breast cancer. Women with a long family history of breast cancer. Women who didn't have MY two small, beautiful children.

I was ready to run from this office as I did the first one. She started with the numbers; the percentages. Don't give me that crap again. How could you possibly think I want you to tell me how high my survival rate is when you are the same people who told me that it was a less than 10 percent chance of being cancer in the first place? How dare you look me in the eye now and tell me that I have an 86 percent survival rate before you even start the chemo - and heck, add the chemo to it so I can give myself another 7 percent.

All you doctors have done so far is lie to me and give me false hope. Excuse me if i choose not to jump up and hug you for HOPEFULLY saving my life from a cancer that was SUPPOSED to be nothing in the first place. I'll let you remove my breasts and I'll let you pump my body full of poison - so much so that my hair starts to fall out. But know this: my life is in God's hands. Your words and your numbers are meaningless to me.