Читать книгу Pink Ribbon Stories: A Celebration of Life - Tammy Miller - Страница 19

My experience with breast cancer taught me the value of friends, the importance of taking action to get immediate and excellent care, to keep a sense of humor during treatment and then forget it.

I found my own little lump about the size of a bean. It was so small that my regular doctor could not feel it and she reluctantly ordered a mammogram. Neither did the mammogram show anything. Luckily, the mammogram technician could feel what I felt and ordered a sonogram. There it was, as clear as could be!

The results of the biopsy that followed were reported to my doctor and it was two weeks before she called me about it. By then I was already moving toward treatment. This was thanks to the technician who had agreed to call me as soon as the biopsy results came in. She actually confused me a bit by reporting that the biopsy was positive. When I said, “good” she said, “No, bad. Positive means that it is invasive cancer and you should see about treating it immediately.”

Now you might think I could take this very rationally because I was a cancer researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, however, all I could think of was those invasive cancer cells doubling in my breast and I wanted them gone, now. I called a friend and collaborator who is an active breast cancer treatment doctor and he said I needed three specialists, a surgeon, a chemo therapist and a radiotherapist and he offered to make the appointments. I was sooo relieved. After appointments with all of them, the consensus was that for my stage-one lump a lumpectomy with radiotherapy and the new drug, Arimidex, total cure was very likely.

The doctors were all very careful to do all the important tests and explain things to me. I asked many questions and on advice of a book by my friend Tammy, I recorded all our conversations and listened to them when, inevitably, I forgot some detail. I had called Tammy immediately after I got my diagnosis to get her book and she sent both the book and a bag of red clown noses.

These noses got me through the surgery. I, my friend, and the hospital escort who pushed me from station to station in a wheel chair, all wore clown noses. There were two kinds of people we passed or interacted with. One group looked away as if they were embarrassed for us. The other group smiled or laughed out loud and waved or gave a thumbs-up. This little bit of levity lowered my anxiety and made it easier for my companions as well.

After the surgery, I was wheeled out to the waiting room to check out. I put on my clown nose and I turned to the many waiting breast cancer patients and, pointing to the nose I said, “I came in to have this removed and they took out a chunk of breast instead.” Sure enough about half to them laughed.

I am 6 years out now from that day and am still taking Arimidex and still having the resultant hourly hot flashes. The other unpleasant side effects are gone. I had a scare last year when an artifact in the other breast was seen on a mammogram, but biopsy proved it to be benign. These days, I rarely think about breasts or cancer.

Thanks to friends and ever improving treatment and diagnostic techniques breast cancer can be little more than a temporary blip in your life. Be diligent in checking for lumps. If you find one, get it checked. If it is positive, find the best therapists, who work together and treat breast cancer every day, hold on to your friends and your sense of humor and it does not have to be a tragedy at all.

Sallie lives in a cottage with a view of the ocean at Birch Bay Retirement Village, Bar Harbor, ME. She shares the cottage with her long time partner Edward Redgate and standard poodle, Shanti. Her hobby is playing the stock market and walking in Acadia National Park with Ed, his 91 year old brother Ted and the dog. She recently started a Toastmasters club so she did not have to drive an hour to get to one.