Friday, August 08, 2008
The Five-Year Mark
Five years ago today I had a biopsy. I was very surprised that my biopsy would involve taking out a golf-ball sized chunk since I thought biopsies consisted of taking a core sample with a needle. Both are true, but I didn't have a solid mass so they needed to do surgery. My biopsy was a guided wire procedure (which I will never submit to again) and I fainted while sitting at the mammogram machine. After the biopsy and after puking from the anesthesia, they let me go home.
I went to a computer training class the next day. I remember very clearly sitting in the classroom and that I had a PC in front of me and that the instructor wrote some stuff on the board. I remember that I walked to Einstein Bagel for lunch and I remember what I had to eat. I haven't the slightest idea of the content of the class, though. It was a class on cgi, which I haven't the slightest idea how to use.
The next week I had an appointment with the surgeon, who did not have the pathology results yet. I asked him if my breast (which looked very sad, bruised, and deflated) would return to a natural shape on its own, or what. He told me it would fill out on its own and to quit looking in the mirror.
A couple of days later, I got a call from the surgeon's office to set up another appointment to go over the results. It was strongly suggested that I have someone with me. Soon afterwards I got a very panicked call from my primary care physician. She was very nervous, and didn't know what to say. So she blurted out that she was so sorry that the results showed I had cancer.
I stood in my kitchen and thought, "No wonder they want somebody to come with me to see the surgeon."
"Ok," I said.
It wasn't really Ok.
Whatever happened to, "You're so young, these things are almost always nothing," or "3 out of 4 times it turns out to be harmless"? By the time I got to my biopsy, it was "You have a 90% chance of being totally fine."
My mom took me to the appointment. Dr. Barbi had a box of tissues, many explanatory brochures and pictures, as well as sample drains to show me what would be involved to care for the wounds. I sat there dully, listening to him say how lucky it was that this was caught early. When it's caught early, treatment is very successful.
I had a tiny bit of microinvasion. Some cells were beginning to escape the confines of the ducts, but he was satisfied that this was still extremely early. I needed to coordinate with a plastic surgeon, and there were two that he typically worked with. I called the first name on the list and then had surgery in November.
Tiny cells just starting to bust out.
Diagnosis in August, surgery in November. Was that too long? No, I was assured. Plus, I opted to do chemotherapy which was sure to take care of any pesky floating cancer cells. 98% success rate for the type of cancer I had.
I "sailed" through treatment. I was called a "trooper." Success!
And technically, I am a "success." It's one of the happier statistics that I can say I'm still alive five years after treatment. I had always assumed that this meant being disease free five years later, but it does not.
I kind of hoped for more.
I certainly didn't hope for a broken, mangled hip. I didn't hope for an enlarged spleen and ascites from a damaged liver. I didn't hope for tumors in my brain. I didn't hope for multiple hospitalizations both from the disease itself and secondary infections.
The fact that I feel reasonably well, although somewhat wimpy and water-logged is amazing, but I still carry around anger about what I perceive as the "lies" that I was told about this condition. I still wonder about the gap between diagnosis and treatment. I wonder about the lack of follow-up and certainty on the part of my doctors that my early-stage cancer was treated with spectacular success, which resulted in months of inappropriately treated agony.
And I wonder why the emphasis on "early detection" is more evident than research for treatment of people who are still alive after five years, but waiting for a cure.
I went to a computer training class the next day. I remember very clearly sitting in the classroom and that I had a PC in front of me and that the instructor wrote some stuff on the board. I remember that I walked to Einstein Bagel for lunch and I remember what I had to eat. I haven't the slightest idea of the content of the class, though. It was a class on cgi, which I haven't the slightest idea how to use.
The next week I had an appointment with the surgeon, who did not have the pathology results yet. I asked him if my breast (which looked very sad, bruised, and deflated) would return to a natural shape on its own, or what. He told me it would fill out on its own and to quit looking in the mirror.
A couple of days later, I got a call from the surgeon's office to set up another appointment to go over the results. It was strongly suggested that I have someone with me. Soon afterwards I got a very panicked call from my primary care physician. She was very nervous, and didn't know what to say. So she blurted out that she was so sorry that the results showed I had cancer.
I stood in my kitchen and thought, "No wonder they want somebody to come with me to see the surgeon."
"Ok," I said.
It wasn't really Ok.
Whatever happened to, "You're so young, these things are almost always nothing," or "3 out of 4 times it turns out to be harmless"? By the time I got to my biopsy, it was "You have a 90% chance of being totally fine."
My mom took me to the appointment. Dr. Barbi had a box of tissues, many explanatory brochures and pictures, as well as sample drains to show me what would be involved to care for the wounds. I sat there dully, listening to him say how lucky it was that this was caught early. When it's caught early, treatment is very successful.
I had a tiny bit of microinvasion. Some cells were beginning to escape the confines of the ducts, but he was satisfied that this was still extremely early. I needed to coordinate with a plastic surgeon, and there were two that he typically worked with. I called the first name on the list and then had surgery in November.
Tiny cells just starting to bust out.
Diagnosis in August, surgery in November. Was that too long? No, I was assured. Plus, I opted to do chemotherapy which was sure to take care of any pesky floating cancer cells. 98% success rate for the type of cancer I had.
I "sailed" through treatment. I was called a "trooper." Success!
And technically, I am a "success." It's one of the happier statistics that I can say I'm still alive five years after treatment. I had always assumed that this meant being disease free five years later, but it does not.
I kind of hoped for more.
I certainly didn't hope for a broken, mangled hip. I didn't hope for an enlarged spleen and ascites from a damaged liver. I didn't hope for tumors in my brain. I didn't hope for multiple hospitalizations both from the disease itself and secondary infections.
The fact that I feel reasonably well, although somewhat wimpy and water-logged is amazing, but I still carry around anger about what I perceive as the "lies" that I was told about this condition. I still wonder about the gap between diagnosis and treatment. I wonder about the lack of follow-up and certainty on the part of my doctors that my early-stage cancer was treated with spectacular success, which resulted in months of inappropriately treated agony.
And I wonder why the emphasis on "early detection" is more evident than research for treatment of people who are still alive after five years, but waiting for a cure.
Labels: ascites, biopsy, chemo, DCIS, Dr. Barbi, hip, hospital, liver, mammogram, mom, spleen, surgery
