Friday 13 March. This last week has been difficult. Despite my research and my need to understand what I might be facing, the fear is still with me. Logically I know that this is because of how we as a society view cancer – it is the big ‘C’ and initial reaction is always that is a death sentence even though we know that so many are curable.
My partner is with me as we step into the doctor’s office at the breast clinic. The doctor is sympathetic but straightforward and doesn’t waste any time. “I’m afraid that the biopsy has come back positive. The small lump we found is a cancer but the good news is we have caught it very early and it is quite tiny. 7mm is very small and I would expect a complete cure from a well-planned treatment programme. You will be seeing Mr P on Monday and he will talk you through the next steps in detail but I expect he will carry out a lumpectomy and take some lymph nodes from the armpit to ensure that the cancer hasn’t spread. That will probably be followed by radiotherapy.
Do you have any questions?” Yes, loads but I can’t think of them right now. My partner sits quietly not knowing what to say. Like me he hasn’t had time to think of the questions we will have as soon as we leave. The doctor’s parting comment was small but important. “By the way you may like to know that the type of cancer you have is Invasive Lobular. This shouldn’t make any difference to the overall outcome of your treatment in terms of achieving a complete cure.” The nurse takes us to another room and gives us some booklets to read about having breast cancer and then we are back in the sunshine. Rather than go home we head for a restaurant to give us a place to sit and talk it over quietly. During the drive I keep saying to myself in my head ‘I have breast cancer’. It sounds so strange, so unlike me – I am the one who never gets anything. There is no incidence of it my family. My mother is 92 and apart from some age related problems and physical frailty, is doing very well. My maternal grandmother died at 92. My father at 93 albeit with, not of, prostate cancer but he didn’t get that until he was in his mid eighties. So where did this come from? Chance, lifestyle, environment, HRT – who knows? There is no point on dwelling on it. We will never know.
My biggest issues are now practical. I need to know what is happening and when, how it will affect my life, what arrangements I have to make about work, golf (my abiding passion and I had just been accepted for membership at a new club on 1 March after a year on the waiting list) – so the meeting with Mr P on Monday is critical for me to begin to feel in control of my life again.
I also have to decide how and who to tell, and when. We decide to wait until after Monday to tell any family and friends but I keep work in the loop for obvious reasons.
In the process my boss proves to be a great source of information and help as his wife has just finished a year’s treatment for breast cancer and he is very well informed and hugely sympathetic. My ultimate boss is also terrifically helpful as her mother has been through the whole thing as well. This support, and the fact that I work for a major pharmaceutical company with world class information resources on oncology, will prove to be one of the biggest factors in helping me deal with this ‘beastly disease’.
You can see from the use of terminology that I am starting to get underneath the simplistic explanations and learn about what I am facing. As I do so I become interested in the subject. Fear is replaced more by curiosity and the satisfaction of learning about something different.
On Saturday we travel up north to see my mother who is staying in a nursing home outside Crosby in Lancashire for a few weeks while my brother, who lives close to her, is away on a cruise. We don’t tell her anything as I she is inclined to panic and worry herself sick about this sort of thing and I want to work out if she needs to know at all. Similarly when we stay over with friends on the Saturday night in Manchester we keep it to ourselves and try and enjoy an early St Patrick’s Day party and a round of golf on Sunday. Not unexpectedly I play like a Muppet.
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