The C-Word - Feb, 2007

Three years ago today, the doctor called from the radiology department to tell me my breast biopsy was malignant. It had all started a few weeks before, on January 12, when I had been in my doctor's office because I was convinced I had a urinary tract infection (UTI). I had had one before in my life, after giving birth by C-section, and my symptoms were identical. Nothing short of an infection requiring medication would have made me call my doctor - I had neither the time nor the inclination to go running to her for every little thing. (Oh, my, how things change....) While they had me on the phone, they asked if they could schedule me for a physical at the same time, since it had been two years since my last exam. I agreed - why not?

Interestingly, I didn't end up having a UTI. In fact, my symptoms completely disappeared a few hours after making my appointment. I did, however, keep the appointment, and it was during the manual breast exam that my doctor said, "Hmmm.... I feel a little lump here."

WHAT?

I looked at her and said, "Are you sure?" I realize this was a ridiculous question. Of course she was sure, or she wouldn't have said anything. I was just so stunned. I was 38 years old and having "a little lump" wasn't even on my radar as a possibility. She felt again, and assured me it was very small (about the size of a pea), but definitely there. In her opinion, it felt fibrous, was probably nothing to worry about, but as a precaution wanted me to have a mammogram.

I had the mammogram a couple of days later. I tried not to think about the possibilities while I waited for results, but at night in bed, my hand would involuntarily go to my right breast, and feel the lump. I did it again and again. Yep - it was still there, each and every time. It's not like I was expecting it to dissolve or something. That's not why I kept checking. It's that I had been invaded by this foreign enemy, which, in great part was an unknown quantity. And so I kept checking the two small things I knew about it - its size and position - to make sure they were the same.

It was a relief when the phone rang and the caller I.D. said it was the radiology department. With my heart pounding, I grabbed the phone, only to be told that my mammogram was "abnormal" and I needed to come back for a higher resolution mammogram in addition to an ultrasound. When I pressed the woman on the other end of the phone for an explanation of what "abnormal" was, she bent over backwards to tell me nothing. So I scheduled the next appointment.

The next mammogram showed white spots (calcium) throughout the breast, and the ultrasound showed a small mass, which showed up black against a white background. The radiologist took me back into his little cave after the exams. He put the films up on the light box and explained what I was seeing. He told me that calcium is almost always benign, but that calcium in combination with a mass is "suspicious findings." He said, "It doesn't mean that you have cancer, and it doesn't mean that you don't have cancer, it's simply suspicious findings." And so, we scheduled the biopsy.

Driving home from that appointment, that word, the C-word, kept bouncing around my head. He was the first person in this process who had actually said the word "cancer" to me. The others had seemed to shy away from the actual word, using other words that are less potent, like "abnormal",or "it's only a precaution" - words that won't incite panic in the listener. When the phone rang three years ago, I had been waiting four days for my biopsy results. They had told me it would be 48 hours, and so I was on pins and needles wondering what was causing the delay. When I said hello, the doctor said, "I wish I had good news for you." He told me the biopsy results were malignant. He read portions of the pathology report to me, because I kept asking questions. But the c-word was never spoken. He said everything but the word.

Although I had been so calm and collected during the call, when I hung up, I lay down on the couch and cried, silently praying that my children wouldn't come in and ask me what was wrong. I called my husband, my partner in all this, who I knew would be devastated. Then I had to call my parents, who had been praying for me, for good results. And when the moment came, I found I couldn't say the c-word either. "The doctor called," I told them. "It's malignant."