May 7: Day One

Today I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The possibility has been looming since November when I went to my doctor because I was having breast pain. I underwent a series of no fewer than five ultrasounds and as many or more mammograms. I developed mastitis. The folks at the Women’s Diagnostic Clinic knew me by name. And in January, because my OBGYN LPN wasn’t happy with just leaving my negative mammograms and ultrasounds alone, I went to see a breast surgeon. He looked at my films and pronounced me “probably just fine” and scheduled a three-month check up. It was on the three-month check up, that I scheduled a month or so overdue, that the cancer was detected. Ironically, I had been concerned over the left breast, but everyone else seemed hung up on a golf-ball sized lump in my right. She’s still there, the Titelist lump, but it’s the irregular mass in my left breast that when biopsied turned out to have ductal carcinoma.

This journey that is only just beginning has been peopled with the very best folk that the medical profession have to offer. Even my LPN at Total Woman clearly cared about my health in a way that you don’t see all that often. I say “even her” because every time I went to Total Woman, I swore I’d never go back. I never waited less than an hour to see a doctor. The general staff there never offered so much as an apology for all the time wasted. And frankly, my OBGYN herself wasn’t exactly the picture of bedside manners; in fact a year ago, I asked if I should start having mammograms and she told me to wait until I was 35. But the LPN knew what she was talking about.

I can’t imagine how many techs at Women’s Diagnostic I’ve interacted with. And even though this may be a misconception, I feel like I have one tech in particular to be grateful for. Julie, who ran my follow-up ultrasound, the ultrasound that I believed would release me from concern for at least another year, was the one who saw the lump and who disappeared for a half hour (I admit I was annoyed, not knowing why she was gone) to corral a doctor and confirm her suspicions. It was Dr. Stevens who was impossibly sweet—it’s hard to imagine a doctor with a kinder, more soothing tone—and urged me to immediate action. And today, when Dr. Stevens went home sick, it was Dr. McLaughlin, the first doctor I dealt with there, who called me, unbidden, to express his sadness at my news and answer any questions that I have.

Today was a tough day at school. I was waiting for the biopsy results and found out that my job next year was changing and that I would have to share my teaching of American Lit with Marti, an iconic, brilliant teacher who intimidates me to no end—part my insecurities, part her personality. She is not a woman with whom I share a good relationship, although I’ve been making a concerted effort all year long. All day we went back and forth together about next year; honestly, I was trying to please her, but I was also on the defensive. And when the news came, she had just left me, and I knew she was just next door, and without thinking I went straight to her. With the most intimate, personal news possible. I find it hard to believe. But I went in her room and I just said, “I just found out I have breast cancer.” And she hugged me and she said, “But you won’t soon. It will all be okay.”

I had to then enter my classroom half full of next period’s student. I wasn’t crying. I didn’t really cry until around a half an hour ago. But I was struck. “Are you ok?” asked Katie Beth.

“I just got some really sad news.”

It was hard not to tell her. Honestly, if I had to choose a single kid to confide in, it might be Katie Beth. She asked me what I was wrong and I said that I couldn’t talk about it now. And not wanting her to think that I didn’t trust her or care about her, I touched her arm and whispered, “We’ll talk about it later, I promise.” Because we will. At some point, I’ll have to tell them all. I don’t want to just disappear. Lord knows, should anything terrible come of this, I don’t want to be the teacher who just disappeared.

Before I got the news, between the troubling ultrasound and the biopsy, I’ve thought a lot about that—what do I tell my kids? How do I deal with these last few weeks of school before summer? If I had my druthers, I’d just pronounce class over. They’ve been a great class. We learned a lot. They’ve jumped through all the hoops I’ve set before them. Let’s just call it a day. But that’s not my decision to make.

I came straight home and told Jason and the day has unfolded quietly since then. My mother was stronger than I had given her credit for being. Beth called. Pat and Ralph just emailed. I puttered in the garden for a while. And I cried after watching the season finale of Eli Stone.

Probably not a wise viewing choice, but how was I to know that he would nearly die and only be brought back by his will to live and the strength of love of his friends and by his faith in God and his knowledge that he had done good and still had more good to do??

Because those are the kinds of questions that I’m stuffing down right now. Should this turn out badly, how strong is my will to live? I don’t have many friends and my family is so far away. I don’t have a family of my own to live for. My faith in God is weak and utilitarian. How much good have I done? The answer is not much. And while I have always believed in my potential to good or even great things, I’ve not done much to live up to even a meager shred of that potential.

So I’m frightened. Not about what it is but what it may be. If it is just this, I can be strong, I can power through this. If it is something worse, I worry about my own determination and faith. Not just in something greater than myself, but in myself.