The Diagnosis
My mom and husband accompanied me to my first ever oncology appointment. I still couldn’t believe I just registered to be a cancer patient. After check-in I sat down and studied each patient waiting with me, taking note that no one seemed to look my age. I was looking for someone like me, someone I could make eye contact and smile at, like we’re in this together. But the waiting room had a half dozen or so grandmas and grandpas, casually watching TV or messing with their canes. I made an assumption they were in pure acceptance they were cancer patients. Their time wasn’t cut short like potentially mine was.
The morning before, when I received the phone call to tell me I had cancer, the doctor advised me not to look up anything on the internet, and I abided by that suggestion. But my husband did not, and it was clear that whatever he saw was devastating.
At this point, all I knew was that I had Triple Negative breast cancer, and in this appointment we were going to find out specifics. Stage, life expectancy, treatment plan… We funneled into the small room that had a couch and 3 chairs in a circle. We took our places, me on the couch closet to where the doctor would presumably sit. And we waited in silence. I breathed shallow, life was on pause until we could find out more about my future. The thought crossed my mind that other young moms funneled into this same room and were told worst case scenerio.
One of my very best friends’ friends’ had just died of breast cancer 6 months before and that was the only point of reference I had. Hearing success stories was new to me, and an unbelievable comfort.
Waiting, I wasn’t scared. Numb? Or stoically optimistic maybe? I had a strong will to live, and regardless of what they told me I was hopeful to beat the odds, no matter what they were. The outcome of that appointment wasn’t about to change my plight. I despised using words like fight or battle to describe cancer disappearing from your body. I read somewhere early on to consider using words to nourish the body to promote healing, like ‘restore my health’. That felt more triumphant. Because deep down I understood that I got myself into this mess by taking by body for granted, and what my body created, with proper nourishment my body could destroy.
The 2 doctors knocked on the door and walked in as I felt the wind knock out of me. I thought, “Here we go, here we go, fuck fuck fuck.” I searched for answers on their faces, my surgeon wore a face of solidarity, but I couldn’t tell if it was the fact that I was a young woman in an oncology room in the first place, or the results she was holding in her hand didn’t look good.
“Have your ears been ringing, because we’ve been discussing how to move forward with your case since yesterday. It’s unique.” The Oncologist continued, “We got your results back from pathology and your cancer is considered Triple Negative, a very aggressive form of cancer and it’s stage 2, 1 mm away from being considered Stage 3”. I didn’t know much about the stages of cancer but I knew enough to know that she didn’t say Stage 4, which, at the time, I considered a sure death sentence.
She was a pro, like she perfected the delivery of this news. She was calm and matter of fact and stated “…and it’s curable in a lot of cases,” and the breath exited my lungs for the first time. My mom and husband buckled over and loudly wept in their chairs... The damn broke. The relief flowed out as we learned I had a good chance. I think I had hung on to hope, but it felt like that was their first experience to actually get a little hope themselves.
The rest of that appointment doesn’t matter, I have no other memories from it. We knew what we were dealing with and had a plan.
