Three Ectomies

This blogging thing is completely new to me, so if I come across as complaining or whiney, that is not my intention. Nor is it my intention to appear negative about my Life or the lives of others.




I received an email comment about my last blog. It came from, of all people, my mother. She felt compelled to write to me and tell me that I am not a loser or an underachiever. Gotta love your mom, right? I do love her and I thought long and hard about some of the things she pointed out to me.



Today was a weird day. It started out raining and then just tapered off to cool. I went to Wal-mart with my hubby and my youngest. When we walked in, it was like a chilly fall day. When we left, there was snow and ice blowing sideways. I was immediately baffled because I could have sworn the weather forecast was the 60’s for most of this week. Just goes to show you, Mother Nature has her own agenda.



So this evening, as the snow began to subside, I was left with this wintry doldrumy kind of feeling and really wasn’t even in the mood to write. But I thought about a comment my eleven year-old made to me yesterday. I was looking something up online and he walked into my office and stood behind me for a second before asking, “What’s a hysterectomy?” I tried my best to explain it in a way that wouldn’t emotionally scar him for Life. Then he replied “You’ve had all these ‘ectomies’… that’s weird” before leaving the room. I just sat there and thought about it. Then I thought about what my mother had written to me.



I guess when listing my accomplishments, I neglected to add one thing. I had cancer. There. I said it. It really sucked. I know there are a lot of words in the English language I could choose to describe it, and some people might say I’m being lazy to pick such a menial sort of phrase, but really – it just sucked.



I felt a lump in my chest around April. It was in a strange spot, nestled in the inner quadrant of my left breast, but almost appearing to be on the chest bone. It was just to the left of the center of my chest. It wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t small, either. It felt hard, like a golf ball. I imagine it had been there for some time and I had felt over the course of the previous months, but because of the location, I must have reconciled that it was part of my chest bone, until it started to grow and made it’s presence known. I went to the doctor, who told me she did not think it was cancer because cancer usually doesn’t start there or look like that. I felt reassured but decided it must come out because whatever it was – it was an intruder and not welcome. I had a mammogram and an ultrasound on both breasts. ‘Ectomy #1’ – the lumpectomy.



I got the results on May 13, 2009. It was cancer and it was in both breasts. Driving home from the doctor, all I could think of was “I’m going to die. I’m going to die and my boys won’t remember me after a few years. Henry might because he’s older, but George is only three and he won’t remember me. All the time I’ve spent with him, all the times I’ve fed him and changed him and bathed him and he’s going to forget me because I’m going to die” I was shocked and pissed and sad and angry. I didn’t know exactly what to do, but I knew that I would figure it out. I had to.



I immediately ran to my computer, which had always been a great source of information. Under the comfort of anonymity, I surfed every site dedicated to cancer, trying to figure out what the hell to do. I read posts from survivors; I read posts from the terminal. I read pages on curing cancer naturally. I read those from traditional schools of treatment. There was so much information out there that most nights I went to bed with my head spinning. And I would cry almost every night because I didn’t know what to do and was scared.



After meeting with doctors and researching my options, I decided to remove the breasts and opted for immediate reconstruction. ‘Ectomy #2’ – the mastectomy. June 26, 2009.



Silly me. I thought removing what the cancer was in was going to be enough. I had been diagnosed as Stage 1 with no lymph node involvement. Never did I realize the breast tissue that had been removed could come back with ‘positive margins’, but it can. My doctors told me I should now do chemo and radiation. What? (Actually I think my reaction was more like “What the f%#@?!!!” They couldn’t be serious. At that point I had enough of the mammograms, ultrasounds, cat scans, MRI’s, blood tests and pathology. I didn’t care if I had positive margins for DCIS, I wasn’t going to put poison and radiation into my body. I refused any further treatment and decided I would take matters into my own hands through supplements and PH balancing.



Just when I thought I was in the clear, I get a letter from my oncologist telling me to come in for a follow-up. I knew what she wanted. She wanted me to subscribe to five years of a drug called Tamoxifen. This because my cancer had been estrogen-driven. “Absolutely not.” I told her. “I haven’t read anything good about that and I haven’t spoken with anyone who had a good experience with it.” What are my options? Take out the ovaries and eliminate 90% of the estrogen in my body. ‘Ectomy #3 – the hysterectomy. March 8, 2010. I did the whole kit and caboodle to eliminate cervical and uterine cancers in the future.



So where I had been critical of my accomplishments, my mother had praised me for getting through this past year. But I didn’t see the whole ‘cancer’ thing as cause for praise. It was merely self-preservation to the highest degree. Did I feel as though I faced down my own mortality? You bet your ass. Until you are sitting in a doctor’s office and here the words “You have cancer”, you’ll never know real fear. Fear of the unknown, fear that you haven’t done what you wanted in your Life, fear you’ll never see your kids grow up, fear you haven’t made your mark…



I could post a pink ribbon on my blog and link it to a thousand sites related to breast cancer. But I won’t. I could call myself a survivor, but I’d rather say I’m just happy to be alive – for now, anyway.

I didn’t mean for this blog to be a bummer and I promise my next one will have more humor in it. But I guess I wanted to put this out there so anyone reading this (is anyone reading this other than my mother?) could understand a little more about where I’m coming from. I’m thinking of changing the name of my blog. Not because my mother doesn’t think I’m an underachiever, but maybe because after taking a good look at where I’ve been and what I’ve been through… I don’t see myself as one.



Thanks for reading.



Kim