Having been told by my mum's gynae that I had lumpy breasts as a teenager and that was 'going to be problematic' in the future, I've always been wary, but not actually done anything about it. What was there to do? So when the first lumps appeared in 2008, I was all for having them removed. I was already jobless having been ill with a balance disorder from an ear infection brought on by being violently sea sick for a day and a half on a cruise in the med, so the lumps thing was just another terrifying layer of 'what next?' I did all the panic about mortality then, and then repeated it in 2012 and 2014 as I tried to get more lumps investigated and taken out. Except I didn't fit the right breast cancer profile. So my feeling now is that, after thirty years, my mum's gynae was right and in 2014 I was right, so I feel justified and vindicated for being worried. I was not mad. I was the high risk I thought I was. Everything I am dealing with at the moment has a sense of inevitability, of being on the cards and being something I was due to have to handle. So maybe that's why I'm not reeling in shock. I know my chances of survival are in the 80-90% bracket, and chances of a good quality of life after the main treatment pretty high. It's pretty probable the coming months will feel horrendous but will calm down. It's by no means the end of the world. Trump being elected has been far more life threatening than finding out I have cancer.
It's odd having my three closest friends all with PhDs and trained as anatomists; someone else very close who did her PhD in cancer drug delivery engineering; someone even closer who ran an oncology department even though he's a neurophysiologist; and another close friend, trained at MIT, who reads oncology research papers for fun and updates her dad, who taught oncology but has recently been having cancer himself. I am hugely luck and perhaps uniquely surrounded by really well-informed family and friends. Yet everything is so individual with cancer, with no two cancers and no two responses to treatment being the same, it's impossible for anyone to predict anything and I don't have the detail of a full diagnosis to activate the hive mind of technical advice, yet. So when I phoned them to warn them what was in the offing, I got unphased, unqualified understanding, love and detailed questioning, all of which I was grateful for. But, as ever with this cancer lark, the most useful information I've picked up on so far is from the stories of those living it at the moment.
So put the two aspects together and the phone round, which is still going on, gradually, has been pretty positive. People can hear I'm pretty together still, although I warn I may cave in completely once I start treatment (the great unknown), and I'm being pragmatic. Not having to worry about my reactions gives them a chance to have some very bizarre reactions of their own, knowing I will be unphased by them. So one person tried to ban me from posting anything on facebook in case I encountered 'difficult people' to deal with; another was more worried about the effects on younger children and younger adults who might not be able to process my situation; another told me exactly from whom to expect care and attention and demanded I should not to tell people who would not be interested in my situation as I might get hurt, er, somehow; and finally there was the very sweet friend who has recently been through several very tough bereavements, and who understandably jumped a few decades ahead and suggested I identify a spokesperson to deliver the bad news to everyone once I became too ill to communicate. All very valid and understandable reactions but not really things I will be dealing with at the moment.
The thing I appreciate more than ever, however, is that the people around me are more shocked and frightened by what I am telling them than I am. I have the luxury of being involved and to a large extent in control of what is going on and they have none of that. What is overwhelming to me, however, is their love and affection and I only wish I could be as good a friend or relative. I love them all to the ends of the world and back, far more than I can ever say, but that seems small recompense for the upset they are feeling at finding out someone who is a part of their worlds is the one of the one in two.
