One week: 18th March
I have a week left until something – and everything – changes.
Unfortunately I have way too much medical knowledge. Most women in this situation must feel they've woken up in a foreign land, no Google Translate in this swampy, desolate landscape. A sea of grey clay and an endless piece of glass between them and the trees just budding delicately into a spring gentleness on the other side.
Their only guide is the doctor in front of them uttering soothing words about “early stage”” and reassuring sentences about the chemo getting you to the nirvana of “no visible signs of disease”, after which the ops and further treatments spreading vaguely into the distance will leave you in a state of health where your life expectancy is as good as theirs.
The catch is the small word “if”. Said quickly: with your emotional pitch so high you might miss it. But this progression is still predicated on “if”. In my case, the “if” still covers an MRI and a new ultrasound request. The PET CT showed some sign of nodal involvement, which could be because of the biopsy and markers (local swelling response to that particular piece of invasion). Or it could not. And that takes me from a Stage 1 (the docs don't like to use the staging system any more as it is a clunky definition – but it's a brutal striation of my chances) to a Stage 2. It would mean a change of regime, with an op first, then a wait, then chemo. An op that will gnarl up my armpit and reduce movement in my arm for a long time.
Equally, my lovely oncologist, in doing a physical exam, said that the lump feels more like 3cms, not 1.2 as on the ultrasound. And that makes me doubt the radiologist the first time around, who admittedly was quite scatty – she forgot to do markers, so had to go back in and do two more biopsies to put them in place – four shots of the gun into my breast. Ow. And the first one was without enough local, so it bloody hurt.
You can see where this all goes in my overactive brain. I'm not there listening to the honeyed words, I'm looking for the shows, the tells, the ticks that really reveal your chances. My poker brain is on fire. Each little flinch, each hesitation or tiny eye-widening is a nail in my coffin, and I can't hear the comfort in them telling me this is early stage. It is until it isn't.
We had a photographer take some photos of us on Sunday, someone who might take the photos for our wedding. S and me. And the dogs. Just in our place, cutting bread, walking out into the garden. They are lovely, and I think they show our love, our equal intimacy and trust. We look happy, and well, and joyous. I have hair! All things that we are, just with a horrendous weight attached now. I'm sitting here with tears running down my face, and the happiness hurts. But at least I get to experience this love, this joy, this sense of belonging. Home with S, my soulmate and now my anchor.
Enough for now, I have to get my son up for school.