Let’s quickly go back to the night before we received the news. The night before we got the call with my results we (Nick and I) sat and joked about it, we thought about names for the mass in my breast and made other jokes. Firstly, that’s the kind of couple we are, we joke and laugh and look at everything with humor, especially me. Secondly, there was a part of the joking that made it easier, we felt like everything was going to be fine and that everything would be benign and normal. Why would we think anything less? I was going to be fine, it couldn’t possibly be cancer, it just couldn’t be. Thirdly, I think we both knew that something didn’t feel right with the mass or with the air around us, it’s almost as if we already knew what they would be telling us. Therefore, joking about it made it feel like it would make the news easier or something because we would already have a name for it and a way to joke about it. Unfortunately, at first, it wasn’t as easy as we thought it might be, even with all the joking we did.
For me, the night before the call I had a lot of thoughts go through my mind. As I continue to mention, there was something that just made me feel like I already knew it was cancer and that this wouldn’t turn out to be nothing. I sat there on our couch laughing with Nick and making jokes all the while also wondering how I would make the calls to people, how was I going to tell people that I had CANCER?? How? See, up to this point we hadn’t even told anyone I found a lump in my breast. We had told three people and that was it, because again, we didn’t think that anything would be wrong and why scare everyone for no reason? So when I was thinking about being diagnosed, I couldn’t even imagine how to tell people and have to tell them that I knew for months that I had a lump. I knew some people would be upset, but there was nothing I could do about that. Mostly, I just knew people would likely be shocked, because we hadn’t shared what we had been going through for the last few months.
Well, that Friday finally came and while I was at work the call finally came from my doctor and I could tell by the tone in her voice something wasn’t right. She started telling me that the one mass was benign and that’s when I knew… when she didn’t say that everything was normal or benign I knew that it was cancer. She continued to tell me that the mass I found and my lymph node were positive for cancer and a part of me stopped listening to her. I tried to listen, I tried not to cry, I tried to just process what was happening and how I was going to tell Nick. All I wanted to do was hang up the phone, cry, put myself together and call Nick. Towards the end of the call I started to get choked up and I couldn’t last on the phone much longer so she gave me a little more info about calls that would be coming to me and offered for me to call her back if I needed to. I hung up the phone, put my head in my hands and just cried. All the questions from the night before came back, wondering how I could have cancer? How could this be happening to me? Had I done something to deserve this? How was I going to tell people? How in the hell was I going to tell Nick? How the hell was I going to tell the people that I love that I was about to go down a road I’d never thought I would be going down?
I eventually calmed myself, somehow, and picked up my phone and texted Nick to make sure he could talk and that he wasn’t driving. He said to call and so I did, he barely answered the phone and I lost it. I began to cry and all I could tell him was that I just spoke with the doctor and it was breast cancer. I couldn’t get anything else out, all I could do was cry. He didn’t waste time thinking about what needed to be done, he was coming to my work. He told his boss, who we are good friends with, what had been going on earlier in the week so he knew that we were waiting for news. Nick called his boss and told him the news and said he was leaving to come to me at my job. I hung up with him and made my next hardest call, to two of my best friends. I texted Reegan and Nick and asked them if they were both available for a call and if I could put them on a three-way call. For this call I tried to be a little stronger and tried really hard not to cry, these were two people who meant the world to me and are people I consider family. I knew that them living states away was not going to help during this call because they couldn’t be with me, so this call was killing me. I told them the news and they did everything they could to stay strong and be positive and tell me I would beat this cancer and that they would be there every step of the way in some fashion. We hung up and I told them I would call them when I knew more. Next, I knew I had to find one of my other best friends who knew I was waiting results and I also knew that I had to tell my boss what was going on because I knew I wouldn’t be at work long. As I stepped out of my office there was Tad, my other best friend, I looked at him with tear filled eyes and asked if he had a minute. He stepped into my office and all I did was cry, I couldn’t even get the words out. He basically had to decipher the situation and ask me if the doctor called and said it was cancer; in which I was able to at least reply yes. I gave him a little more information and told him that Nick was on his way to the hospital and asked if he could help him get into the lab as I needed to go to my bosses office.
Now, I am not going to go down the list of all the people I told and how I told them but telling people was such a hard thing to do. The weirdest thing about it was that I didn’t even feel like it was me speaking. It was as if I had left my body and was watching someone else tell a story about how they had cancer, or I was reading a book or something. It just never felt like it was truly me telling the story and saying the words “I was diagnosed with breast cancer.” I felt like I was lying, I just didn’t feel like it was true and sometimes still today I don’t feel like it was true. Finding out you have cancer, at least for me, was an out of body experience. Nothing felt real, everything was a blur, all the words I was saying sounded muffled or wrong because there was no way this was true and happening to me. That whole day was so unreal, all the phone calls and all the questions and all the unknown for me and for those around me. At that point all I knew was that I had cancer, I knew nothing else at that point. When that is all the info you have it makes everything that much harder and that much scarier because you don’t know what is about to happen to you.
With much understanding and compassion from the few colleagues I chose to confide in, they all allowed me to head home with Nick and they also let Tad leave work. However, home was not where we were headed, somewhere with alcohol was where we were heading. A drink was definitely in order and sitting around talking about all of our questions and all of the unknown was actually helpful. Tad helped to keep Nick and I grounded, the alcohol helped too, but just being able to talk out loud and start getting used to our new situation was helpful. One of the things that came up though was our wedding… we were supposed to be getting married in a few months. In fact, we were supposed to be having a details meeting on the 19th of January to discuss all the details of our upcoming nuptials. How could we plan and have a wedding while going through cancer? We weren’t sure what our plan was but it was crazy and it made me feel worse. How could I be diagnosed with cancer the year I was to be marrying my best friend, how could I do this to him? Yes, I know it isn’t my fault but there’s a lot of questions and statements that come with cancer surrounded around guilt.
Well, while getting drinks that night we got the call from University that helped me set up my multi-disciplinary appointment date for January 11th. At least we knew that soon we would have answers, it felt like it was a year away and it felt like it took forever to get there but finally that date came. We were fortunate enough to have our friend Nick’s mom, Kim, come and be with us at our appointment. This was a woman that both of us had grown very close with, especially me, and I didn’t ask her to be there, she just bought a ticket and came out. She had previously worked at Mayo Clinic in the Cancer unit so I knew that she would be helpful for us. She could help explain things we didn’t understand and it was going to help to have someone there to recap the day for us or ask questions we didn’t think of. That whole day was almost a blur as well, doctors and residents in and out explaining my type of cancer and my treatment plan. I did pretty well most of the day until my oncologist started to talk about the two type of chemo that I might be getting, then it hit me. I realized I was going to go through chemo, I would experience a type of sick I’d never had, I’d lose my hair and I would be getting poison put in my body because I had cancer. There have been many points through this process where randomly it hits me that “holy shit! I have cancer! This is me we are talking about and this is me that is going to be going down this road.” It’s tough, but I also knew I had a lot of people by my side, my prognosis was good and I knew that I was strong enough to survive.
Once we learned of what my treatment plan looked like, we made the decision to cancel the wedding. I couldn’t handle going through chemo and planning a wedding. I also didn’t know how I would react to chemo and I didn’t want to be sick at my wedding and I certainly didn’t want photos from that day where I looked sick. It was probably one of the hardest decisions we had to make because it was supposed to be one of our happiest days of our lives, the day where we truly started our life journey together. We had a lot of plans for 2017, getting married, traveling, buying a house and so much more and now that had all changed. It actually changed in just the first six days of the new year, that was the weirdest part for me. We just barely started the new year, how could it have gone so wrong so fast? Although we were cancelling the wedding, we did know that we wanted to get married before I started chemo. We wanted to go through this journey as husband and wife and fight together, and I think Nick wanted to make sure I knew that he was there for me, no matter what. We didn’t know what any of the next steps would bring but we both knew we wanted to be by each others sides for it. Nick was signing on for a lot more than me though, but that’s a whole other entry.
Since Nick and I were still getting used to the news ourselves, we’re still gaining information and still had close family and friends we needed to tell we decided that we weren’t going to announce anything public yet. Therefore we asked everyone we had told to please keep our secret until we were ready. I know that must’ve been hard for some but we weren’t ready for the world to know yet, there were still a lot of unanswered questions and we still had a lot to decide between Nick and I on what we wanted to do and how we wanted to handle this. We did finally choose a date for the announcement, or I did really, it was January 22. I co-host on a podcast occasionally (Two Girls and a Bottle of Wine) and I had an upcoming ‘appearance’ at the end of the month. I decided that would be the day it all became public. I would let Janet (the main host) know and we would discuss it on the podcast and when I got home that night I would post all the information and then she would post our podcast later that night or within a few days.
Between the dates of January 11th and January 24th we went through a world wind of appointments, emotions and decisions; everything happened kind of fast actually. To try and give a short version goes like this:
- We found out the full details and stage of my cancer
- We did genetic testing on me to see if I carried the breast cancer gene and to see if I was at risk for any other types of cancers (everything was negative, even the BRCA genes
- We found out my treatment plan : chemo, mastectomy, radiation, reconstruction surgery, maintenance meds through my port for a year and oral meds after for five to ten years
- I would need to have a port placed in my chest as soon as possible after January 11th so I could start chemo
- I had to work with my job as fast as possible to determine how my FMLA would work and what I needed to do to get started
- We had a details meeting for our wedding where we told them our situation and decision to cancel the wedding until we were in a better place
- I had plans to have a bachelorette party in the mountains on January 20th that would now be a pre-chemo party
- Nick and I also decided that we would still get married, even if it wasn’t going to be the way we wanted.
Needless to say we were dealing with a lot in a short amount of time and had a lot of decisions to make. After all of the above was done we decided it was time to announce it on social media and make things “official”. I wrote up a little statement to describe what had happened since the beginning of the year, which you can see at the bottom of my About Me page, and we posted it. As I mentioned above, I decided the day of the podcast would be the day I would post everything, my sweet and amazing friend Janet had no idea what I was planning at the time. I just told her I had some important news to share and I was hoping she would allow me to do so during the podcast. When I got to her house and told her she was extremely graceful enough to let me break/share the news on her podcast as well. It was posted after my announcement, but this gave people a chance to hear me talk about my new situation.
Once everything was out in the open and more of our friends, family and co-workers knew we received an outpouring of support and seven months later it has not stopped. The support we have received grows every day and we were a little shocked at first but so grateful for everyone who offers their kind words or gifts or hugs or whatever. It really has been amazing. So yes, it has been seven months since I was originally diagnosed and its amazing that recalling my days and my moments has not left me. I can recall everything as if it happened yesterday. My entire journey I wanted to start a blog or website of some sort and document what I was feeling and going through, for a variety of reasons, but I was often sick or tired and just couldn’t find the energy. However, here we are, now recalling our moments and process and I am getting to slowly transfer my personal journal that I wrote in on to this site. So much has changed since the beginning of this year but I would say it’s been worth it; and hopefully my blog posts explain why I would ever say that. To end this entry, I leave you with a quote that is more true every day and a quote that has consistently pushed me forward each day and kept me positive is
“I am not grateful for cancer, but I am grateful for what it has taught me.”