Post Non-mastectomy Update

While I’m waiting for the SO to return from an appointment so we can go pay property taxes that I forgot to pay, I’ll see about getting out another update. I let the tax deadline pass by but I’m sure y’all can understand how that could happen.

It seemed that the longer I lived with the decision not to have the mastectomy the lighter I became. I only wish that would translate to actual physical lightness. I accidentally saw what I weighed at the last appointment and now I’m depressed about that. I haven’t weighed myself nor looked at the doctors’ scales in over a decade. Sigh.

Not everyone agreed with my non-mastectomy decision, of course, but if it makes me feel better – if not actually lighter – to forgo it, then for me it must be the right one.

And that means checking on radiation therapy and chemo again. I saw the oncologist yesterday and got the results of oncogene studies on the tumor.  Even without chemo there’s a less than 10% chance of recurrence. The way I see it, it took five years to get as big as it was the first time so it would take that long again, and given my age, something else is more likely to kill me than cancer. So, no chemo recommended.

Since there was no lymph node involvement and the chances of recurrence are so low, chemo is out and the next step seems to be radiation therapy. The "margins" aren’t as clear as radiologists would like but I’m hoping to talk them into it anyway. The surgeon agrees and said there’s just one small focal point that they might be willing to overlook.

After any radiation therapy will come hormone therapy. Hot flashes all over again. Double dam’! I expected to be finished with them after going through them the first time. Oh, well, hot flashes got nothin’ on cancer. *G*

And that’s the news until now. More to come as it occurs. Or something like that.

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Change of Mind

It’s been about three weeks since I decided to have a right simple mastectomy, which would have been done this coming Monday.

I say “would have been done” because I’ve decided to cancel the surgery. Input from several people varies from “I’d have it done” to “It’s up to you,” which, of course, isn’t anything other than I’d expected.

When I first decided to have the surgery, mastectomy seemed like the most likely, if not the best, option. I prepared for it in several ways, from considering the loss of a significant part of me to worrying about the scar to considering a tattoo to becoming an “Amazon.” (They were warrior women, you know, and according to legend had their right breast removed in order to facilitate use of the bow and arrow. No proof of that but legends get started for a reason.) I sort of liked the idea of being a warrior woman, of taking up archery!

As time went on, though, it became less of an exercise in potentials and more realistic in what it meant. I began to feel more weighed down by the idea and felt more and more that something – I couldn’t put a finger on what – felt off, not quite right. I still don’t know what that something is or was. I may never know.

I told myself it was just usual and normal second thoughts. Or maybe I was afraid and just didn’t feel it as fear. Maybe I wasn’t in touch with my real feelings, etc.

Here are some of the things I considered before changing my mind:

1. If it took five years or so, which is what the surgeon suggested, for this lump to get as big as it did, this cancer wasn’t very fast growing.

2. So, if it took five years to get this big, would it take five years to get that big again if it came back? And if it did, how much beyond that would it be before it killed me? I’d be 76 in five years, and while that’s not old by a long shot, even with cancer I could live a fairly long life until something else killed me.

3. Since there is no lymph node involvement, what are the odds that it’ll spread, whether fast or slowly?

4. There’s no guarantee that they haven’t already removed all the cancerous cells, just a bucket load of caution in case they didn’t.

5. I’m not afraid of being dead though I’m a bit squeamish about the mode of dying. Cancer is not nice.

So now I’m waiting for a call back from the surgeon to make sure she got my message. I’ve been having a bit of difficulty getting hold of someone to tell. Since I’m a big believer in “signs,” that might be one but I’m feeling that it’s not.

What I can say is that once I came to this decision, I immediately felt much lighter, as if a load I’d been carrying (for three weeks?) had been lifted. That’s a sign, too, and a welcome one. I think my Self/Soul agreed with me.

When I talk to the surgeon I’m gonna tell her my decision, see about regular followups, what they call “watchful waiting,” and take some actions that might or might not make a difference. I’m a believer in so-called alternative health methods and in a case like mine, where there isn’t any desperate life or death need for immediate surgery, I think that’s reasonable. She probably won’t agree but hey, it’s my breast and my life.

This is an instance where my blog title, Search for Soul, comes to mean something. And no matter what the ultimate outcome, this is a search for a soulful resolution.

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Grieving

This interlude before I have the final surgery has proven interesting to me. Up until now, things have been happening so quickly that decisions could and did come fast and without a great deal of thinking. That was OK, because even with the two previous surgeries, not much changed. I had a rather discrete 3” scar and basically, it wasn’t much different than deciding to have a callus removed.

However, losing a breast is not quite the same as removing a callus.

First, I just wanted to get it over with.

Then I thought about what I’d do afterward, hoping the scar wouldn’t be a big deal and thinking about whether or not I’d have the courage to get a tattoo.

And now it’s sinking in. A part of me is going to be gone, a part of me that I interacted with every day – even if just to cover with clothing – to never be seen again. Even if I’d have reconstruction (I probably won’t.), a reconstructed breast may look the same but it won’t be the same one.

Eventually I finally came to the realization that I had a vague feeling of grief over that. I’m going to lose a part of me. What does that mean? To me as a person, I mean.

I’m not good at grieving. I suspect that’s a fault I should rectify. Not that I haven’t had other losses, big ones, to be grieved, but that I don’t think I’ve done a good and complete job of grieving for any of them.

This is something I need to learn how to do.

And maybe that’s at least a part of the lesson here. To learn to grieve. Not to just keep a stiff upper lip or keep my chin up or make light of it or just move on.

So for the next two and a half weeks I intend to investigate that more fully. Just how do I grieve and what will I do?

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