My Story

In early 2013 my left breast had been tender for about three weeks.  I kept poking at it, trying to figure out where and why it hurt.  And then one day I felt IT.  IT didn’t feel like any of those awful words: a tumor, a lump, a mass.  Or like crunchy peanut butter, which is what I had heard what breast cancer felt like.  IT was just something in the left breast that wasn’t in the right.

I immediately went to the Internet, as you do, and found that breast lumps are common in women 30-50 and pain is not usually a symptom of cancer.  Feeling confident IT was just “one of those things” and certainly not anything to be worried about, I set out to call the doctor.  Wait, which doctor do you call?  I decided to call my OB/GYN.

“Hi, I don’t know if I’m calling the right doctor, but I have something in my left breast that’s not in my right,” I said.

What the person on the other end was supposed to say was, “Oh, breast lumps are common in women your age, how does three weeks from now sound?”

Instead she said, “Can you come in first thing tomorrow?”

First there was the thin needle biopsy.  The pathology results were rushed, and an hour later I was sitting in the doctor’s office, fully expecting to hear anything but what was said.  Through tears, she told me I had abnormal ductal cells, probable ductal carcinoma.  She told me I had a lot of work to do, but I would be healthy again.

“Carcinoma?  But that means cancer?  What do you mean I’m not healthy?  I feel fine – there’s just something in the left that’s not in the right.”  I just couldn’t comprehend it.  I am only 31.  I am a completely healthy weight.  I eat a plant-based diet.  I don’t stand in front of the microwave when it’s on.  How can I freaking have a carcinoma?!?!?!?!

I was told to call my husband to come get me and go straight to an address scribbled on a post-it.  I can’t even start to tell you how hard that phone call was, so we’ll skip over it.

Cut to we round the corner to the address, and the doctor’s office has the word “breast” “oncologic” and crude drawing of a breast.

“If anyone tells me to ‘fight like a girl,’ I’m going to scream,” I muttered.

More tests, a painful core biopsy and an eternal four days later, I got the news – IT is a tumor.  IT is a lump.  IT is a mass.  IT is ductal carcinoma in situ – stage 0 breast cancer.

Three weeks later I was having a mastectomy.  Have I mentioned I’m only 31?!  Have I mentioned I have not yet had any children?

What I should mention is how eternally grateful I am to have a mother who taught me self-worth is not defined by how you look.  Eternally grateful.

What else I should mention is how grateful I am to have a husband who loves me for me.

When I was first diagnosed I thought there would be a multitude of resources available for young women with breast cancer.  I envisioned a number of blogs to follow, fashion tips, bras and swimsuits and special tank tops all for the young woman with breast cancer. 

What I found were practical bras in white or nude, occasionally black, occasionally lacey, but all screamed “medical supplies” and not femininity nor sensuality nor youth.  Think granny bra.

What I found were fashion tips on medical sites extolling the virtues of scarves and thick-strapped tank tops.

What I found were just a few blogs of women my age with breast cancer, and each one stopped abruptly or ended with a farewell.  Googling their names resulted in obituaries. 

I cried, hyperventilated, and cried some more. 

So here I am.  One-breasted.  Trying to figure out how to be a hip thirty-something with the constraints of my massive post-mastectomy bra.  Trying to navigate life post-breast cancer.  Trying to be the resource I so desperately wanted, so no one feels as alone as I have felt.