Have you ever seen a movie where someone walks down a hall with doors on both sides and they open one take a step through the door and fall? That is what hearing the diagnosis that I had cancer was like. It felt like my life ended, my Dad had cancer and he died at 47. I am only 35, I just adopted 3 kids and now I have cancer. What kind of cruel joke was this?
Someone once told me that Cancer is like a one way door, once you walk through it nothing is ever the same and you cannot go back to life before the big C.
When I woke from surgery and saw my mom and sister with my husband I do not remember if anyone actually told me I had breast cancer or not. The rest of the day was kind of a blur, I could not truthfully tell you truthfully I cried, swore or just sat there quietly. The next thing I remember is the next day or two in shock. If you remember I had my lumpectomy (the surgery where they removed the tumor) on December 29th so my biopsy pathology was due back in 48 hours. That made New Year’s Eve 2005 the day that I would find out more about my cancer or so I thought.
Would it surprise you that most doctors do not work on New Year’s Eve? I called the pathology lab myself and they said that they were not able to give me the results I would have to wait until the next week when the doctor’s office re-opened. If you know me at all I do not do well with waiting. Patience is definitely not one of my best qualities. I drove to the hospital and walked up to the front desk and demanded to find the nurse or doctor in charge of the hospital or I was not going to leave. They did find me the Charge Nurse who tried to talk me out of getting my own results. When she realized that was not going to work she gave in and went down to the lab and got my results for me.
She was actually very kind she sat there while I read the report confirming the cancer. Maybe I had to see it in writing to be sure the frozen biopsy was not wrong before I accepted it. I sat in the waiting room at the front of the hospital on New Year’s Eve crying my eyes out with a total stranger. I think everyone coming in that day must have thought someone I loved died and that was why I was crying. In a way they would have been right, I was crying for the cancer free me was no longer there.
No longer was I a mom of three, now I was a mom of three kids under five with cancer.