The day I was diagnosed

My sister Clare set up this blog for me last year, just days after I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  It has taken me a while, but I now feel that I'm ready to share my story. The past year hasn't been at all how I expected, I have now finished all my treatment and I'm feeling brilliant.  I'm not fighting back the tears as I write this, having had cancer doesn't make me particularly sad, at the moment it makes me incredibly grateful to be alive.  But I'll start back at the beginning, in the cold and dark month that was November 2013...

On Monday 11th November 2013 I was told I had breast cancer. I didn't feel like I had cancer, I felt really well, I'd been at the gym the day before, working up a sweat on the cross trainer. I was in total shock, it had been almost a week since I went to the hospital for my tests, but I just never believed it would be cancer.  Thinking about it now, the tests were pretty hardcore so they must have suspected something, but I was completely oblivious.  I had an ultrasound and they couldn't work out what my lump was, so they did a core biopsy, this involved a local anaesthetic and a scary contraption for gouging out a piece of tissue from inside my boob.  I took it all in my stride, totally convinced that my lump was a just a cyst and went back to get my results, on my own.

When you're told you have breast cancer the hospital are kind enough to make sure that there is someone in the room to help you digest the terrible news, they call them Breast Care Nurses, mine was called Nina... I hadn't told a single person that I had found a lump, or gone for tests, so this was the next painful hurdle, telling people.  Nina wouldn't let me think about going home that night without me arranging for someone to be there when I got back (I'm single and I live on my own) so I had to call my parents. Thinking about it now, I don't know how I did it, I don't know how I summoned the strength to press the buttons on my phone and physically get the words out.  I can't even remember what I said when my Dad picked up the phone. Whatever I managed to say obviously did the trick as they packed some things and drove straight to my house.

As I put the phone down, the enormity of what I had just been told finally sank in, and I started the real crying.  The real crying you expect to be doing when you've been given such awful news. Up until now it had just been a low level weeping,  but I couldn't hold back any more.  All the other reactions you think you might have just never appeared, I didn't fall on the floor, faint, or throw up, apart from a having good old cry I just sat there and calmly digested the facts.  I've only experienced this level of sadness about my illness a couple of times, you would think it might be more, I was surprised, it is cancer after all....In those early days I focussed on the long months of treatment I had ahead of me, I felt like I should be saving the hysterical sobbing and dramatics for times when it might be required, I had 4 months of chemo ahead, my hair was going to fall out, I would have a boob chopped off, if I sunk to the depths of despair at the very start, where else was there for me to go?

At this point Nina came in to her own, she gave me a hug and got me some tissues! People have asked why I didn't tell anyone that I was going for tests because then I might have had someone with me for the results, but in hindsight I don't see how that would have helped, who wants to witness that? Someone you love receiving that kind of news? I'm so glad nobody else was there, nobody else has to lie awake at night playing the moment back in their mind like a sad movie.

I stayed at the hospital for about an hour, they wanted me to have a mammogram and do a test on my lymph nodes as they suspected the cancer had spread there too.  I felt so guilty walking between the rooms at the hospital with tears streaming down my face, there were worried looking non-cancer ladies sat in the waiting room about to have their tests, I probably put the fear of god into them.  I asked Nina if I had mascara all down my face, she said I looked fine, I asked her if I was going to get into trouble as my pay and display ticket had run out, she told me not to worry.
I had a chat with the surgeon who told me I would definitely need chemotherapy, this would be starting first, before the surgery and probably radiotherapy afterwards. They wanted to try and shrink my lump (it measured about 5cm on scans) before operating.  I would probably have 6 sessions of chemo, at 3 weekly intervals. I was worried how I was going to cope with chemotherapy, I have a proper phobia of being sick. They sent me home with a handful of leaflets, I had so much to learn about cancer and all the treatments I would be having.

I remember everything about it that night, exactly what I was wearing, what was on the radio when I drove home, but most of all I remember that it wasn't the gut wrenching, soul crushing, despair ridden time I expected it to be.  When I got home my parents were already there, I had some food, a glass of wine and watched 'you've been framed', I think I might have even laughed a few times.