A Cactus to Remember
Last April, a friend of mine gave me a “booby cactus” to commemorate my first year being cancer-free. This April, it’s officially the longest I’ve ever kept a plant alive, which serves as a great tribute to my second year.
It was 9 days after my 42nd birthday and a month into the pandemic when my boyfriend, Cai, discovered the lump in my right breast. It felt like a peanut lodged directly above my nipple, and you really had to push down hard to find it again. We talked about our concerns of me going to see a doctor, not wanting to go to a place overrun by COVID cases. Thankfully, the nurse I talked to explained that Kaiser had certain facilities designated for COVID-related issues, while other facilities had Urgent Care departments set up specifically for all other health concerns.
I remember having to show the Urgent Care doctor where the lump was, because he couldn’t feel it on his own. I had to do the same for the cancer surgeon as well, which made me realize just how lucky I was that Cai felt it in the first place. The surgeon told me only 10% of breast cancer cases are found that way—normally the issue is discovered through testing. Cai now proudly calls himself a “private inbreastigator.” LOL
The Urgent Care doctor ordered an ultrasound of the area, and from that result they scheduled a biopsy. The funny thing is, I wasn’t too worried about it at that point, because everyone told me those things often turned up benign, especially at my age. But 2 days later, on a Friday afternoon, they called to inform me I had invasive ductal carcinoma.
I hung up the phone in a daze and sat there for a few minutes before going to tell Cai. We were both working from home at the time, and in hindsight it was a relief to be home when I got the call. I told him the news, cried for a few minutes, then called my mom and sisters to tell them. I had an appointment with the cancer surgeon the next Tuesday to find out all the details of my prognosis and started the five scariest days of my life.
It’s a strange thing coming to terms with your own mortality, especially when it’s shoved in your face with one phone call. It’s one thing to experience the loss of loved ones—it’s another to think that loved one might be you. Not knowing what kind of breast cancer it was or what stage it was at, I wanted to be prepared for anything, so I started doing online research. Of course, we all know the horror stories on the internet (although I already knew it was cancer, so that issue was resolved) and eventually I had to stop before I made the situation worse. I tried to focus on work and TV shows as distractions, but any solutions to resolve the misery had to wait.
Thankfully, on that Tuesday, most of the solutions were revealed as easy ones. The size of the tumor suggested it hadn’t spread so it was Stage 1. It was estrogen and progesterone-receptor positive, which is the least aggressive kind of breast cancer. And as long as my genetic test returned with no specific cancer-risk markers (which it did, all clear) then I could have a lumpectomy with no need for reconstructive surgery. It was like, hey, if you’re gonna get breast cancer, this is the way to go!
That’s why I’ve decided my next project is going to be a satirical self-help book entitled, How to Have Your Best Breast Cancer. Enough time has passed now where I can look back at the whole experience with relief and humor and connect with other breast cancer survivors. And there are a lot of details that would take up pages and pages here!
Two years later, I look at my “booby cactus” and smile. It’s flourishing on its sunlit perch and I make sure to water it every couple of weeks. And as someone who had cancer, I have to take the same regular care of myself. I’m on hormonal therapy, I go to see my oncologist every 4 months, and my private inbreastigator takes his job very seriously. I started dieting and exercising and have lost 30 pounds so far. And I decided that life is too short to not give this author thing, this passion of mine ever since I was little, a serious try. It’s much more work than I was doing before, sure, and breast cancer will always be a part of my medical record. But I was lucky enough that it’s only a small part of my history, and I get to write the rest.