Three days before Christmas I answered the phone to the Consultant. The same person who operated on me just under 4 weeks ago. She rang with ‘good news’. There was no cancer found in the breast tissue removed from my lumpectomy. I already knew there was no cancer found in my nodes when I was having my operation so this as you could say is the cherry on top of the icing on top of the cake!
All good. I did cry relieved tears. I’d convinced myself this was going to be the case so to be honest it didn’t come with the full effects good news should represent. It just clarified what I already felt.
So, as my positive attitude made friends with the ‘good news’ – I soon recovered and asked her what this means for my next step.
This is where it gets soar. She rebuked me for not taking more time to digest the news. I felt about 4 years old, having my hand slapped for getting caught in the biscuit jar.
I am a 47 year old woman with a bruised and blue right breast, showing signs of the chemo kicking I have endured, but feel like a naughty child. I don’t want to be told I need more time to take on board MY good news. I want to do it my way. The only way I know to. You think you’d know how you would react when something major gets presented in your life? Trust me. Until you are there, don’t bother second guessing. You’ll be miles off. I want answers. I want to ask her that as they found no cancer in my nodes at pre-chemo biopsy and during the operation, does that mean it hasn’t spread? Believe me the child I’ve become on the end of the phone has a good go. I get half way through stumbling through my question when I’m put down again.
‘Heidi I have told you there was nothing found in the lymph nodes haven’t I?’ ‘Heidi, I have told you, you are node negative, you have to look forward now – be positive’.
Be positive? If she had actually listened to me and knew me in the slightest, she would know damn well I’ve been positive throughout this shitty invasive experience. I want to know the answer to this question and I don’t think I am being unreasonable opening up this discussion. This is my body – my fear – and I want you to give me some answers, or at least chat this worry through with me. I have spent the best part of 2020 with this running loose in my mind and this woman could help me settle it down. Or at least understand what this means to me.
I am knocked back again and feel my grovelling tone deliver a ‘yes I know you have, but….’ I am shut down again. She is so assertive with such a dominant voice I am crushed and admit defeat. This is not the first time one of our exchanges have gone this way. Instead of getting off the phone really proud and ‘positive’ I am reduced to a mound of anxious mess.
F***ing great. Triggered like crazy and I am quickly absorbed by the sadness that what should have been a memorable phone call or milestone, was not that at all.
I go straight back to work and don’t tell my husband or my family for about 4 hours. I couldn’t. I was mute.
I let the news settle (remember I felt it anyway) and didn’t allow my tears to break loose and splash onto my laptop. But I could not shift the flat, empty feeling of pathetic-ness she had left with me.
I am so sad this went this way today and am triggered back into enquiring within myself ‘Is this me?’ Am I stupid? Am I asking a question I shouldn’t want to know? And on and on my thinking spirals.
I HATE THIS FEELING. HATE IT.
I ‘ctrl-alt-delete’ and lock my laptop. I walk to the kitchen, get a bottle of wine , my favourite glass (thank you Helen), and walk back out to the lodge we use as an office. I sit in my counselling chair. It’s dark outside – I can see the Christmas lights tinkling their arse’s off as they hang excitedly around the outside of my home.
The rain starts up and gets louder and louder. Maybe it heard my phone call or felt my feeling and is showing its support? It smashes against the windows. As the drops stick to the glass and fall down at speed, my thick tears stick to my cheeks and fall down my face even faster. I am crying so hard I cannot see. Everything is blurry. My head feels so full of cancer, chemo, consultants, oncologists and optimism. I have no other space to think. I want to pour myself a glass of wine but I can’t move. The air arounds me stiffens up. My breath is lost in it somewhere.
I’ve just received some amazing news and I’ve collapsed under the weight of the way it was delivered.
I look down to the empty glass and taste wine stained lips.
I’d had a glass and have no memory of pouring it.
I’m desperate to not recall the conversation I had in such negative detail. So I flick into default mode. I recall the conversation I had and replay it the way I wanted it to go. Where I grew strength and responded with confidence and assertiveness. I hate this vulnerable side of my character and it’s been stimulated too many times during this nightmare.
My husband joins me and he brings a glass. He can see the evidence of a hard, deep sob and thinks the worse, so I quickly reassure him it’s the news we were expecting.
I attempt to tell him how the conversation went and how it has left me feeling and it falls on sympathetic ears. We share the wine and eventually my sorrowful face starts to smile.
It’s been exactly 30 weeks to the day from diagnosis to a complete pathological response. That’s 210 days.
I would not wish one day of this misery on anyone. But I prickle with pride. I DID IT. I kicked it’s arse in and my amazing body took on board the amazing medicine and together collaborated on a 30 week journey to a successful outcome.
Just as he did 30 weeks ago, my husband calls in the children, sits them down and shares with them the news. The good news. the most amazing news. The only news we wanted to ever hear.
The full stop to the end of these 210 days comes in the form of tears, smiles and a group hug. I let go of my ‘team’ and instantly feel the disappointment, sadness and anger of my telephone call disappear.
We don’t deserve to have this day contaminated any more than I’ve allowed it to already.
Day 1 tomorrow – OF THE REST OF MY LIFE.