Telephone Line

June 30
Anxious most of the day since it’s been 4 days since the biopsy. Did they mean 3-4 working days or 3-4 calendar days?

I checked the home voice mail when I got home from work, to find a message from my Internist. It is now 5 minutes after their office closes. I dialed every number I could find on my caller id hoping to reach the back line of her office. No luck. I called the main line again, speaking to the answering service. She is not on call and can not be reached. I informed the operator that she CAN be reached as she was calling with my breast biopsy results. I could not wait until the next day at 9 am to find the answers. The operator (female) gave in and connected me with the Internist.

Internist starts to review the report with me, stating the date the biopsy was taken, how much, etc., etc., and I’m screaming inside. Get to the final answer, dang it!!! She says, “It’s not good. It’s cancer. Now don’t freak out, it was found early so this is good. It is Invasive Ductal Carcinoma”.

Wow! Did not expect this since cancer does not run in my family. My father’s mother died from breast cancer in her 40s. But since I heard for many years that the cancer gene runs in the mother’s side, her cancer wouldn’t have an effect on me. This is a false statement. Cancer can be hereditary from your father's side. It just happens that my father didn’t have any sisters, so we don’t know if that generation would have had breast cancer.

We jump on the computer and start researching. I start to cry. Vic continues to research; I can’t look anymore. Thus starts the researching, crying and denial routine for many days to come.

I think he is as scared as I am but he isn’t saying anything. What are the odds that both of us have cancer at the same time? If we both die from cancer, who is going to take care of my girls? Who is going to be grandparents to C & K? C & M have a Nana, but it’s not me, grandma-grandma.

It's a guessing game and all dialogue so far is "'what ifs; can I get health insurance if I should leave my current job; what happens to short term disability since I've been there for just 2 months, etc., etc. Since I don't have all the answers from the doctors, it's a hanging/waiting game again.

In the past 2.5 hours I've gone from scared, to "it's okay", to scared and boohooing. Damn, I don't need this right now. I need, okay want, to focus on Vic and get him through his stuff. Damn.

I was SOOOOO sure that it was nothing. The news is good, if there can be good news regarding cancer. It's small and it's been found early. The icky word is "invasive". We don't like that word. HATE that word!

The Internist said my next step is to meet with an oncologist to get more details on the pathologist's report. Not sure when that will be. . .but Vic's appt with a surgeon is tomorrow and we'll decide from there on who goes first. lol

He has to go first, he's just having too many symptoms and when you start messing with the heart rate and pressure, I think he wins the contest of who is first.

It's been hard watching Vic on his new medications. He is sluggish, doesn't feel well and has headaches. I don't think I've seen more than 5 days in 18 years that Vic was sluggish and didn't have energy to do anything. He is taking everything in stride and I thank God for a level-headed man! Heaven knows we don't need two of us in this house freaking out.