FEAR

Late May, early June 2012
So, ironic as it sounds, I had never felt better physcially. How was I mentally? Mentally, well, that was another matter. You are dealing with your own fears and dodging other people's.  I read recently with regard to children that it takes about 6 positive remarks to undo the effects of one negative one.  My greatest challenge to date, two months on, is dealing with two things, fear and fear.  The first is the fear you generate on your own, and the second is that of other's who unwittingly pass it on through their words, intonation, actions, looks and body language. Then there is the advising, the sermonising but not supporting, telling you how you are supposed to feel, telling you what you are supposed to do, not listening or accompanying you, telling you the bleedin' obvious as if it hadn't occurred to you because that's how they deal with their own fear, by containing and controlling it, but you have unfortunately sparked off their fear in the first place by getting cancer. There has also been the fear of going against what the majority say I should do and having the courage to listen to my body and its wisdom and do what I need to do for myself. There have been so many parallels with pregnancy throughout this process, and as with pregnancy, your body and health become public property to some extent.  One of the many invaluable lessons I've learned from this is to connect with this inner strength, to become TRULY centred and to stand up for myself with doctors, bossy-boots and know-it-alls! Not in a confrontational way (although that's how I had done all my life) but with a calm confidence that comes from connecting with the power within you.  It was a learning process of a lifetime, it's what I'd been striving for in yoga and meditation over the last ten years and I only had glimpses of it, then it finally came about at the end of November 2012! But back in May and June I was still pretty confrontational, confused, learning to deal with so much information and so many emotions. Each day felt like a lifetime of experience, you simply HAVE TO live one day at a time (sorry for the clichés), and there are days when you can, and days when you can't.  There are days when you connect with the happiness and strength in you, and days when you don't.

Happiness comes and goes.  Fear comes and goes.  The fear was greatest, or it seemed more acute,  in the first couple of months when there's so much to come to terms with, when it's a battle to accept the new circumstances you're in and when certain hopes and dreams about how you want your life to be, well they're squashed flat.  For good.  The last chance to have children, gone.  On one day it seems like a tragedy, then the next it's not.  There were a few nights when I couldn't go to sleep because my mouth was parched (from pure distilled fear - of the unknown, of my life taking a wrong turn, of feeling ill and being in pain, of dying) and I couldn't drink enough to quench the thirst.  It seemed my worst moments were brought on from doctor's and hospital visits and from people projecting their fear onto me.  I can't and don't blame anyone.  How could I? As far as projecting fear goes, I had had exactly the same reaction when my mum was diagnosed with a the previous autumn.  And nobody was responsible for my reactions except myself.

THE PLAN FOR TREATMENT and more tests

End of May, early June 2012. I now passed from the ground floor area of the specialised hospital unit where all the preliminary tests are planned and carried out to the first floor where the breast cancer chemotherapy day hospital is.  Waiting room blues - full of women who all seemed to be of my mother's generation!  So many headscarves. Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  I don't belong here, I'm young (hmm, well, let's be honest, quite a bit over 40) and fit and HEALTHY!  Waiting room jitters.  Denial?  Actually I WAS extremely healthy from the strict vegan diet I was on.  My skin glowed, my hair shone, my joints and muscles were supple and strong. I had never felt better.  And my energy levels were soaring.

My newly-assigned doc:  Dra Nuñez.  Very, very confident, very no-nonsense, friendly.  They needed to determine EXACTLY what type of cancer it was, (boy are they good detectives, I really mean that).  I would have to go for loads more tests:  blood test, heart test, scans of different sorts with luminous liquids inside me.  (Shall never forget Eduardo, the technician /nurse? who administered a couple of these tests.  His humour and his friendliness made my neurotic nervous system calm down and cope.  And so many needles!!!)  Thank you Eduardo.

Once they had the results of these, they could decide which drugs to use. Scary fact: Dr Nuñez happily said they had a 60% success rate for all breast cancers and my type of profile tended to respond well (youngish and healthy, aggressive tumour, 3 out of 3 on the cancer richter scale).  Left her office afraid, it hadn't entered my conscious mind that I could actually die, but all the while there were tests it was like buying time, putting off chemotherapy, because I was already treating the tumour and the CAUSE by alternative means, and there were no decisions to be made. Decision making does me in. All I knew was that I DID NOT WANT CHEMOTHERAPY, I REJECTED IT FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY SOUL.  Had to find a way or myriad ways to avoid chemotherpay.

It's also a perplexing situation to be in - everybody is telling you you are ill, and yet physically you feel phenomenal, better than ever before.  I couldn't get my head round that one. The line between living in a fantasy or living in the real world, whatever that is, well, just living really. I wasn't ignoring the situation, I was doing all kinds of treatments, so why should I label myself ILL? The euphemism for illness is health challenge, and I started using this term (well actually I started saying health problem/problema de salud in Spanish) because the word illness carries so much negative weight.  The power of words and labels.

THE RESULTS rounds 1 and 2

May 2012. More than a week went by and then the Delos clinic phoned and I went and picked up the results.  Surrounded by pregnant women I queued at reception, they gave me the envelope, I stuffed it in my bag, I proceeded to forget about it.  Didn't open it, didn't even tell my Span at home that I had received it.  I wanted a good night's sleep, for heaven's sake, which I got.

I also knew I wouldn't understand most of the jargon, but I finally opened it - that morning or at lunchtime, I forget which.  Hmm.  Bad news, it wasn't benign.  Then I couldn't make out if it was 25mm or 2.5cm. Yikes.  My brain cleverly managed to blank out the fact that it was also highly aggressive.  Too much to handle in one session.  I would take that on board later.

And I very sensitively broke the news to my Span just as he was going out the door to work.  I blurted "Oh, by the way darling, I've got a malignant tumour, have a nice day though.  See you tonight"

Now the order of events might have gotten a little blurred.  I think it goes something like this.  I was having the ultrasound in the hospital and they wanted to look at the ganglion in my left armpit (not a nice word that in English, is it? Axila in Spanish, much nicer) - more of the poking around palaver.  I had the results from the clinic in my hand stating I'd been previously poked and prodded there.  So I saved myself from repeating at least one of the big 3, phew!  Have to say all the nurses and technicians I came into contact with in the hospital while doing the 3 biggies, were delightful.  God bless them all!  It's their care and attention that transforms a terrifying experience into something you can deal with and even enjoy, yes enjoy, because of the human contact.  And I love being cared for.  Just don't let it involve needles.

Still sometime in May.  Back in Dr Granada's office for his verdict.  Same results from the clinic as from the hospital (reassuring, huh?!).  Massive malignant tumour and a ganglion affected.  Small little breast.   Recommended treatment:  the other C word we all dread to hear.  Chemotherapy first, then once the tumour has shrunk, surgery.  Your legs weaken, your lips wobble, your teeth chatter, your whole nervous system kind of melts down really.  Oh for crying out loud, girl, get a grip!

DIAGNOSIS round 2

May 2012.  Hospitals. Funnily enough, I've always liked hospitals  (and chemist's- how do you make that plural? OK, pharmacies - for that matter).  I mean, a squeaky clean place dedicated to healing, curing, caring for people. The comfy clean cotton clothes they all wear - the white coats, the croks.  Angelic nurses.  A place where they deal with the nitty-gritty of existence, very little of the bullshit you get in our every day life.  (Further down the line, I still believe a lot of this true.)   But up till then I'd never really been a patient before- only once, for one afternoon, which barely counts.  I might come back to that another time, because it was actually a very serious thing that happened to me when I was 30 but I was oblivious to the gravity of the situation, and we all know that's way preferable to being aware.

So Friday 18th May. Hospital, on the northern edge of Barcelona.  Referred there by the GP.  I get myself assigned to a doctor, whom we'll call Dr Jerez or Dr Granada or maybe Dr Huelva.  He programmes all the same tests as in the Delos clinic.  So the following week I find myself having another mammogram, another ultrasound, and ... oh shit!  another biopsy, on a breast that was still black and blue from the week before.  Let me say it again folks, the biopsy HURTS, although I have to say I am a bit of a cry-baby, but good golly miss molly, it really does hurt. You feel as if a group of miners have gone into your breast, rummaged around, mined the seams, and left you with the after effects.  Constant shooting pains along the ducts and glands to the nipple. Very, very painful indeed, although not totally unbearable.  And I hadn't felt the presence of the lump before, but after each biopsy you become acutely aware of what your breast is like inside.  Here's a picture for the non-squeamish.


So, then off I went, back to life as we know it, (maybe I should call the doctor Dr Spock?)  results would come within 12 days or so.  Still wasn't worried per se.  Eternal optimism.

DIAGNOSIS round 1

Monday May 14th 2012.  Barcelona. I had just given a workshop for yoga teachers at the weekend and I was exhausted.  The workshop had been an immense amount of work, preparation, worry and my god when I think of the work that went into the advertising.  That Monday evening I slumped down on our scratched up green sofa (cats!), and I just didn't have to do ANYTHING ELSE!  A blissful moment.  My boyfriend was giving me a mini reflexology session on my feet.  I was about to start living again, about to start enjoying life again, I could finally stop struggling with work.

Then he touched a part of my foot which sent a twinge to my chest, my hand automatically went to my left breast and that's when I felt a lump.  Thing is, I had felt it once before, a couple of weeks (?) or months before but I hadn't taken it in.  This time it was undeniable.  Then the really weird thing is that that night I slept like a log, more deeply than I'd slept in months, possibly years.  It took a while before my nervous system actually agreed to go into shock over the whole thing.

So I went to my Spanish GP, who felt my breast and referred me to a private clinic for tests the next day (one of the mysteries of the Spanish NHS, the public health system works with the private but is paid for by the public?) where they promptly scared the life out of me:
1  The Mammogram - a nameless, stressed-out technician shoved my startled breast into the machine as if she were putting plasticine, not human flesh,  into a cold tin can.  I was crying, shaking with fear and in a lot of discomfort (and thinking who was responsible for inventing this torture?)  but it was the technician who screamed at ME to relax!
2  The Ultrasound - much more bearable than the mammogram, (in fact I could imagine it being quite pleasurable if you're looking for things other than alien lumps).  The nurse (I think) introduced herself, the doctor (I imagine) didn't.  The lump certainly appeared the wrong sort.
3  The biopsy - bleedin' nora, the mammogram had been a breeze in comparison.  Don't look at the needle, Lisa, just don't look girl.  And yes, I looked.  A needle designed with elephants or blue whales in mind, went deep into my left breast and they sort of wriggled it around, extracted bits of me, and then came the sound of something being stapled.  Yes stapled.  I never asked what.  The doctor with no name went to her desk.  The nurse saw me out.

Then I went back to the GP after the delights of the Delos clinic.  The results of the biopsy would come within a week or so.  The doctor thought it best I go to the local hospital, where they had a fast-track centre for dealing with breast cancer.  I went home with a beaten-up breast but hopeful, it might still be benign.