I am lucky to have good friends in the medical profession. Being a physician myself, I knew the drill, although Oncology is not my specialty. Before discussing this tiny lump with my primary physician, thinking it probably wasn’t enough of a cause to create a stir, I ordered an ultrasound myself and asked a radiologist friend to read it for me. Glancing at the screen, and not being a radiologist either, I foolishly assured myself that she would say it was just a cyst, and we would go to lunch and discuss far more interesting topics.

After all, I had been down this road before with intra-ductal carcinoma twenty years ago.

Back then I had a cyst along the side of my breast that was a constant irritation when I wore underwire bras, so I elected to have it removed. After the procedure the surgeon told me it looked like a completely harmless cyst, but when the pathology report came back, it was positive for a malignancy in the ductal tissue surrounding the cyst. Looking back at mammograms, there was no evidence of anything suspicious at all.

After multiple excisional biopsies, I opted for a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction, which was drastic in those days, although common now, but nothing else seemed right to me. Looking into the green eyes of my four year old child I decided that no cancer was going to stop me from being there for her.

          The firm little nodule I found recently was at the side of my chest between the mid-axillary line, and the edge of my breast implant. There couldn’t be much breast tissue there, but actually breast tissue can extend beyond the breast into the sides, and upwards into the area where a bra strap would lie as well.

Instead of lunch, my friend was able to squeeze me in for a biopsy, which she did in her office. A call to the pathologist a few hours later changed everything.

I didn’t expect to hear: “You’ve got cancer….”

I left her office with a surgical appointment made for the following week, and a head full of wonder. It just didn’t seem real, but it didn’t take long before the skin crawling, organ quaking, bone deep fear set in. Doctor or not, it was horrifying, but mostly because at that point, I didn’t know enough.

More testing needed to be done, but it would take time. I’m not patient by nature, so it was agonizing. Thoughts of torment, death and dying just tortured me. The fear in my loved one’s faces just made it worse. Should I clean my closet, see a lawyer, write my obituary, drink a whole bottle of wine or go to my yoga class and try to get a grip?

I decided to be as pro-active as possible and dove into finding methods of making my already “healthy lifestyle” better, starting with Dr. Michael Greger’s book “How Not To Die,” and became drawn to his website as if it were a life line. My yoga practice became my “safe zone” since the meditative aspect of it allowed me an escape from my tormented thoughts, at least for a while. Friends and family were a huge help because I could talk about it, and I could choose NOT to talk about it…mostly I chose not to talk about it.

www.NutritionFacts.org Dr. Michael Greger, author of “How Not To Die.”

Find it at www.amazon.com

Next Entry: September 22nd, 2016