And may the odds ever be in your favour
Wednesday was a tense day of ignoring what had just happened.
Obviously, my hypochondria had been leading up to this moment. I have learnt over the years that my mind can make any malady into something quite exquisitely fatal. But I also know that if I ignore it, the tragedy kraken recedes and the twinge that heralds doom turns out to be nothing more than a twinge, or a headache or a sprain. (A regular occurrence resulting from my old body obstinately refusing to be coaxed into more intense exercise than is absolutely necessary).
Living in regional South Australia, it’s been helpful that I haven’t been on death’s door. There’s an acute shortage of GPs, so I hadn’t actually managed to register with one locally in 3 years. (For readers in the UK – GPs are effectively private practitioners reimbursed by Medicare, so there is no automatic right to registration. It’s universal healthcare, Cap’n, but not as we know it).
The practice I wanted to go to weren’t taking new patients, and I never managed to be ill enough to need to see someone at one of the others. Apart from a trip to Adelaide to get a gammy knee checked out, I had had no interaction with medical practitioners since moving back to the state in 2019. And I was still alive.
So the logical part of my brain knew that this was just another panic over nothing.
After all, I don’t fit into the high risk category.
There is no family history. No breast cancer. No cancer. Nada.
I breast-fed my babies. Bloody hell, I did 2 at once. It’s been a while, but I thought that came with a cast-iron guarantee of protective qualities. Surely there should be some cancer-prevention crown for a twin powered effort!
I don’t smoke. It was clear from a very early age that I was never going to be considered cool, so I didn’t bother trying. It was all a bit too much effort. So no cancer sticks for me.
I exercise. Fairly regularly. I mean, I could be more consistent. Coach Lise will attest to that. (Actually, I’m not convinced I could be more consistent. After years of trying, I still really struggle with routine and good habits. Bad ones – those I can establish…). I digress. The thing is, I enjoy sport. So I dabble.
And I eat pretty well. I like food. The stuff that’s good for you, and the stuff that is less so. But I am not a veg dodger. I even like Brussel spouts!!!
And I drink more wine than is recommended. But alcohol is just a part of social culture, right?
The bottom line: surely I’m not old enough. Admittedly, I’ve had peri-menopause for about 5 minutes, and it hasn’t been kind to my waistband. Gammy knee, Covid restrictions and peri-menopause formed an unholy trinity, so my BMI is no longer considered healthy. But that is a fairly recent thing.
A fleeting comment from someone in the examination room kept pestering my memory. As I was being patched up from the core biopsy I was handed an appointment card with a cheery “it’s good that you’ve got an appointment on Thursday, as the surgeon will be here to talk to you.”
Why do I need to see a surgeon? What had they seen?
By Wednesday night, I decided I had better pull my head out of the sand, and have a look at the information pamphlets they had thrust into my fist.
Back at the clinic was an interminable wait; last on the list and they were running behind. I managed to distract myself with the day’s headlines, then started people watching. The age range was less distressing this time around. When you hear someone at the follow-up clinic with a crying babe in arms, it puts your own worries into perspective.
I watched as a Chinese lady went in with an interpreter, then emerged after a brief interval, obviously having got the news everyone in the waiting room wanted. She bounced out, whooping and trying to high five every staff member working behind the counter. Her vocabulary might not extend to technical medical jargon, but she was very able to thank everyone as she skipped back into a life more normal.
Others seemed to disappear into the back offices for longer. The longer the time behind the door, the more sombre the exit.
I trooped in, steered into an office with a surgeon. This was obviously going to be back here a while. They talk you through your specific results and what they can tell from the tests so far. It’s early stage, no trace was detected in the lymph nodes they tested, it’s hormone receptive.
If you’ve got to have breast cancer, I’d struck gold.
It’s the most common type of breast cancer and it’s the most treatable. So that’s something, right?
I was glad I’d done my homework, as it meant everything they were telling me was comprehensible. It was all covered in the Cancer Council booklet Understanding Breast Cancer. In fact, it was so well explained, I had an irrational desire to hurry the surgeon along. Yes, yes, I read all this. Fine. So what new news do you have?
Well, I have a 90% chance of surviving 5 years.
Is it just me, or do those odds still not sound fabulous? I know it’s better than a 100% chance of death in the next 5 minutes. And none of us are getting out of here alive. But somehow, the realisation that 1 in 10 people who get the same news I just got won’t make it past 2027 seemed a rather uncomfortable statistic.
And this is where the next irony hit me.
For the last 6 months we’d been living in Adelaide.
But 3 weeks prior to sitting in the clinic office, we’d just moved back to a regional area. All treatment options are centred on Adelaide and I now lived more than 400km away. Awesome! (We are lucky – we bought a house in town, as many regional families do when the kids head off to uni. But how do people manage when they aren’t in that position and have to attend daily radiotherapy appointments that are only availably in Adelaide)?
Having survived 6 months of my 19 year old reminding me that my presence in the “student house” was not the uni experience he’d signed up for, I’m going to be back cramping his style. Plus, I’ll be armed with a newly minted “get out of chores free” trump card: I’ve got cancer. 😉
The game has well and truly begun.