WRONG!
I remember the exact moment when the nurse navigator told me, “It’s only stage one so it’s not a big deal.” In some ways she was right but in others she was very wrong. What followed was a conversation of what the next few weeks of my life would look like. Numerous doctor appointments, scans, biopsies and more. I also had to make life altering decisions in a short amount of time.
The “no big deal” part was because stage one cancer is very treatable and has a very high success rate of the patient becoming NED (no evidence of disease). As breast cancer patients, we are never told we are in remission but rather NED. That’s just in case the cancer’s ugly head rears itself back as another type of breast cancer or shows up in one of our other organs, most common areas are the bones, liver, lung or brain.
The BIG DEAL part comes when we are told our options. I was given the choice to do a mastectomy (removal of my breast) or a lumpectomy (removal of the tumor with clear margins surrounding the area) followed by 12 weeks of radiation. I chose the mastectomy because I wanted to avoid doing radiation for many reasons and I wanted to make the choice with the best outcome. I was hoping to do the mastectomy and reconstruction and then go back to my life as usual. It did not work out that way but for many people it does.
So when your medical team says, stage one is no big deal, I know that is not true. I spent many nights lying awake trying to make sense of it all. I was constantly thinking about why this was happening? How did I get cancer? I cried many tears leading up to my mastectomy day. I didn’t want to have such a major surgery and I didn’t want to lose my breasts. I didn’t want to be put to sleep or spend the night in the hospital. The doctors and nurses do these types of surgeries regularly so they often don’t understand how we are feeling. Recovery is really tough the first few weeks, the drains are extremely uncomfortable, the nerve pain was extremely painful at times and now I had a different body that I had to get used to. It’s okay to cry and mourn your loss. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed by it all but remember you are not alone.
Sending you lots of love,
XO