Side note: I have to mention, the first go at it showed up on a bill for $18,000? But the Blue Cross "adjustment" was $16,000, and insurance paid almost $1700, so my part is a little over $300. Is that crazy or what? Anyway, that's a different topic I'm not willing to delve into. More bills are coming to amaze me further I'm sure.
ANYWAY, so as of May 10th, I'm thinking I'm still carrying around cancer and they are going back in to get it out. June 2nd I go under the knife again. I was told they were gonna go where the last sample was and take more, especially on the side where the cancer cells were centered the most. Great. Go for it.
Today I finally talk to the doctor about what was found on the sample this time. He tells me it's clear. As in, no cancer in the tissue tested. Say what? He explained the first surgery most likely got it all out and even if there were tiny pieces left (it was all tiny to begin with) my healing process causes new healthy scar tissue to form in the area which can pretty much kill off anything left there. It happens often.
Ok, how do I feel about this? I had cancer for an unknown number of months, but didn't know it. Then by the time I knew it, I didn't have it anymore. Strange.
Radiation is still recommended. Why? I don't have it anymore, right? Well, the doctors don't want to say I'm absolutely clear because they were only digging around in one area that they could see on the mammogram, but who knows if some random cancer cells aren't still floating around all by themselves and just haven't joined up to others to make a noticeable group. Radiation is my insurance.
Then I wonder how women with more advanced stages do this. How do they feel when they are told they have Stage 2 or 3 or maybe 4 breast cancer and then they have a mastectomy. The surgeon told me the only way they know all the cancer is gone is a mastectomy. Because my cancer was so small and confined it wasn't necessary but some women do it anyway, even with my DCIS. Just so they don't have to worry every time they go for a mammogram. So those women get the mastectomy and their cancer is gone. All that build up with the fear and the thinking it could KILL them and then it's gone. Now they don't have breast cancer. And everyone calls them a Survivor.
The cancer was cut out and now I'm a Survivor? Runs and walks and donations are celebrated for breast cancer research and supposedly I'm an insider because for a few weeks I thought I had cancer? I don't know about those other women, but that makes me feel weird. I feel unworthy of it all.
I am truly in awe of the ladies who have the mastectomies and then chemo. I don't know much about breast cancer chemo (hopefully I won't have to) but I assume that chemo is their insurance. They are told the mastectomy took it all. But now they must flush with chemo meds to get all the other pathways their more advanced cancer had possibly reached. Insurance.
I still have several doctor appointments to find out more about the next steps for me. I've had a lot of exposure to this disease in a very short time. I will need to process these last few months and accept that this happened and now I've done what I can to take care of it.
When the radiation is done and I get through the next mammogram and it is whatever it is and I move on to the next one, I hope to be more comfortable with it all, and then maybe, feel like a real Breast Cancer Survivor.
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