The gift my cancer gave me

For me, radiation therapy came a year into my treatment. I received my diagnosis on the first of February 2017, after a hectic week of being rushed around having tests. I knew before the GP told me what the answer was: the urgency told me everything. Knowing but not knowing was the first of many challenges I was to face.

One of the biggest challenges has been dealing with having major changes to my body thrust upon me, and radiation was a big part of that challenge. I’m going to walk you through the story of my diagnosis and treatment in that context. The team at Icon Springfield (then ROC) helped me to maintain a positive mindset and to feel better about what was happening to me.

A little bit of background: since adolescence, my breasts have been a big part of how the world has reacted to me, and how I have presented myself to the world. I was one of those girls whose body matures way ahead of the rest of them. I was happily oblivious to my body as a child but naturally energetic and active. The way I remember it my boobs arrived suddenly, without me noticing, although of course that’s not true. I just wasn’t paying attention.

The poor woman, I went with a laundry list of complaints, and after she’d written me prescriptions and blood orders for all of that I added on…”by the way, I think I’ve found a lump”. One of the complaints was depression and she’s since told me that she dreaded have to tell a depressed woman that she has cancer! So: as funny as it sounds, cancer seemed like the least of my worries.

I was diagnosed with an invasive stage 3 estrogen positive cancer. The tests to see if it had metastasised found a lesion on my spine, so I had to have a night in the PA to have further tests. That was one of the more harrowing parts of the whole experience: not only did I have the worry that I had cancer in my spine and that I would therefore be stage 4, there were no beds in the breast ward, so I was put in the bowel ward for the night.

As well as hearing waaay too much information about the other people on the ward’s conditions every time the doctors did rounds, one patient was a very elderly lady with dementia who couldn’t understand why she was there and who kept taking the adult diaper off and leaving it places, creating a huge fuss for the poor nurses.

Thankfully, the lesion was found to be benign.

I was made to feel it was urgent to remove the breast and pressured into signing a consent that day. But I was deeply unhappy with the idea of losing a single breast. If I had to, I wanted immediate reconstruction, so I could be ‘normal’ ASAP. I was so bothered I withdrew my consent, and paid to see a private surgeon for a 2nd opinion. She referred me to a surgeon who works in the public system, another woman. She was very kind, and very thorough: I think my initial consultation was nearly 90mins long.

Although I went into the consultation wanting to have immediate reconstruction, she persuaded me that might not be the best option, and referred me to radiation for a consultation there. I was given the choice of having radiation or not, as only 3 lymph nodes were found to be involved.

After the team at the Mater showed me the survival rates with and without radiation, I consented to that treatment pathway, accepting that meant all prospect of reconstruction with an implant was out of the question. My surgeon therefore recommended I only have a single mastectomy. She told me I don’t have enough of a belly to create two new breasts using the flap reconstruction method (all my female friends think this is the best compliment any woman could receive, which says a lot about our body image). So: just before Christmas 2018, I had the operation my first surgeon had wanted to do, but I was much more mentally prepared for it. I decided my scar looked bad-ass, and insisted on showing visitors the result.

One day there was a power outage due to a storm, I think it was a Friday. That’s when I found out there was a full-time medical physicist on staff to look after the machines. I find that incredible and wonderful. It’s my favourite counter to the anti-expert brigade: this world we live in is incredibly complex. Even where we have created machines that do miraculous things that save lives, we need incredibly smart people who are willing to invest years of time and effort into developing highly specialised knowledge to operate and run those machines.

The gift cancer has given me is a new relationship with my body. I was right about being lopsided: it sucks. I may yet just have the other breast removed: 14 hours in surgery just to fill out a blouse sounds excessive, but who knows, I’m still young enough to have some vanity. But I have come to an acceptance and appreciation of my body that I didn’t have before, and the care I have received has helped me to achieve that.

Having care locally, so I didn’t have the stress of traffic and parking, and so I could maintain a semblance of normalcy, was a huge factor in helping me get through these challenges: that’s the pragmatic aspect. Knowing I had a team of expert professionals on my side and interested in my well-being added an incalculable extra element to my ability to cope, and my optimism about my survival.