I wish I could be unaware.

It’s been breast cancer awareness month all October. Everywhere I go there are pink ribbons and bracelets and all sorts of pink plastic junk with the slogan “support the breasts” on it (very witty!)...  sweet clueless teenagers sell it at the check out in the shops. It’s all good of course... awareness saves lives, and they need the money for research and helping patients....

but I soooo WISH I could be unaware.

Bald in hammock

5 comments

I wish I was unaware that one in 10 women get breast cancer.
I wish I was unaware that a bit over a third of those diagnosed die from it.
If you know more than 30 women, then statistically, one of us will die from breast cancer. There are regional differences in risk, and every year they find more new bc cases than they did the year before. Where I live there are now twice as many cases a year as there were in 1940 (after correcting for population growth). You can get it at any age - and men can get it too, although that is extremely rare. There are very few cases in women less than 35 years old, and most cases are diagnosed between ages 50 and 70. I was 35.

I wish I was unaware of how it feels when the Dr. tells you that he’ll have to remove part or all of your breast...  It goes along the lines of “NOOO they be stealin’ my womanhood!!!”, “Will I ever have sex again? – how would a new guy react?” & “Thank goodness it’s just ‘spare parts’ that you can live without”... yea, that last one takes a while to surface, but it’s true...  lovely as they are, breasts really aren’t all that important in your everyday life.

I wish I was unaware of how dodgy and manipulative the statistics are that the Dr. uses to explain how various treatments could increase your survival chances. You don’t need to be a scientist to know percentages should add up to 100, right? When they don’t, it means their reference frame (I mean out of WHAT is this a percentage) can be different for each value. That means you can’t really compare the values unless you can make them have the same reference frame somehow. The dr.’s never told me what the reference frames were. They used the values that made treatments look best.... So ok, maybe you need that little manipulation to get over your natural resentment for seriously unpleasant treatments, maybe it would be even more dodgy if they had to extrapolate different studies to make them comparable.... but I wish they’d give more full clear and honest information.

I wish I was unaware of all the different kinds of reconstructive surgery. The ugliness and the pain you have to go through to get to something barely acceptable that will last max 10 years.. I wish I was unaware of how it feels to have a “waterballoon” under my pectoral muscle that gets sqeezed when I lift things or pull heavy doors towards me. I wish I was unaware that people STARE... although they did stop staring as soon as they could see just something lopsided breast-like. I guess they just needed to know which one it was and get used to it. You couldn't tell at first because the swelling from the wound fills out the empty hole.

I wish I was unaware of the metallic taste of chemotherapy and how nausea can be brought on by even the faintest smell of food. I wish I was unaware of the tiredness... a tiredness so overpowering that I could be thirsty next to a glass of water and just go back to sleep because it seemed too much effort to reach out and pick it up and lift it to my mouth. I wish I was unaware that your whole scull aches when your hair falls out. I wish I didn't know how scary it is to know you will have no immune system for the next 10 days.

I wish I was unaware that a negligible percentage of patients have horribly bad reactions to chemotherapy. I seem to be in all those little negligible percentages. I spent a month in hospital with so high fever I was shaking the entire bed around. I got oxygen because I had water on the lungs. The dr’s were unable to find out what was the matter. The nurse who took my temperature and pulse at night held my hand for a bit and looked really sad. My mom slept on a spare bed in my hospital room. My best friend came and made funny faces at me and played the clown to cheer me up, and fed me with a spoon doing all sorts of silly baby-feeding stuff to make me eat more. I was SOOOO tired.

I wish I was unaware that the end of chemo and getting out of hospital is not the end of it. It took about a year of tiredness before I got back to where I could work a full day again...This happens to about half the chemotherapy patients. I wish I was unaware that there are losses of memory and concentration that can’t be recovered. I wish I was unaware that this long period of getting back to normal is where I lost contact with many friends. I got out of touch. I turned down their invitations too many times. I never had the energy. I didn’t visit. I didn’t call. I had nothing to tell other than that nothing had happened and I had been doing nothing all day. I know they love me, and it was hard on them, especially my best friends, but I just didn’t have the energy to deal.

I wish I was unaware that after going through all the above there are still five years of  chemically induced menopause. My cancer was hormone sensitive... that means it would grow if it got estrogen. So my hormone receptors get blocked with drugs. It gives me hot flashes and cramps in the feet and calves at night. But otherwise it’s just a pill I have to take every day for five years.

I wish I was unaware of the use of lymph nodes. They removed just a few from my armpit to check if the cancer had spread (it hadn't). Those should have been draining liquid from my arm. Now, I can’t carry my shopping in a backpack or hike with a day-pack for more than an hour before my arm starts swelling into a painful michelin man arm. It can take more than a day to drain again if it swells up. It could become permanent if I don’t watch out and render my right arm useless.

I wish I was unaware that I am one of the lucky (knock on wood). I wish I was unaware of the girls I met on the breast cancer web sites, looking for answers like me. Strong women, witty smart caring women, sensitive vulnerable women. Pouring out their hearts about their fears, their pains and frustrations, wishes for their kids and the future and their joys of sunny days and good company. And then one day a friend writes in the comments how they found peace only days after posting last.

I SO WISH I could be totally unaware.