Cancer is
something that happens to other people – to people with pink ribbons on their
car – people running marathons in news reports. It is not something that should happen to
someone you know and love.
My wife is
twelve years younger than me. She is
not supposed to have a condition that is life threatening – that should be my
future – I accept that, I’m old.
Two weeks
ago my wife had a mammogram and the clinic contacted her for a retake. There was a small suspicious spot and her
doctor recommended an ultrasound. The
spot was confirmed and the surgeon recommended a biopsy. The biopsy results came back Invasive Lobular Carcinoma: Breast
cancer. This all happened within a
week.
Suddenly our
lives were upside down.
Yesterday my
girl went in for a lumpectomy. This is
not a pleasant procedure. First a wire
was placed in her breast during an ultrasound to exactly mark the tumor for the
surgeon. Next radioactive serum was
injected into the tumor, then we had a two hour wait for the serum to move
through the lymph nodes – this allows the surgical team to identifying the first
nodes directly in line with the malignancy.
Finally, during the surgery, the tumor and the surrounding area, along
with three lymph nodes under the arm were removed.
Now we wait
for the results of the lymph node evaluation, and if they are clear than no
further surgery is required.
In a few
weeks my girl will be scheduled for radiation therapy: five days a week for six
weeks. Lastly she will be on hormone
medication for the next five years.
My
beautiful, feminine wife is without a doubt the bravest woman I have ever
known. I was so uptight I felt I was
going to explode, and she was calm, focused and accepting. Her
courage pulled me though this chaos.
My wife has
had yearly mammograms and that has allowed us to catch this cancer in a very
early stage.
There is no
history in my wife’s family of breast cancer.
If you have a wife, lover, mother, sister or daughter that is not
getting yearly mammograms you should insist they begin. It is now obvious to me that breast cancer
can strike any female in any family.
the Ol'Buzzard
