When the cancer comes back

I know that I haven’t gone into detail about the first year of my breast cancer experience. As time goes on I may write more about it, but for now I would like to share about when I found out that the cancer had come back. I had been through a full year of treatments for stage three breast cancer. Tired and burned out physically and emotionally, I put a stop on all treatments. My body needed to rest and I needed a break from the constant doctor visits. A few months of peace and relative calm went by.  I had time to work on my art and enjoy life with my husband.  In November I saw my surgeon for a check up and also had a mammogram that day, which turned out to be fine.  Around Christmas I started to feel some lumpiness in lymph nodes near mastectomy site, told myself it was scar tissue.  It continued to get somewhat bigger over the next four months with a couple of strange bumps in my pectoral muscles. I was a little concerned but put it out of my mind that it could possibly be a recurrence of cancer. One morning in late April I was lying in bed and reached up to rub my neck when I felt a lump near my collar bone.  That was it, I knew that could not be good and immediately made an appointment to see the doctor. He examined me and let me know that if it was a recurrence of breast cancer that it was probably not good news.  Given that I also had some swelling in my right armpit lymph node it probably meant that I was now stage four....incurable.
He ordered a PET scan, some chest x-rays and blood work. Five days later I had the pet scan and three days later went by myself to pick up the results at the Imaging center. It was a blustery spring day in early May and I gripped the manila envelope tightly as I walked to my car. Sitting in my car I hesitated to open the envelope for a minute or so. Whatever it said, I would handle the news with calm and resolve.  Finally I opened it and scanned the report for the findings. It wasn't good news; I had "widespread disease" in many lymph nodes in my mastectomy site and chest going up toward my collarbone.  The quiet is what I remember about that moment.  No tears, just quiet and a resolve to fight on and live. I knew what lay ahead having been through it before and it wasn't going to be easy.  I thought of all of the things that I didn't get done in the last year.  I had only had about six "good" months from the last cancer "battle".  I should have done more art, and eaten out, seen friends, gone shopping, gone to museums…the list goes on….Now most of those fun things would be put on hold, AGAIN, as we dealt with the day to day survival of cancer and the brutal treatments.  I put the paper back in the envelope and drove home. That was enough drama for one day, tomorrow the "fight" would begin again.