Grow up and get breast cancer.

I have breast cancer… At thirty-fucking-three. It’s still so weird to say it (type it?) out loud. Surreal, even.

I use it as an excuse a lot now. “You have to be nice to me because I have breast cancer.” “Dad, I get to drive the ‘Benz before Lisa and Michael do. I have breast cancer.” “Alex, can you turn out the light? I have breast cancer.”

Things feel so different now, just over a month since I initially found the lump. In the beginning, I couldn’t get out of bed, let alone make a joke. Now, I laugh a lot. I still work a lot. Believe it or not, despite a few extra doctors’ visits, and an annoying little ticking time bomb in my right boob, life resembles the normalcy and joy it held before this diagnosis.

So I preface this post by acknowledging that I know this isn’t every young woman’s experience. If you’re here because you found my Instagram through one of those scary Instagram hashtags, searching for community amidst the isolation that this diagnosis thrusts upon us, remember this: your experience is not my experience. You are not a statistic. Every single step of this journey is unique for each and every one of us. If you find that it triggers your anxiety to be here, take pause. Change directions. In the middle of the worst two weeks of this experience, I found real comfort in the stories other young women told about their breast cancer experience. It made me feel less alone. But after I got more information about my cancer, I found that these stories did more harm than good. They triggered my anxiety and made me more fearful about what’s to come. No offence taken if you need to stop here.

There are so many things I still don’t know. Am I having a single mastectomy or a double? Do I need chemotherapy? Gene therapy? Other therapies I can’t pronounce yet? Unfortunately, it’s difficult to get answers to these questions. We’re making strides, but it’s a slower process than one might think.

All the breast cancer pamphlets tell me it’s important to document the journey. In a journal, perhaps, or on a blog. When I originally went to write some of my feelings down, I had some really morbid thoughts about someone finding the journal after I’d died, and that made me never want to write a thing down on paper ever again. I’ve come a long way since then. I no longer fear that I’m going to die because of this. But it still feels weird to write things down by hand. Scary to be alone with my thoughts, maybe. A little too much solitude, maybe. So what better way to navigate this experience than by sharing it with the internet? My family is currently surrounding me, enjoying cocktails, planning their next visit to the Lake, discussing upcoming family dinners, visits from family members. And so, somehow, here, I feel a little bit less alone.

What a wild ride.

So let’s go back to the beginning. So that I don’t forget how momentous this time in my life is. So that I remember the fear and use that as fuel to live every single moment of my life going forward with more intention. With more gratitude. With more adventure. With more love.

Here we go…

In August of last year, I went for my annual physical. I have this distinct memory of my physician leaving the room as I thought, I’m pretty sure she forgot to do the breast exam. I’ve relied on that annual physical to confirm my continued health for as long as I can remember. She checks me over for lumps and bumps, and every year I leave celebrating another year cancer-free. So when I left that day, I thought to myself, don’t forget to do a self breast exam. She forgot, but it’s not a big deal. Just do one yourself.

But life goes on. And I didn’t do the exam right away. I got really sick with COVID-19 in the fall, and I still haven’t fully recovered from it. In January, months after I’d initially fallen ill, I was still having testing done to make sure my heart and lungs were in good working order. And because it was not a smooth or swift recovery, I was distracted by these elements of my health.

For whatever reason, in the middle of March, I had a thought. I think there’s something there. Just do the exam. If it’s there, we’ll deal with it. At least you’ll know. I don’t know what that’s about. Intuition? My brain sending me a warning? Hypochondria? We’ve all been there, when we know we should just do the self exam but the anxiety that comes with actually doing it feels insurmountable. I stayed in that space for a number of days. I’d never done a self breast exam before. But in a temporary fit of bravery, I did the exam using the method my doctor always uses. And there it was. An almond-shaped lump just under the surface of my skin, with the plumpness of a sad grape. It wasn’t hard. It didn’t have weird edges. It didn’t hurt. It was just… there. I got out of the shower, sat down at my desk, and said to Alex, “You’re about to hear me call my doctor about a lump in my breast. I’m not scared, and you shouldn’t be either.” I got an appointment for later the next week and put the lump out of my mind.

At the appointment, my doctor (whose chart from my physical, by the way, notes a “normal” breast exam) noted some changes to how the breast tissue felt on the right side, but hardly acknowledged the lump as its own entity. Ever the optimist, she was confident that someone my age was more likely to find a cyst than a cancerous mass. I don’t blame her. While it makes me anxious to look up statistics, because the first thing that pops up is always the stat that tells me how likely I am to die from this, I’m pretty sure the chances of a woman developing breast cancer under the age of 40 are less than 1%. ONE PERCENT. I am so special. I left with a requisition for a breast ultrasound and instructions to track the tissue through my next menstrual cycle to see if anything changed. For whatever reason, I didn’t wait. I still didn’t think it was anything serious, but I called for an appointment as soon as I got home.

Working in radiology for ten years taught me a lot about how the cancer screening process works. If you’re over 40, it starts with a mammogram, then maybe an ultrasound if they need further imaging. If you’re under 40, it’s the other way around. I knew if I walked out that day without a request for a mammogram that I had nothing to worry about. Then the single breast ultrasound turned into a bilateral mammogram that same day, and came with instructions to return in a week’s time for a biopsy and a left breast ultrasound to compare. Fuck.

Let me pause here to talk for a brief moment about fucking mammograms. Holeeeeee shit. I experience monthly swelling in tune with my cycle, and wouldn’t you know it, the day of my mammogram, my breasts were already uncomfortably swollen. So when they squished the right one between two plastic plates, then used a hand crank to flatten it like a pancake, I thought it was going to explode. THEN THEY WANTED TO DO THE OTHER ONE. While I don’t condone skipping this exam (it could save your life! don’t skip it!), it is no fucking picnic. Also, I would like to holla at all the mammography technologists out there, hugging women from behind while they shove our boobies into a panini press. You are the definition of a frontline worker. There is nothing more intimate during a pandemic than a stranger manipulating your tit with the weight of their full body behind you to ensure that no breast cell is left in its original shape. Thank you for your bravery.

I sobbed in the change room while I waited for the mammography technologist to come and get me. I took a personal day that day, too emotional and scared to go back to work. After crying on my parents’ couch for a while, I put my big girl pants on and tried to resume some normalcy. I didn't hear anything from my doctor’s office about the first set of scans, so I thought that was probably a good thing. And I made it through the Easter weekend with my family. But then Easter Monday came, and everything changed.

The biopsy itself wasn’t painful or uncomfortable. They freeze the bejeezus out of you, and I looked away so I wouldn’t know what they were up to. There were a lot of loud clicking sounds, like a child’s plastic gun going off, and a lot of shaking hands (on purpose, they tell me). As the radiologist pulled out the last sample, she turned her back to me, and as she stuck a label on the last test tube, she said, “Okay, Jaclyn, you did really well. From here, you’ll be referred to a surgeon and then probably to an oncologist. There are lots of excellent treatment options available these days, so I just want to give you lots and lots of hope.”

The wave of panic and fear that washed over me in that moment is unexplainable. “So… you’re saying this lump I found… it’s cancer?” Her and the ultrasound technologist both seemed taken aback. “Your doctor didn’t call you?”

What a delightful fucking way to find out you have breast cancer! By accident! The ultrasound tech tried to tell me that it was in the report, to which I responded WELL I HAVEN’T HEARD FROM MY DOCTOR YET, MY GOD. The radiologist left the room, and I laid on the table with the tech pressing an icepack onto the biopsy site with all the energy she might have tried channelling into making me feel less afraid. After a few minutes of awkward silence, she walked me to a small recovery room. I called my mom on the way.

“I have breast cancer. Can you come?” I think she was mid-pee when I called. So she high-tailed it off the toilet and hauled ass to the clinic. Thankfully, despite COVID-19 protocols, the receptionist guided her to my room. While I waited, I sat there in complete and utter shock, thinking of all the things I needed to clear up before I died.

Get rid of all that paperwork you’ve been holding onto. Cancel your stupid subscription boxes. Pay your credit card bill. Give Alex the password to the Enmax and Shaw accounts. Cancel the purchase contract on the new house. Contact the bank about your next of kin. I am nothing if not a planner.

I realize now that these thoughts were irrational, but it’s hard to understand the fear associated with a cancer diagnosis until you’ve actually lived it. My mom and I have talked a lot since then about all the negative media attention that surrounds cancer, even now, when treatments are state-of-the-art and survival rates are astoundingly high. There wasn’t much out there for me to cling to as a young women staring down the barrel of a deadly, little, almond-shaped gun.

This is getting super long, and you all probably have other places to be. I’m not leaving this on a very positive note, but there are brighter things to come. Relief, and inexplicable fear, and more relief, and more fear, and sleeping pills, and an endless supply of flowers and gifts and offerings of food. The people in our corner are superheroes. I’ll try my best to express my thanks to you next.

xoxo

Jacs, growing up