by C.A. Ide

Created on: August 02, 2011

It was my first mammogram ever. I was 36. My doctor wanted me to get a baseline test done just so we’d have something to compare future tests too.  Neither of us suspected anything out of the ordinary. Little did I know, when I left to go the hospital that morning, how my whole life would be forever changed.

I could see the lump on the mammogram picture clearly during the test. I was sent for an ultrasound immediately after; I knew something was wrong.  Then a needle biopsy was performed on two different spots. One, a small bump I had noticed below my collarbone only a week or two prior to my mammogram. The other was the spot clearly visible during the mammogram. Both spots showed cancer. The lump below my collarbone turned out to be a lymph node that had almost entirely been consumed by cancer.

What followed in the next few weeks was a whirlwind of doctor appointments, more biopsies and lots of tears. I had a 1 year old son. How could this be happening? Would I live to see him grow up? I was faced with so many decisions about surgery, chemotherapy and fertility. I was overwhelmed, but did the best I could to learn as much as I could about breast cancer, as quickly as possible. I wanted to make good decisions. I wanted to beat this.

Just 6 weeks later my breast cancer journey took an unexpected turn.  I had requested a full body CAT scan to see if the breast cancer has spread to anywhere else in my body. The scan showed no spread of the breast cancer, so my cancer was “classified” as Stage 3. But a small tumor in my right kidney turned out to be Stage 1 kidney cancer.  Yes, I was now the proud owner of not one, but two different types of cancer. Now the decisions got even more complicated. Do we treat the breast cancer first, then the kidney cancer? How will one treatment affect the other? Will I be able to wait to treat the kidney through the whole course of breast cancer treatment? People just couldn’t help but shake their heads when they heard my story.

8 months later, just one month after finishing radiation to my chest, I was preparing to have the cancerous portion of my right kidney removed. I had been through a double mastectomy, 6 rounds of chemotherapy and 6 weeks of radiation for breast cancer. I was done with it! I was going to take care of this kidney issue and move on. Unfortunately, that was not in the plans for me.  While having CAT scans and blood work done in preparation for kidney surgery, small spots on my lungs where found when the  test results were reviewed. Now there would be a lung biopsy after the kidney surgery. Doctors could not determine with just CAT scans if the spots in my lungs were cancer. And we needed to know if they were cancer, which one was it? Kidney or breast cancer?

The lung biopsy, performed 8 weeks after the kidney surgery, revealed breast cancer cells in my lungs.  They were small, but there was more than 10. Additional CAT scans later showed a small tumor on my liver as well. I was now a Stage 4 breast cancer patient.

Life 1 year later is not always easy. I am often tired from the oral chemotherapy I have been on for 8 months now. I am sad when I have to tell my son that I am too tired to play baseball with him, or go to the park. And I have no idea what the future holds for me. But I am also grateful that I am still here, watching my son have two more birthdays since I was diagnosed. Cancer has brought a lot of pain into my life, but it has also made every day so much more cherished.

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