Attention!! I AM A SURVIVOR...

I'm up at my favorite tea shop on Queen Anne hill in Seattle, at the TeaCup. I was fine, until I decided I was ready to grab all the swirling thoughts that have been dancing around me in the past few weeks, and throw them into a ball of fury here. At which point, I sit in a crowded cafe, surrounded by young hip kids my age, holding back tears as best I can.
To answer all the questions in a nut shell, I am cancer free, I am awesome, and it was simply scar tissue.

What gets me today, is this asinine news all over the front pages of our newspapers.
Being the little cancer sharer that I am, as I was sitting in a mechanic's lobby waiting for an appointment today, surrounded by young women, I said out loud in the office, "What do you all think about the news today, about not getting Mammograms and that we shouldn't be checking our boobs because of the "fear" that this process puts us through?" Quickly, all of them started talking over each other, sharing their stories with breast or ovarian cancers in their families, their fears. I was filled with despair (for only a moment, as I know how much ass I am going to kick soon) and a feeling of what can I do, to fight the insurance companies that are so obviously pushing this "fear" tactic. In my opinion trying to save monies and push us out of our right to get these tests paid for by them, that are one of our only ways of finding breast cancer.

Yes, the mammography is not a tool that is successful in finding young women's breast cancer due to our breast density. This is true. But it does work sometimes. And sometimes is better than nothing. And..And...And...oh, I am so pissed. I cannot wait until I am grounded in my health again. Smarter. Wiser. Oh, this lioness is going to shred some heads. I want so desperately to change the face of cancer. Some tall, cute, smart, healthy, organic this and that, I got it. I found it. I found it. FOlks I found it. Where was I? I was trying on lingerie at one of my favorite little shops here in Seattle. This is a quick recap of what went on in my head that day:
Wait? What is that? That is a lump. Quickly, my mind went back six months to my yearly exam. My doctor, is a breast cancer survivor, and oh..right. She hesitated here. She did. She didn't say anything. What is that? What is this? Hmmm..I let it go for a few weeks BECAUSE SHE DID. She felt it. Its probably nothing. Right? For weeks, I walked around with this knot in my chest. Then I said something to D, as I we sat on the coach. Very nonchalantly. No need to make a big deal about it right? "Hey, I found this. Can you feel it and tell me what you think?"
Luckily he thought I should go get it checked out. If I had not shown it to him, I would probably be dead of this within the next few years. You wanna now why, I say such a definitive thing like that?
I say that because CANCER IN YOUNGER WOMEN IS MORE AGGRESSIVE. It is usually Triple Negative. Negative to all the receptors: Progesterone, Estrogen, and Her2Nu (the growth hormone in all of our bodies). These are the known food choices for these other types of cancers. But mine, like most younger womens cancer's, and women that are African American and Latina, are usually known as TN..Triple Negative for the sole reason that it is negative to all the known receptors. Got it.
Yonger woman only have ONE TOOL. One tool, to save our lives. Because doctors do not look out of the box. They do not see out of the box, even though they may EVEN BE BREAST CANCER SURVIVORS, THEMSELVES.
The box is this: Women under 40 do not get breast cancer. It is a rare 11,000 that do a year. I was one of 11,000.
We only have self-examinations. Without this, small and effective tool, there will be more younger woman dying. Already, as it is WE women under 40 years young, have a higher mortality rate. It is beacause, there are no known effective tools for our diagnosis, doctors do not send us to get checked out as often as they should when a lump is discovered, choosing instead to act like God. If I had not found mine that day, I would have quickly become a stage 2.
My lump was found at 1.8 cm's with no node involvement. My survival rates are much higher because of this. Stage 2, with node involvement or anything higher than 2 cm's, is a whole different story. Mortality rates change very quickly. That could have easily happened, before my next yearly appointment (and that is IF, they doctor chose to look out of the box at this appointment). By then, I could have been a stage 3. With mortality rates, much much much higher. As it is, when I drive down the road I like to look at all the little cars and think of my stats, being a Stage 1, I have a 1 in 6 chance that my cancer is going to come back. Look around you right now. For every 6 people around you, one of them would die. These stats are horrible. How would you like to live with that as part of your life? How would these insurance companies, these doctors, these whoever they are that are pumping out this crap advice, how would they like it if their young daughters had these odds? Simply because they did not check their breasts? Simply because the only tool we have, and they have was ignored for the comfort of sometimes needless inquiries and mammograms showing there was no cancer.
An opportunity to say, you know what, you do not have cancer. You did what you should have. You checked your breasts every month, you noticed a change. And that yes, we will do a Mammogram, and if needed an UltraSound, to now tell you dear:daughters, dear sister, dear wife, dear granddaughter, dear niece, dear friend, that you do not have cancer. Here wipe your tears here on our sleeves, that was scary. But you are healthy, you are fine. What is so wrong with this? The odds are so random. But I was that odd. I deserve to live. I deserved to not have been overlooked. I deserved my doctor sending me to get an Mammogram, but she didn't. Most young women have not found the voice that I have. I could have listened to everyone but D, who insisted I had nothing to worry about. I could have put it off. I would have died of this. As it is, I could still die of this. Cancer, sucks. It does. I want to live. I want to grow old. Luckily I did breast exams. Luckily I tried lingerie on that day.
When will the persecution of women end? When will be honoured, and cared for? When will we be held high and believed just as worthy of living? I am furious. I am in shock.

Triple Negative

I am scared today.  There are a few different kinds of breast cancer, and the kind I have is called Triple Negative.  They don't know what it feeds on and because of this they don't have anything other than chemo to treat it with.  I am scared that mine won't respond to the chemo.  I am afraid that it will come back.  If it does come back, which my TN have the highest 2 year recurrence rate, chemo probably won't work.  See, the other cancer's can be scary too.  Her2Nu grows/feeds off of the growth hormone, which makes it a faster grower, than Triple Negative.  But the Doc's have found that a adjuvant therapy of Herceptin works to keep that hormone level low.  Or if you have a positive tumor for either Estrogen or Progesterone than they'll give you some other drug to keep those levels down.  You would steer clear from foods that have a lot of Estrogen in them, ect.  

But I don't have anything like that.  Its chemo, Baby!  And that is it.  I am scared.  I don't want to keep telling D how scared I am because he is scared.  He has to shut down a little because its just to much.  It is too much to live in the future and to worry right now.  I just keep hearing my Oncologist say two things, #1, " We just know your cancer is bad, real bad." #2, "That's bullshit, and cancer is curable."  So, they are the opposites sides of the bar and I feel helpless.  *ucking helpless.  I am scared, I could cry, but D just walked by.  I need to stay in the present moment and just whistle along, D's whistling right now, and let go.  There is absolutely nothing I can do, so back to what Dad says, "Worrying isn't going to change a thing."  Or my friend Sarah writes in a song, "Why worry, when you can pray."  Worry?  Because I could die from this.  I could.  

I think the shock is wearing off.  I am in the angry stage right now.  A stage that I won't be in when I am logging off of this site.  Anger is not good.  Okay, its past. A deep breath took it away.  I am so sad.  The roller coaster is a hard one.  Self-indulgence is cruel, yet necessary right now.   

A basket full of decisions

I talked to my dad today about the decision I need to make about freezing my eggs.  He reminded me that the 40-60% chance that my kids, if I carry the genetic gene would as well if they got it, then have a smaller percentage from that number if they actually got it.  So...I have decided I am going to do it as I am not delaying my treatment.  Even if I was, the surgeon today said that biologically it wouldn't do a thing to my cancer, waiting a few weeks.  Emotionally it is an intense place to be, if I went there.  But I am not going to because I have to stay in the present moment and be still with my decisions.  

Tonight I spoke with my Oncologist.  He is an amazing man and he said that he has been working on compiling the numbers that would help someone like me answer my question.  The one in the earlier post, am I the 75% of the 10% since I am a Triple Negative?  He said there are no stats for this yet, and to go back to the known big number.  Leaving me at 10%, which is only a 9% difference.  The short term recurrence rate is 10% if I do the lumpectomy but long term success rate is the exact thing.  I am pretty sure I am going to go for the lumpectomy because I can always go to the mastectomy if the caner returns.  I have a 90 % chance that it won't.  D posed a question to me today.  If the cancer was in my leg with the exact same sats what would I do?  I didn't have to think, I'd keep the leg.  My surgery is scheduled for July 1st.  I have a few weeks to decide.