Pathology report I

It's funny how the way one perceives information depends on the context in which it's offered. My surgeon is no dummy. Dr. McCharm greeted me today in his office with a big smile and "Looks like we did well!" or words to that effect. He went on to stress that everything that was cancerous in my armpit had been removed, and removed cleanly, with "clear margins" (meaning the areas with cancer were discrete and distinct, and the tissue immediately surrounding them that was also removed contained no cancer cells). This means his job was not complicated and he did it well.

But of course the fact that there was indeed cancer to remove -- in four out of the seven lymph nodes extracted, as it turns out -- is not good news. And a minuscule growth that showed up in my old scar was malignant as well. He seemed really chuffed about that, too, since from his point of view he was smart to remove it even though everyone thought it was scar tissue. Weren't we lucky he'd taken it out? Well, yes ... I kept feeling as though I should be as upbeat as he was even though it really didn't sound like great news to me.

Still, things could be much worse, and I decided to relax a little for now, perhaps because of the doc's cheery preface, perhaps because I find sustaining terror for more than a few days so very hard. I lurch from test to result, from doctor to nurse, facing then putting behind me one more thing I once thought I could never withstand, occasionally latching on to some bit of hope, often shoving aside frightening symptoms or questions that I won't be able to address until the next appointment, and none of my reactions makes a hell of a lot of sense to me.

I did do something I promised myself I wouldn't; I asked him how likely it was that I would collect my old-age pension. He gave me the old "statistics don't mean much" line, but ventured that there was a 25% chance the cancer would show up somewhere else. That's pretty close to the odds I was given five years ago, and the cancer left me in the dust. Seems unlikely to me that it's not lurking in my body somewhere as I write, whether the sketchy bone-mets diagnosis proves to be accurate or not. But 25% is better than I thought it would be.

Speaking of the bones, when I got home I received a message that the orthopedic surgeon I've been trying to get in to see since last July has agreed to see me next Tuesday. I guess my oncologist applied some pressure. So I'll be seeing two orthopedists within one week of each other, and it will help to get two opinions. And not a moment too soon. I had to be taken out of the hospital today in a wheelchair because I couldn't stand up. I feel as though an anvil has been attached by a string to my left shoulder blade and I am dragging it everywhere. It's not just painful but truly uncomfortable; the sensation of intense pressure leaves me panting, as though I can't breathe, when I know my lungs are in fine condition.

Meanwhile, I had the staples removed from my incisions, and, as I feared, I still feel as though I have staples, the drain, and masses of tape pulling on my skin when there is nothing there now at all. "You'll never feel the same there," warned the surgeon, but he assured me the pinching, pulling numbness would die down. I saw the patient navigator, who told me to buy Vitamin E ointment to massage the sutures with, something I did five years ago but had completely forgotten.

Tomorrow I will see the medical oncologist again, and perhaps will get a better idea of when chemo will start and what it will be like. More catch-22 decisions to make, I'm sure: Anthracycline? Could cause a heart attack if I make it to 70, but I probably won't, so who cares? Taxane? I'll lose the feeling in my feet, but it will probably come back! I am trying to decide what colour of wig to get. My sex life was always better when I had red hair....

Pollyanna moments:

• A smart-looking woman in a suit at the hospital saw me grimacing against the wall waiting for an elevator with my friend and insisted on fetching a wheelchair for me and wheeling me to the front door. "I'm in the logistics department," she told me when I asked who she was. "This is just what we do. We're nice at this hospital."
• Dr. McCharm charmed both me and the friend who kindly accompanied me to my appointment, as did the patient navigator and the breast-centre nurse. They're truly lovely people (so is my friend, Peggy).
  
• Two much younger former colleagues came over last night, made me dinner and regaled me with gossip and industry news, making me feel for a couple of hours that I was in the real world again.