DCIS

Throughout December I had been getting some strange, intense and completely random chest pains.  I finally went to my doctor to help me figure out what was going on.  She had no idea but did suggest that it was time to get my first mammogram.  I was hesitated, only because I don't have any history of breast cancer and let's be frank, I'm busy.  Really busy.  But I did end up going and after a call back, an MRI, a biopsy, a PET scan, and a genetics test, I decided I needed more than my current doctor could give to me.  At that time I ended up getting a second opinion, and a second MRI in Utah at the Huntsman Cancer Institute.  Throughout all this I have been diagnosed with DCIS in my left breast with still a possibility of something in my right.  I'm now faced with the choice of unilateral or bilateral mastectomy in the next couple of weeks.

All of this has been time-consuming, annoying and at times painful.  (Yikes!  Those biopsies with their giant drill-guns and torture chamber boob-tables are the worst!)  As it is, I'm not bitter or angry.  I'm grateful.  I'm feel very lucky to have caught this cancer before it turned into real cancer.  This is all preventative and I'm not looking at survival rates (mine is 100%) or even chemo, at this time.

However, I have to admit, I do have some conflicting feelings about it all.  For one, the very awesome woman at church have adopted me as their charity case for the year.  The attention embarrasses me but I know that it will be needed when I go in for my big surgery.  (And of course, just last week I made myself even more pathetic by having my giant cholecystitis, pancreatitis, gall-bladder removal debacle.)  These wonderful families have brought us meals already, taken care of my children while I've traveled to Utah and provided so much support and love.  Like I said, I feel nothing but gratitude for their selflessness and love.

I do, however, feel a bit like a charlatan.  This lame cancer, DCIS...Ductal Carcinoma in Situ, is in fact a non-cancer.  A pre-cancer.  Not at all a cancer...yet.  A baby cancer that may or may not turn into the real thing.  Or maybe it has started to turn into something already but we haven't detected it yet.  Or perhaps will never turn into anything other than what it is.  It is stage 0 Cancer.  And on the other hand, it is grade 3, the most aggressive of Stage 0.  A very serious, very active...nothing.  It makes me feel like I'm pretending I have something I don't.  Look at me...poor me...I don't have cancer, but you can treat me like I do.  I could wear a pink ribbon and run in 5k races with other survivors who have actually survived something real.  I feel like, if this is Stage Zero cancer, then we should really do Zero procedures and get Zero attention for our Zero problems.

Instead we are going for broke.  The only way to treat this non-cancer is with cancer treatment.  Take it all off!  Cut her up!  That seems extreme, doesn't it?  All that for something that may never be anything.  That currently doesn't seem to be anything.  So I get the treatment; I go through it all like a successful Hypochondriac.  I take the very sweet and thoughtful cancer presents and offers to help while knowing that I don't really belong in the group.  I'm nowhere near our little 3 year old friend who has been fighting nueroblastoma for the last year and a half.  That's a real cancer.  A frightening, harrowing, tough-mother of a cancer that requires this little child to become equally tough and brave.

Still, I'm grateful for where I am.  I know it is all necessary and important to do for my future and for the future of my family.  I know it isn't nothing.  I'm really, really, really happy not to be currently a member of the real cancer group.  Nobody wants that.  Ever.  For anybody.  I appreciate the skill and time of the doctors that are going to do these procedures and believe me, I understand the risks and outcomes of this pretty brutal surgery.  I can only imagine that the giant scars that will cross out what used to be my breasts will always remind me of the steps I had to take to prevent a terrible fight with cancer.  I'm just conflicted.  I'm worried.  Grateful. Scared.  Thankful.  Embarrassed.  Bold.  Weak.  I guess I feel it all to some degree.  The one thing I want to feel is sure.  Sure that I'm getting the right procedure done for the right reasons.  I am finally sure that I'm going to the right place with the right doctors and that is a huge relief for me.

So, here starts what I hope to be a comparatively short journey with this silly DCIS.  I'm anxious to get it done and get it over with so I can put the focus back on where it really should be.  On whether or not Ethan is going to ask a girl to be his Valentine.  On Laina and her determined quest to do the splits.  On Austin's computer programming.  On Jason and his latest boyhood triumphs.  On Emmett and that wonky, crooked little foot.   On Robert and his broke-down joints and dreams of tree-farms and raising chickens.  These things all need my attention and I can't wait to get back to them.