Twelve Weeks to Live

The diagnosis “You have cancer”

I forgot to check the answering machine last night. I was out having dinner, attempting to celebrate my younger sister’s birthday. Our Birthday celebration was an annual tradition of ours, one we were maintaining in spite of my recent move to Chicago and her continued residence in Elkhart, Indiana (a small community next to Notre Dame)

We had spent hours the previous evening wandering the monstrosity of a shopping mall called, Woodfield Mall. Neither one of us, being small town Indiana girls, even knew there could be this many shopping options under one roof. It was overwhelming and the evening was not going very well. My sister, Michal Elaine, could not find a pair of pants she liked (which was going to be my birthday present for her). My spirits were very troubled and preoccupied. I had a breast biopsy two days ago and had not told a single soul. No one. Because everything was fine. I would feel foolish alarming anyone about a silly cancer scare.

Our warm, cozy Italian dinner was delicious, but solemn. I finally told Michel why I was not in a shopping mood. My small, beautiful, perky, right breast may be a time bomb waiting to kill me. It was incomprehensible and I was in a state of complete denial.

Michal Elaine, a K-9 Elkhart city police officer, was contemplative. “I don’t know Sharon. You are so young and healthy, but a coworker of mine is going through breast cancer treatment with his wife right now. She is only 32 years old!”

We both digested that piece of news. I had never heard of a young woman getting breast cancer, in fact I never knew anyone with breast cancer because there was no history in my family of cancer.....any type of cancer, and certainly not breast cancer.

“How is she doing now?” I asked with trepidation

“Not good. Her husband is always talking about how sick and tired she is all of the time. She has lost all of her hair and looks like a completely different person. She has gained weight and feels awful about herself. I think he is very scared. He is scared by how she looks, how she feels, and what might happen to her and their family. He talks to us sometimes at work, but mostly he just keeps to himself. He volunteers to work all the extra shifts he can. He says they need the money, which I am sure they do. Mostly, he just does not want to go home and see his wife so sick,” she explained.

My stomach lurched in fear and repulsion. How horrible. I could never deal with all those things happening to my body. I was encouraged to hear her husband was still with her, at least physically. In my health care (ICU nurse) professional experience, so many men go MIA (missing in action) as soon as a health crisis happens to the woman they love. “What am I supposed to do with a sick, depressed woman?” they asked me with glazed eyes. Then they disappear. Sometimes for good.” It was tragic how many times I saw that happen in my nursing career..

I became very distressed thinking about my sister’s friend. Surely that could not happen to me? I completely lost my appetite. My sister looked quite pale and processed the fact that her sister COULD have breast cancer. No birthday desert for us that dinner celebration.

The next morning I saw the answering machine blinking “message ready,” and hit the play button. Dr. Lee, the surgeon who did my breast biopsy two days ago said, “Sharon, please call my office as soon as possible.” I looked at my sister with wild eyes and my heart pounding. “It must be bad news. I can’t believe this is happening.” My sister, standing in the doorway, looked at me helplessly and did not say a word.

I called the office, was not put on hold. I got transferred to Dr. Lee immediately, a very bad sign. She said she wanted me to come into her office for an appointment that very afternoon to talk with me.

“Just tell me now. I know it is bad. Do I have cancer?” I demanded.

“I do not like sharing important news over the telephone when you are all alone,” she said calmly.

I persisted and told her there was no way I could wait until this afternoon.

“Just tell me now,” I pleaded as though my life depended on it (because, of course, it did)

Finally, she reluctantly told me “Yes, Sharon, you have breast cancer. It is very serious. You have a large tumor and I must remove your entire breast”

As the discussion continued, she explained the tumor had already spread into at least two of my lymph nodes, which were already large enough to be palpable. This was a very ominous prognostic sign - meaning the cancer cells had already moved out of my small breast and were having a happy field day growing and spreading microscopically throughout my body. There was already a large enough mass of the spreading cancer cells in the lymph nodes under my arm that you could feel them ......like big firm red seedless grapes! That cancer was having a great big party in my body and I had no idea.

Dr. Lee said the tumor was too big and my thirty year old perky breast was now a big disadvantage. If they removed the tumor and got a clear margin of healthy tissue surrounding the tumor, there would be no breast left. It would be a “cosmetically undesirable result” as my doctor described it. I would be cosmetically undesirable either way, was all I could think during the conversation.

“I want you to schedule an appointment with a plastic surgeon today and look at your reconstruction options. This is a large tumor and I would like to schedule the surgery with in the next 7 days. I will call Dr Manus’s office and get you an emergency appointment. I will see you two days later and we will schedule the modified radical mastectomy,” said Dr. Lee with authority. Click. The dead phone line hung in my hand.

I will never forget the moment I was told I had cancer. Ever. No one ever does. Space becomes still and time stops.. When a person hears CANCER, the brain shuts down. You go into a shock mode. Everything you know in life to be true is shattered and will NEVER, EVER be the same. EVER.

I was always a very goal oriented person, type A +++++ person. I worked hard (driven some would say). I put myself through nursing school, management business school, and ultimately obtained my MBA from Notre Dame. It was one of my proudest moments and the two hardest years of my life, since I was working full time and managed to graduate second in a very competitive class of 35 men and 5 women.

Before Cancer (BC), my life made sense. I worked hard. I studied hard. I put myself through school. I was rewarded with three degrees, and I now I had a fulfilling, exciting, high profile career as a Specialty Neurology Regional Manager for Merck and company. That made sense to me. I was never given anything for free. In fact I had never won a single thing in my life, not even a rub off bottle lid for a free Coke for an apple pie at McDonalds.

How can 3 decades go by and not once get something for free? I could not even win tennis spins to start a match. It just became something I accepted. I had to work hard and made things happen for myself. No luck involved. No mentoring. No “good ole boys” on the golf course to put in a good word for me for a promotion at my competitive job.

Of course, that meant I was working much harder, longer hours, and had more education than many of my male counterparts who were being promoted. to similar positions. (The pharmaceutical industry and especially Bristol Myers Squibb was an extremely male dominated culture at the managerial level.) Therefore, I felt extremely proud and accomplished once I receive my promotion at Merck to be in charge of an 8 state region.

Things were going “perfect” for once in my life. I had my health I had a great career with the best company in the pharmaceutical industry. I had a beautiful newly built home in the suburbs of Chicago, and I had a wonderful marriage to my husband and best friend of 10 years. I also had my beloved dog, Shalimar, my Doberman and running companion.

Now for the first time I was given something. Something I did not set a goal and work very had to receive it. CANCER.

Cancer became my new, and closest, companion for the next six plus years of my life. My new friend was with me every moment, every step, most every thought, and always my nighttime companion, keeping me up at all hours of the night. Telling me horror stories of what could, would, should happen to me as my new companion slowly destroyed my healthy body. Will I be cured? Will cancer come back? Will the cancer kill me? Will my death be slow and painful? These were the questions posed to me every single night by new cancer companion. I could not escape it, this new “beast” in my life. I tried alcohol, lorazapam, ambien, hot tea, milk, valera root, Chinese formulations, Nyquil, herbal sleep formulations sent to me by friends from all over the county. Nothing worked. Many mornings I would wake up with a hang over from sleeping pills. I became the worst insomniac after my cancer diagnosis and it continues to this day. I used to be such a deep sleeper, I would set two different alarm clocks. One alarm was so obnoxious, neighbors would hear it down the hall. Those restful days are gone forever.

Processing the arrival of the “beast”

While working for 6 years as a registered nurse in the ICU, I had taken care of many patients with cancer. They were (in my mind) older people in their 70’ and 80’s who had smoked, drank heavily, did not exercise, did not eat healthy and generally did not take care of themselves. How wrong I was.

I was an avid runner, tri-athlete, aerobics instructor, tennis player, nonsmoker, nondrinker, and vegetarian in her thirties. How could this be happening? It became my mantra for the next year over and over again........How could this be happening? How could this be happening? How could this be happening?

I put the phone down after talking with my doctor who gave me the cancer diagnosis, and started just bawling. Poor Michal had never seen her “together” older sister ever fall apart before. No one had. She gave me a big hug. “I’m sorry you got bad news,” she whispered. Her family and job called so she drove back home to Indiana where things made more sense to her.

I could not blame her for her escape. She was scared. She did not know what to do, so she retreated. I soon found out it was a very common and visceral reaction. Flight. People don’t like to be around cancer patients. They don’t know what to do. Cancer might be contagious! (That is how some people made me feel.) Others offered their help, their compassion and a shoulder to lean on. I soon found out help came when I needed it the most and expected it the least.

I instantly feel desperately alone. I felt like I had been removed from planet earth. Just like in a frightening Star Trek episode, I had been permanently “beamed” to the planet of cancer “aliens”. Once I regained some clarity of speech and thought, I was ready to share my shocking news. My swollen eyes parted enough for me to dial the phone, and I called my husband who was “temporarily” living and working in Indiana. I was unable to reach him, which in retrospect, became prophetic.

Next, I called my brother, a PhD scientist who ran a research lab at Duke University in North Carolina. Of course he was stunned to hear the news and said something supportive and helpful. However, since I was in shock, I do not remember much of the conversation.

The remainder of the day was a blur. Slowly the rest of the surgeon’s words began to sink in. “Sharon, the cancer is too large. I can not save your breast.”

The plastic surgeon my surgeon recommended was Dr. Manus, who happened to live in my neighborhood. He was also married to a personal trainer who worked at the same health club where I taught aerobics. Small world. His wife had an amazing body and competed in various athletic/beauty pageants. She was extremely thin and had a beautiful pair of implants. I speculated it was her husbands work. It made me very depressed, and I was struck by the irony of the situation. Her husband was also going to give me implants or some type of reconstruction. How desperately I wanted to get out of the situation I was trapped in. I was just getting to the point of accepting my breasts, and now I was loosing one.

I thought of all the women who visit a plastic surgeon with beautiful, healthy and sometimes perfectly sized breasts, only to distort them. They left the surgeon with fake, rock hard, sometimes obscenely large implants. It was so unfair. I felt this was my punishment for all of the years I complained about my B cup breasts. I had been insecure about my breasts every since my first boyfriend at the age of 14 called me “flat chested.” Or maybe it went back to seventh grade when I volunteered to complete a math problem at the front of the room. I heard a male classmate say “Is Sharon facing the blackboard, or the class. I can’t tell because she is as flat as the blackboard.” The classroom erupted in laughter. I completed my problem and did not every volunteer to go to the front of the room again. I also started sitting in the back of every classroom I attended. I became acutely aware that my friends were sprouting “buds” while my chest remained dormant until the age of twenty-five when I finally added some body fat to my figure.

I always had a very athletic figure with shapely legs and backside from all of my years of running, a figure I had maintained to the day of my diagnosis. It seemed particularly ironic that the one part of my body I was uncomfortable with was the area that had cancer. I wished I could take all the criticism back and just have healthy breasts. Too late.

“We can rebuild you.” The trip to the plastic surgeon.

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