My breast cancer and the best laid plans

I had a plan. I wrote an essay called My Last Summer with Breasts and posted it on my Facebook page, and was going to continue to write about the process of accepting the fact that in the fall, I was having a bilateral mastectomy with no reconstruction. The first essay was loved. Lots of folks sent their best wishes. One of my friends commented, “make it the best summer yet”.

That part I did. We went kayaking, we explored new coastal towns, I planted a garden and picked blackberries I fed to the chickens. We are out in the country now on a small quiet inlet of the Puget Sound. There are summer nights here that feel like being in the middle of a painting. We kayaked out at sunset and stayed so long the neighbors joked about sending out a search party for us. Friends visited and left with fresh eggs, apples, and tomatillos. We went to California for an annual beach weekend, and I chased my nieces in the waves after spending as much time as I possibly could in the ocean.

What I didn’t really do was write. This was made more awkward by the fact that most weeks someone I came across brought up My Last Summer with Breasts; they said they cried, they said they read it to a friend or their spouse, they said it was impactful. Each time I had these interactions I nodded my head and responded vaguely without consciously absorbing the fact that in my mind I was still in that essay. Like a child, I was trying to make summer last forever.

Then I woke up one morning and realized that the surgery was a week away. I was overcome with cold feet. It felt like forcing myself to walk over a cliff. I cried. A lot. I texted my sister that I wished a mother/grandmother figure of ours was still with us. She replied, “same”.

Then I called everyone I could think of. I am fortunate to know a lot of survivors; not solely of breast cancer, some have had other health scares, domestic violence, miscarriages, or other loss. They are all women who, when I texted, immediately responded.

I said I was having second thoughts, they said of course you are. They said you can cancel any time until the surgery starts. They said no decision is the wrong one. They said find your voice and stay in it.

Find your voice. There are times when it can seem like a decision has nothing to do with your voice. This decision is about statistics, about cultural acceptance, about my family and friends. I didn’t spend enough time thinking about how it would change me,

I read a story once about an effort to research oral contraceptives for men; the study never went anywhere because the men in the study couldn’t handle the side effects. It was a bad choice they didn’t have to make, and they just couldn’t do it. Women, on the other hand, are faced with bad choices most days in their lives: the lack of support for women and for working families means that almost everything is a compromise. Birth control is just another thing you live with for the greater good.

I used to take birth control in order to combat constantly painful periods, until my first bout with breast cancer. Birth control increases your vulnerability to breast cancer — a fact I find astounding. In any case, my genes also put me at risk for ovarian cancer as well as breast cancer, so I had my uterus and ovaries removed. One of the benefits to this is that I could put off the decision to have a mastectomy until later.

I am profoundly resistant to making choices I don’t want to make. However, the reality is that as each day goes by my cancer risk increases. I see posts on the Facebook group for folks with my condition all the time — women find themselves with stage 4 cancer after careful screening and diligent detection efforts. I also never, ever want to return to the cancer treatment center. Radiation after my first cancer experience led to an infection that led to a four-day hospital stay and IV antibiotics.

This is a way I can avoid going back to that place. I can stay on my picture-perfect inlet, with so much less fear of being put through barbaric treatments. But it also profoundly reshaping my body.

I have until Tuesday night to decide whether I’m really not ready or just massively resistant to something that really, really sucks. And I’m writing this because this is a door so many women walk through. There are so many downsides to being a woman in our age, but there are so many benefits as well. These phone calls this weekend, they are near the top of the list.

I hope to write again when I am through this door. I hope to write again fully happy with my decisions. I hope to have cute shirts and dresses that are flattering. I hope to be back on the water soon.

I had a plan. It was big and stretched through a summer. Now I have a plan that stretches through this afternoon. And then the next one.