The Room Where We Wait
I had just returned from my first Super Bowl experience in Arizona - Super Bowl XLIX. I had the opportunity to be a part of an Iron Chef event with well known football players, meet well known football players at a brunch, watch Terry Bradshaw get roasted at The Friars Club SuperBowl Roast and then dance the night away with Mr. World Wide (Pitbull). I was on such a high and then a few weeks later my high would slowly fade to an all time low.
On February 19, 2015 I had an appointment at Northwestern for an ultrasound that I had made back in December of 2014. It was scheduled after finding lumps on my breast in September of 2014 (see Namaste or Not My Day). I sat in the waiting room looking around at the people I was sitting next to. I was by far the youngest in the room by 20 years. I was not thrilled to be there, but I figured after I got the scan over with I could go home and not ever think about it again. Who would know this was the first of many appointments and I would be thinking about it all the time.
I laid down for the ultrasound, the technician with a straight face the entire time. I’m no ultrasound tech, but it seemed to be lasting way too long. She then explained she wanted to have the doctor come in and look at the ultrasound. At that time my heart sank and I didn’t have a good feeling. I even said to her “I have a feeling that this isn’t good.” She didn’t say anything and waited for the doctor to enter the room. The doctor voiced that he didn’t like what he saw and told me he wanted me to get a mammogram. Well here we go! Who would have thought at 29 that I would be getting my first mammogram. While they were reading the results I sat in a tiny room with a chair, table and Kleenex. The doctor came in with a somber look on his face saying that they believe there are signs of cancer. Tears started to stream down my face. “CANCER?” I didn’t even know what the results were, but just the word “CANCER” hit me like a ton of bricks. I immediately called my husband who was at a work function tell him what was going on. My loving husband of course wanted to originally come to the appointment with me but I told him I was going to be ok and I was fine to go solo. Who would have known that I actually wasn’t going to be ok. The medical team immediately took me into a room for biopsies. They numbed my side and took 3 biopsies. So much for the numbing agent – it hurt really bad!! My husband arrived right before the first biopsy and gave me a kiss before exiting the room. While I lay on the table one of the nurses told me “I see this all the time and you are going to be ok.”
I received my diagnosis on February 20, 2015 after the ultrasound, my first mammogram and 3 biopsies. I had to wait over the weekend for next steps which made for a really depressing weekend. On February 24, I had my first appointment with the oncologist – Dr. Mellott – who would run through my diagnosis of Stage III hormone receptor positive - ER/PR-positive (Estrogen and Progesterone) - and Her2 positive breast cancer and what their proposed plan was for treatment. It was at this time that I would learn that my Aunt (my mom’s sister) was a breast cancer survivor. I lived through my grandma being diagnosed and losing her at a young age, but like most families no one spoke about what she went through or the disease that would later attack my aunt and then me. I was then led to the breast surgeon who reviewed my year “project” with me. My husband and parents joined me at this appointment. It would be a long road, but I was told to start building my support system to help me get through it. While many cancer patients have surgery first and then chemo, they wanted to get my chemo treatment started a.s.a.p. This said in order for me to ever have a chance of having a baby with my eggs; I would need to go through IVF. Before the day was over my husband and I met with the fertility navigator. Who would have thought that we had just been talking about starting our family naturally and now we were looking at what we would need to do to even try to have a family. The next day we met with the fertility doctor (February 25) to discuss next steps and the idea of freezing my eggs or creating embryos and freezing them before starting my chemo treatment. I was hearing everyone, but nothing was truly registering. I was still in a state of shock and couldn’t believe it all was happening.
I was grateful to have my husband and family at appointments to help take notes and comprehend the details I didn’t want to hear. Later that week we met with a fertility psychologist to talk about the process and for her to understand mentally where I was at. I knew I wanted to have kids of my own one day, but it was so hard in those few days to determine what I wanted to do before I was in the fight for my life. Ultimately it was a no brainer that I was going to freeze my eggs. I would be given drugs through shots in my stomach for a few days followed by blood work and ultrasounds. Depending on how things looked at each ultrasound, I would continue with the meds until they were ready to harvest the eggs.
The day of harvest was another day I will never forget. Many women were there because they couldn’t get pregnant due to fertility complications or the need of assistance to create embryos. I was just there to get my eggs out to start my chemo treatment. Yes, I wanted to have kids, but my focus was on staying alive. It was hard to see all of the women in the waiting room knowing what they were going through, but I honestly didn’t have empathy at that time because to me they were going to be able to start there family while I was getting ready to start cancer treatment. It was hard to tell the nurses that I was there to have my eggs harvested; I didn’t want to talk about it. I shouldn’t have been so negative, but I was hurting inside and questioning why I had to be going through this. I would soon learn though that going through IVF isn’t as easy as people may think so there is a chance that the woman next to me was on her first retrieval or even fifth retrieval. I now definitely have empathy for all of the women who are sitting in the fertility clinics all over the world. Following my appointments with the doctors, I started having the series of tests that are needed before chemo started.
I had my first ever CT scan, Echo and MRI. My husband and sister were there the day I had my MRI – I still remember the noise. Someone told me I was going to get headphones with music, however that didn’t happen. I felt like I was in a hole with a jackhammer that kept going and never never stopped. All while I lay there I kept thinking, “I can’t believe I am laying here because I have cancer.” That awful “C” word had come into my world. While I was getting my MRI, Eric and Lindsey met with the nurse navigator. She shared with them what I was going to go through and they were able to ask questions. Lynn, the nurse navigator, greeted me when I exited the room. She would be someone that at the early stages I would talk to about what I was going through. One of the hardest things was hearing that I was going to lose my hair. This was a sign that I was a cancer patient and made it all very real. I had worn my hair short before, but it was short because I chose to cut it and wear it that way. I’ll be talking a lot more about hair in upcoming posts!
All my initial appointments were complete and my tests came back. It was time for the port, round one of chemo and many many more doctors appointments to come. Spending an entire year in waiting rooms surrounded by other patients waiting for their infusions, tests, or surgeries is not something I want to remember, but I always will. I still have many doctor’s appointments, but they are to make sure I’m still healthy so I have become at peace with living in waiting rooms. The hard part is still looking around at everyone who is still sitting there waiting for an infusion, test or surgery.
Arkes is where I had my chemotherapy.
Northwestern Memorial Hospital Campus
I would soon know the ins and outs of all the buildings!
Northwestern Memorial Hospital