It’s retreat weekend! Keith and I are going to a retreat for young adults with cancer and young adults who have been caregivers to those who have had cancer. I am so grateful that programs like this exist and I am looking forward to meeting other young survivors and to Keith meeting other young caregivers, too.

Keith works for an NHL team and during the playoffs, time off isn’t an option. On Thursday night, his team lost game seven which meant that he could come with me to this retreat (had his team won, he would have had to stay and work). I was extremely anxious while I was watching the game because had the outcome been different, I would be going to this retreat alone, meeting other survivors and caregivers alone and dealing with feelings alone. I fear that I will be dealing with some emotions that I have otherwise suppressed since my diagnosis.

I can’t help but wonder what will come up this weekend that I have yet to deal with. Don’t you ever wonder if you haven’t actually dealt with issues that you’ve been faced with for the past year, 5 years or entire life and instead tucked them away in the ‘to do’ folder until it’s crucial that you sort out all of your thoughts and emotions? I fear that although I feel like I have dealt with this cancer thing pretty well, this weekend I will have break down upon break down because in lieu of dealing with the hard issues, I use humour to deflect my true feelings.

How do you know if you’ve dealt with an issue or if you’ve just ignored it? Can you tell by your reaction to the mere mention of the topic (you start crying when you hear the word ‘mastectomy’) or is it not until you’re in an intensive situation before you let it all out? I sometimes wonder if I should have spoken to a counsellor or a psychologist about being diagnosed with cancer and other times I think that with all of the support that I’ve been given, I didn’t/don’t need counselling but how can I be sure?

I seem to have come to terms with what I can’t control; fertility, only having one breast, the fear of recurrence, etc. but every now and again a mixture of every emotion known to man seems to come over me and I feel like I have taken ten steps back. By the following day, I always feel better, great even because I’ve acknowledged how I felt, and could move on. That’s what I’m anticipating this weekend will do for me; it will be hard to deal with while I’m in the midst of it but by next week, I’ll feel like a whole new me.

It’s a bizarre feeling to be scared of yourself – in a way, I don’t know what I’m capable of when it comes to cancer (both physically and emotionally) and I’m not sure what has been dealt with and what is left brewing under the surface. You know how you can talk about a topic ten times without crying and on the eleventh time you weep like a baby? That’s how I feel, I mean the work ‘cancer’ has lost all of its meaning anymore but when I say ‘I had cancer’, every now and again, it becomes real, too real. I guess I’m also a little apprehensive because when it is just me and Keith, I can escape the cancer world but by going to a retreat, I am committing to cancer for the entire weekend. I don’t know if I am ready for that kind of commitment.

For as long as I can remember, I have needed external validation for just about anything that I do. When I was in school, I always wanted to be the top of my class. I would come home with an 86% on a math test and my mom would jokingly say ‘Where’s the other 14%’ because she knew that I wasn’t happy with only 86%; it’s not 100%.

This external validation has driven me to achieve many goals. Every time a boss of mine says ‘Great job’ or ‘What would I do without you’, I always want to work harder to show that I’m ‘the best’ or ‘worth it’. Keith jokes that I do well with a gold-star system – meaning every time I do something well, I expect a gold star and that respond well to positive reinforcement. By the time I was 24 years old, I had earned three degrees, one of which is a master’s degree and I have always prided myself in being the youngest person to ever… or the best person to ask about… or the funniest; I like being known as the funniest.

Breast cancer is no different really because I usually am the youngest person that anyone has heard of getting breast cancer – I realize that I’m not the youngest person to ever be diagnosed but very few people know of anyone who was as young as 26. I guess in some respects, breast cancer has met my previously mentioned criteria; I’m the youngest, the best person to talk to (I’ve had a few people say ‘Talk to Katie about [insert breast cancer topic here], I know she’s dealt with that’) and I have used humour a lot in the past year.

I think my need for external validation has morphed into projected expectations that I assume others are putting on me. So, what I mean is, because I rely so much on others to value my worth, I think when it comes to me meeting an expectation, I assume that others are putting as much pressure on me as I’m putting on myself and by assuming this, it only adds to my own expectations.

I think when I was diagnosed and even while I was in treatment, I felt like I got a bit of a free pass to react to anything, any way I wanted. Like if I was to cry all day, no one would say anything because it’s to be expected. Or if I cursed like a sailor about not having a breast, no one would try to calm me down because it’s understandable. On the days that I didn’t leave the house, I rarely got pressure from anyone to go for a walk because they knew that I was physically drained. But now, now that the physical side effects of treatment are fading, I feel like the expectations are increasing.

I constantly hear that I need to lose weight – by the doctors, the professionals, strangers and that little voice in my head. I feel like I need to eat perfectly, not properly but perfectly – I feel like outsiders look down on me if I eat out because of the ‘stuff’ in our food these days. Do you know how much pressure there is to be a health nut now that I’ve had cancer? I feel like I’m expected to be back in action at work when really my brain is getting such a work out. Maybe I feel this way because I used to have expectations on individuals who had cancer, I thought when treatment was over, cancer was over but now I understand that there’s no way to stop having cancer, instead it just moves from your body to your mind. Everyone seems to have an opinion as to why I had cancer (even though my whole oncology team couldn’t figure it out) and the reasons range from stress to what we eat to genetics to our environment and it’s hard to not feel like ‘they’ are blaming me for having cancer. In other words, ‘If you didn’t have so much stress in your life, you wouldn’t have gotten cancer.’

A few weeks ago, after only being back to work for two or three weeks, I had a bit of a breakdown. Everything was making me cry and nothing could stop me from crying. I think because I felt so tired after only working 5 hour days, I felt like I was failing. No one said anything to me or even implied that they were disappointed in me but because I wasn’t able to jump back in to the swing of things, after being off for a year, and after going through cancer, treatment and now being on cancer drugs that make me so tired, I felt like I was failing at returning to work. And by not getting a daily dose of ‘Wow, 5 hours a day, that’s so impressive. How do you do it?’ I felt like I wasn’t going back to work ‘properly’ or ‘good enough’. I sound crazy, don’t I?

I know not everyone seeks the external validation that I do or puts as much pressure on themselves, but I think the expectations of others do start playing a role in everyone’s cancer journey so if you know someone who is going through treatment, returning to work, or celebrating their 20 year cancer-free anniversary, try not to put any expectations on them, maybe even tell them how proud you are of them because this cancer thing is so unpredictable and we put enough pressure on ourselves.

This past year has really changed my perspective on a variety of aspects of my life, one being the definition of beauty. I don’t feel beautiful anymore and cancer has a lot to do with that.

When I think of a beautiful woman, I picture Beyoncé or Scarlett Johansson or my mom and all of these women have beautiful curves, the hair that women dream of, working-women-parts and two breasts. I on the other hand don’t possess such beauty. I have so much extra weight on me, my curves have turned into blobs. I have tried to lose weight but between the exhaustion of post-treatment and now going back to work, the weight-gain side effects of Tamoxifen, and being predisposed to being overweight because of PCOS, it is becoming inevitable that I will be overweight forever. My hair is, well, I have hair… but I think what makes it hard is that my short hair is a constant reminder that I had cancer and chemo and I don’t have a choice in my hairstyle right now – cancer has given me THIS hairstyle. The working women’s parts are to be determined and we won’t know until I try to have a baby in 4.5 years – I’ll keep you posted. And finally, only having one breast, in a world where we are bombarded with sex, sex, sex, and breasts, breasts, breasts, and cleavage, cleavage, cleavage, I have one breast. My breast(s) aren’t even sexual to me anymore, Lefty looks like a breast but doesn’t feel like one (I lost all sensation after I had a reduction to try and even them out) and Righty is just a lump (currently with an expander). I feel like I have lost my sex appeal; I feel like I’ve lost my womanhood.

I have recently tried to focus on my ‘insides’ and all that I have to offer that you can’t see. I am proud of myself for who I have become and I know I have a lot of great traits but when I’m walking down the street, or going to a job interview, or meeting a friend’s new boyfriend, in the back of my mind I always wonder ‘Can he tell that my right breast is currently a face cloth stuffed into my mastectomy bra to even me out?’ and ‘I wonder if he’s seen pictures of me with long hair – I looked prettier with long hair’ and ‘I used to weigh a lot less – don’t judge me at the weight I’m at now.’

It’s easy for me to recognize my good characteristics but it would be nice to be told I’m pretty… and to believe it. I am very lucky to have people all around me (including family, friends and the Amazing Keith) who tell me how beautiful I am, but I have gotten to a place where I don’t believe them because I don’t feel very womanly anymore. What’s that saying, ‘you can’t expect someone else to love you if you don’t love yourself’? I think this kind of falls under that category.

There is so much support for our physical needs when we are cancer patients, your oncologist, your nurses, your pharmacist and your drugs are all trying to balance the cancer-killing drugs with the anti-nausea, anti-anxiety drugs but I have to say, especially near the middle of treatment, I started wondering ‘which of these 13 lettered prescriptions will cure my heartache over having cancer?’ and ‘Is it this little white pill that will help grow my breast back? No, no, wait, it’s to take care of my fear of recurrence.’ My point is, there is not enough support for the psychological side of cancer. How am I supposed to deal with cancer’s impact on my self-image? How do I face the fact that the odds of me having cancer again, is quite likely? How do I deal with the fact that I think about my funeral – probably more than I should?

I know, deep in my heart, that it is what’s on the inside that counts. I know that breasts, and hair, and being ‘skinny’ shouldn’t be my priority and most of the time they’re not but every now and again I get pretty pissed off that cancer robbed me of all of it.

On the other hand…

I met someone at work today who, after finding out that I had cancer, shared that his dad was currently in chemo. He started asking questions about my cancer and I told him about surgery and treatment to which he replied ‘Oh good, you had surgery’. I thought ‘Oh ya, it was great, I love not having a breast. What a weird thing to say.’ He then told me about his father who had esophagageal cancer and they couldn’t operate unless they collapsed a lung, broke his chest cavity and then removed part of his esophagus, all with having a 10% chance of success. So instead, he stays in chemo, so that he can eat and so he can stay ‘comfortable’. He’s damn right that I was lucky I had surgery. I get so angry with myself sometimes for feeling sorry for myself for not having a breast when some people are living with cancer and they would do anything to hear ‘We’ve found a way to remove your cancer. We’re going to operate tomorrow.’

So often we hear about how awful our healthcare is and it’s not hard to find someone who bitches about his/her job, employer, or co-workers. Well, I’m here to sing a different tune.

Being diagnosed with breast cancer at 26 years old has certainly turned a few heads. When I told my family doctor about the lump that I found, she assured me that it was probably nothing (based on my age and family history) but certainly took it seriously enough to order the tests that needed to be ordered. Following that, I had 2 radiologists look at 2 different ultrasounds and neither one of them were concerned. In January, my oncology surgeon assured me that I didn’t have cancer and it was in March that I was diagnosed. It took a whole medical team 6 months to diagnose me with cancer.

I have met a lot of other youngins (women in their 20s and 30s) who have had breast cancer who were faced with a similar situation. I for one do not hold any anger towards my doctors, for a few reasons. First of all, they are doctors not perfect; they are human and liable to make some mistakes here and there. My oncology surgeon told me back in January (prior to my diagnosis) that if I did have cancer, I’d be the youngest woman she’d ever seen with breast cancer. Well, now I AM the youngest woman that’s she’s ever seen and let’s hope it stays that way. BUT here’s hoping that she will not tell another woman that she doesn’t have cancer until she has the pathology reports telling her so.

What good what it do to hold any anger towards these physicians who were basing my case on their past education and experience? I won’t get my breast back and I certainly won’t be able to reverse the effects of chemo. Yes, maybe if I would have been diagnosed in September of 2010, I would have been at stage I instead of stage II OR maybe I didn’t have cancer in September and instead it turned malignant in January, we will never know but being angry at someone isn’t going to turn back the clocks and stop my cancer from happening.

Once I was diagnosed, I had incredible care. I had an MRI ordered on March 16^th and I had the appointment on the 19^th. I was diagnosed on the 11^th of March and I had surgery on the 28^th. My oncologist would call me at 7pm – well after her day was over – to see how I was feeling. Actually, she called me on the Friday of the Victoria Day Weekend to tell me that my results came back from a test that was performed on my tumour. When she said that my tumour was even more aggressive than they had thought and that we needed to be more aggressive with chemo, she used the phrase ‘Well, if you were my daughter, I would be ordering another 2 rounds of chemo, too’. I knew right then that I wasn’t a number to her, I wasn’t just another patient, she treated me (both emotionally and physically) the same way as she would treat her daughter.

The nurses, I mean let’s give a shout out to all the nurses out there, were amazing. I had one nurse approach me and say ‘My 29 year old cousin was just diagnosed this week with breast cancer, can I give her the link to your blog?’. I was very touched because she recognized that although she could support her cousin as a family member, as a friend, and as a nurse, she couldn’t provide the same support as a fellow cancer patient could and she looked to me to fill that void. The nurses calmed me when I needed to be calmed and laughed when I needed someone to laugh with. Here’s a special ‘thank you’ to all you nurses!

I guess my point is, if you were to type in ‘Healthcare Canada’ into Google, I would assume that you would get more ‘hits’ about the negative side of hospitals, nurses, and medical teams but in my case I am very grateful to my medical team. During the scariest time of my life, healthcare professionals made is bearable. In my case, it wasn’t just my cancer that was treated, it was me.

Now to work – I returned back to work on March 26^th, exactly one year after my last day (March 25^th, 2011). I was anxious about my fatigue, my stamina and mostly I didn’t want to be the cancer girl at work. I didn’t want anyone to feel like they couldn’t approach me with an issue because they didn’t want to overload me. I am in the middle of my third week of work and am loving every minute of it. The first day that I saw my boss he gave me a great big hug and now a few times a week he very sincerely calls me ‘Trooper’ and I secretly love it. I am very aware of my limitations and as my gradual return to work progresses, I think my energy levels do too. For the first two weeks, I worked 20 hours a week and now I am onto 25 hours a week. I plan to increase 1 hour a day for every new week.

Last week, I was walking to the bus stop; the sun was shining and all I kept thinking was ‘I’m going to work. I’m going to WORK! I’M GOING TO WORK!!’. What a fantastic feeling after thinking ‘I’m going to chemo. I’m going to CHEMO. I’M GOING TO CHEMO!’. It feels so good to have a routine again. It feels so good to think about bank recs and not cancer wards. It feels so good to feel needed again. I couldn’t be happier that I am back. I couldn’t be happier that I work for such a great company (Shoppers Drug Mart) and I couldn’t be happier that my fear of being the cancer girl at work was totally unwarranted.

As I said, I took a year off and I am very grateful for all those around me who made that financially possible (friends, family, co-workers, my employer, etc.) because I wouldn’t have been ready to come back any sooner. After treatment is over, you need that time to physically heal but then overwhelming you realize that you have just gone through cancer and chemo and you don’t have a breast any more. I think once the initial shock of hearing ‘you have cancer’ wore off, I became so focused on each individual day that my plans didn’t usually go beyond that. You become so consumed with making it through the nausea of today or the appointment tomorrow morning that next week doesn’t matter and the fact that you have cancer isn’t allowed to impact your mentality at the time because you are so focused on surviving. Then, when treatment is over and your doctor visits shift from once a week to once every 3 months, the urgency of today fades away and the realization that you just had cancer starts to sink in. It’s a lot to deal with once treatment is over.

Although treatment was over, I was still trying to find energy to go grocery shopping two months later. In retrospect, I am surprised how many people told me what I should be doing with my time. For example, ‘You should get more exercise’ at the same time as ‘You need your rest’ and ‘You need to make sure that you’re relaxed and keep stress out of your life as much as possible’ at the same time as ‘When are you going back to work? When are you going back to WORK? WHEN ARE YOU GOING BACK TO WORK?’. What I’ve come to realize is that if you’ve never had cancer, you won’t get it, you can’t get it. The flowers and cards and ‘how are you feeling’ have stopped because the physical side of cancer is mostly over (with the exception of this expander in my chest) but unfortunately the psychological side of cancer is here to stay.

I’ve written about what I call ‘cancer etiquette’ a few times now and although I have learned to expect that people will tell me about how many family members or friends that they know who have died from cancer, I just can’t get used to some things that people say. 

From the beginning, I have heard the expression ‘Everything happens for a reason’ and I think I have figured out what I don’t like about this saying. It’s okay for me to say ‘Everything happens for a reason’ when I’m referring to my cancer but for someone else to say it to me who has never ‘been there’ has really started to upset me. I have to bite my tongue and not say, ‘Oh is that right, what reason do you have for me losing a breast? Or going through chemo? Or fearing recurrence for the rest of my life? What reason do you have for all of the mean games that cancer plays and all the psychological tricks that my cancer-mind plays on me?’ So my new rule is to try to avoid saying ‘Everything happens for a reason’ to anyone (regardless of their situation) and instead praise them for having that attitude if it comes out of their own mouth.

Another one that I have learned to hate (and I know people say it to try to be positive) is ‘Well at least [...insert chipper comment here...]). When I’m venting or telling someone how scared I was or how scared I am now, the last thing I want to hear is ‘Well at least it was breast cancer and not liver cancer’ or ‘Well at least you’ve had Keith by your side from the beginning’. Although these comments are 100% accurate, sometimes I don’t want to see the positive side of everything. I have said so many times that I am extremely lucky, and again I feel like it’s ok for me to think that way but sometimes I take offence when someone else says it to me.

The old ‘I know how you feel’ really gets me anymore too and I usually can’t keep my mouth shut about this one. I’ve been very open about my fear of infertility and every now and again someone who has never had cancer or has never gone through treatment will throw out the ‘I know how you feel’ comment. Their assumed ‘relatability’ stems anywhere from having a bad PAP in the past to having precancerous cells. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure chemo frying your ovaries and being given a 40% chance of being able to have children is a little different than, well, anything else.

Again with fertility – I was recently on a flight and the lady next to me was one of those ‘I-need-to-know-everything-about-you’ kinda people. So, it came out that I had cancer, that led to her telling me about her daughter’s work in cancer pharmaceuticals and her focus on trying to target the cancer cells and sparing the other cell’s from treatment’s harsh attacks. She brought up fertility and I told her that was an issue I was dealing with. After I told her I had a 40% chance of being able to have children she said ‘Well, you can always adopt.’ Now, yes, I should have just said ‘That’s true’ and then put my head phones on to avoid talking to her for the rest of the flight but instead I said ‘Well, did you have to adopt?’ (knowing full well that she had 2 of her own biological children) and she said ‘No’, and I replied ‘No, because you had the choice.’ I’m not trying to make it sound like adoption is a consolation but for me, it’s not the same thing as bearing my child, and passing on my Dad’s eyes, and my mom’s beauty. I have been told ‘You can adopt’ a number of times in the past few months and I kind of feel like they think they are providing a solution for me that I wasn’t aware of. It’s like they expect me to say ‘Adoption, shit, why didn’t I think of that?’ Again, maybe this isn’t logical, but it continually pisses me off when someone suggests it. And for the record, adoption is very difficult for many couples (who haven’t had cancer) and I’ve been told that as soon as I tick the ‘cancer’ box on the medical history portion of the adoption form, they treat me as a ‘high risk’ client because they don’t want to give a child to someone who may not be around to raise it.

I know no one is trying to upset me or be insensitive – they don’t know what to say and some of the above items may be totally acceptable to some survivors, but they are not to me.

Many times, I have felt that when I write, I vent and I don’t necessarily want that to become a habit. I think because in my day to day life, I am always the one smiling or laughing and so when I am alone with my thoughts and writing about cancer, I think I write about what frustrates me or makes me sad or scared.

What’s been on my mind a lot lately is the lack of options that cancer has provided me with. Cancer has robbed me of a lot and has limited what I have control over anymore. Many things that most young women get to decide have been decided for me. The bra shops that I go to are predetermined; the average bra is about $80 now and they are pretty generic (the word ‘sexy’ hasn’t quite hit the mastectomy world yet), having children may not be a decision that we can make because it may have been made for us, if I do get pregnant, breastfeeding is not an option (or a choice) and contraception is extremely limited because of my hormone receptive cancer.

When it comes to birth control, I can’t use anything that releases hormones so that means no pills, no rings, no shots, and no implants. We are limited to abstinence, condoms, diaphragms, and IUDs. Let’s just cross abstinence off the list, male condoms have a variety of drawbacks and have you seen the size of the female condom, you could fit a small elephant in those suckers. Diaphragms need way too much preparation and IUDs require a ‘procedure’ to put it into place. So what’s a girl to do who wants to get pregnant but can’t get pregnant until she’s done her 5 years of Tamoxifen? She goes with an IUD.

After chemo was over, I knew I had to do something about contraception but really, the odds of me being able to have a baby are as low as 40% so what are the odds of getting pregnant? And then I thought, the odds of me getting breast cancer at 26 years old were less than 1%, right, so, contraception it is. The thought of an IUD really grossed me out, and between my breast implant, my PICC line and all the chemicals that have been put through my system, I didn’t know if I was ready to be poked and prodded once more.

I looked into it and really, everything I read said that there was some initial discomfort but the pros seemed to outweigh the cons. An IUD (Intrauterine Device) is a ‘T’ shaped device that is inserted into your uterus by a physician that kills sperm and prevents pregnancy. There are two different kinds of IUDs, one that releases hormones (that my family doctor assured me would be fine because it releases progesterone and my cancer was estrogen receptive but I don’t want any extra hormones of any kind if I had an alternative, thank you very much), and one that is wrapped in copper (sperm apparently hate copper) which is the one I chose.

So after squirming through the thought of going through another procedure that cancer has cornered me into, I went to my family doctor and said ‘I want an IUD’. Let me tell you the benefits first. It cost $68 (not covered by our drug plan) and it lasts for 5 years. That’s a cost of about $1.11 a month. If for some reason you want it out before 5 years, it can easily be taken out by a physician. And, you can start trying to conceive a child after your next period once it’s been removed. Another great thing is that I never have to remember to take it (or take it out), I don’t have to stop what I’m ‘doing’ to put it on, and there are no hormones associated with it. Oh and once it’s in, you can’t feel it, I’d have no idea it’s in there, it doesn’t move, etc. etc. etc.

Luckily, my family doctor does it in her office (apparently not all family doctors do this). So, I made an ‘insertion’ appointment and mentally prepared myself for going through another procedure. I ‘googled’ IUD insertion and although many people advise against googling things like that, I always like being prepared. Google and I have been best friends since last March and I seem to be able to weed through the garbage and find the credible information. I would rather know every symptom that could happen and experience nothing than not know any symptoms and experience everything. The information that I found mostly discussed extreme cramping and the pain during the procedure. All I kept thinking was ‘if I can make it through chemo, I can make it through this.’

So my doctor wrote 5 prescriptions at my consultation appointment that I needed to get filled before my next appointment. They like to insert the IUD the day after the last day of your period. The IUD is a prescription that you need to fill and bring with you to your ‘insertion’ appointment. My 5 prescriptions consisted of an IUD, 2 antibiotics (to prevent and ‘cure’ any infection the IUD may cause), 1 to prevent a yeast infection from the antibiotics and the last one was a pill that I had to insert vaginally to soften my cervix… You know, every know and again as I’m writing these blogs, I picture one of my brother’s reading it and wonder if either one of them ever think ‘You know, I know more about my sister’s boobs/uterus/cervix than I ever wanted to.’ But then I think about how many times I wish I could have found information about the ‘stuff’ that I write about from a real person’s perspective and it makes it all worth it. So, if I’m your sister, daughter, aunt, niece, etc. etc., I’m really sorry.

Anyway, the day before the insertion, 3 vaginal pills are inserted (by you), one in the morning and two at night. The next day I went into the doctor’s office, my name was called, I went into one of the rooms, disrobed, and before I knew it the car jack was in place. Now, I am 6’0 tall so I have longer everything. It never fails that my doctor inserts car jack #1 then says ‘I can’t see your cervix, I need to get the longer spreader-opener’. I call it Bazooka Joe but who really knows what it’s called. ANYWAY, she props me open, does a pap-test (I mean, might as well make a day out of this and have ‘the works’ done while she’s down there), and then she really cranks me open. She said ‘Oh I can finally see your cervix.’ I don’t really know what to say so I think I may have said ‘Oh, good’ as if I thought it had fallen out or something.

So, from there she was trying to talk to me to distract me (I’m an expert at identifying when a medical professional is trying to distract me as I am a self proclaimed needle-phobic and distraction is the number one technique for them to try to calm me down) but I was just trying to focus on my breathing. She said ‘this is going to pinch a little bit’ and I know what ‘pinch’ and ‘little bit’ means in the medical world so I closed my eyes and bit my own finger to try to localize the pain somewhere else but nothing happened – I didn’t feel anything. And then she said ‘You have to be very still right now, this is the crucial part’ and so my eyes slammed shut again and my teeth sunk into my finger a little more and then she said ‘Ok, I’m done’. Huh? Isn’t it supposed to hurt? I didn’t even feel it. I asked if I could sit up and she said ‘Sure, if you want to’. So, I started getting dressed and although for about 6 hours afterwards I was walking around with my legs kinda closed (I may have been a little nervous that it was going to fall out), it was entirely pain-free.

I did experience some cramping for about 48 hours but that was it. And since I’ve gotten the IUD, I have found out some interesting facts.
1. The IUD is the most effective form of contraception (the fact that there isn’t any responsibility on you or your partner to take a pill or insert a device, etc. is taken into account here too).
2. North America is the only part of the world where the IUD isn’t the most common form of birth control. We are a whole bunch of pill poppers.
3. An IUD was a form of birth control that was meant for women who have had children but in the past ten years that approach has changed and more and more childless women are using IUDs as their form of birth control.
4. All the cool kids are doing it.

So, the downside you ask? Well, the only main downside that I’ve read about but have not yet experienced is heavier, crampier periods (that’s with the copper IUD, with the hormonal IUD, your periods can sometimes disappear). I have not yet had a period since I’ve had the IUD so I can’t attest to that quite yet. Hopefully it’s nothing a little Advil can’t cure.

So now, I have made it my mission to spread the word about IUDs especially for breast cancer survivors who are still in their reproductive years. I wanted to let women know about IUDs because I didn’t know much about them and what we don’t know usually scares us. There is always talk amongst us young breast cancer survivors about the pill and whether it did have an impact on us getting breast cancer so young and many times my girlfriends ask me if I think there is a correlation between the pill and breast cancer in your 20s. To be honest, I have no idea and if I hadn’t have gone through what I just went through over the past year, I would probably still be on the pill but now my train of thought is, if there is an alternative, why chance it? Even if the pill has nothing to do with breast cancer, is it a good idea to be pumping all those hormones into our systems? I guess the same could be said for leaving a copper device in my uterus for 5 years, maybe that’s a bad idea too, so who am I to say?

The number eleven means different things to different people; there’s Sept 11th, making a wish at 11:11, there are 11 points on the maple leaf on the Canadian flag, and lately the eleventh hour has become too much of a reality. Eleven is significant in my life because March 11th is the anniversary of my diagnosis.

Now, I’ve dealt with this whole breast cancer thing like a rockstar and at every new milestone (if you can call them that), although nervous, I seem to pull through with a smile on my face. Chemo was tough but I still found a way to laugh through it and being down one breast has opened up a whole new world of humour (let’s just say Beyoncé’s, ‘All the Single Ladies’ has an entirely new meaning).

I could write a book about how grateful I am or how lucky I feel, for a variety of reasons and very often I can see the positive side of things. Every time someone would tell me ‘It’s not fair that you have cancer’, I would reply ‘Well, at least it’s a breast and not my liver’ or ‘Well, at least I’m 26 and not 3 years old’ or even ‘Well, at least I can one day be deemed cancer-free instead of having to live with cancer for the rest of my life’.

I’m telling you, I’ve been annoyingly positive about this whole thing but every now and again, I have a dark day, a day when I don’t want anyone to ‘fix’ anything, a day when I need to vent without someone telling me how lucky I am. How lucky did you feel when you got cancer? I can pull myself out of these ‘funks’ but sometimes I need to be left in them. Some days I need to say how shitty it was and how shitty I still feel in order to move past it.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle my first cancer anniversary; would I cry, would I need retail therapy, would I want to go out for drinks and celebrate or would I want to hide under the covers for the whole day? I felt like there was an expectation for me to celebrate and although I have managed to see the bright side of every situation since the beginning, I struggled with the bright side of having a cancer anniversary at 27 years old.

One of the annoying things is that every time I feel like this, I feel like either I am being super negative (rather than just not positive) or that I feel like I need to apologize for not putting a positive spin on things. I think a lot of the time I am positive for other people as well, to make them feel comfortable. People don’t know what to do if I start crying or tell them I am scared that I won’t see 30 years old but as soon as I crack a joke or make light of the situation, it puts them at ease. It doesn’t really seem fair when I think about it that way, but I can’t handle anymore tilted-head, teary eyed, mouth slightly opened looks when people hear that I had breast cancer. I’d rather say ‘Keith doesn’t like two breasted women anyway, so it all worked out’ just to see a smile instead of that damn tilted head look.

I was lucky enough to be with 3 of my good girlfriends on Sunday so I didn’t have the opportunity to hide under the covers all day, which ended up being a good thing because I think that’s what I would have done had I been alone. I missed Keith a lot on Sunday because he seems to know when I need to hear something positive in order to get me back on track and when I just need him to listen to me. He knows I’ll get myself out of the dark hole that I find myself in every now and again but until then, he knows he can’t fix anything and I love that about him.

March 11th ended up being a day I wanted to get through, not a day I wanted to celebrate. I realized that my pre-cancer life is slowly getting farther away and now it’s been over a year since I’ve had cancer which makes it feel more real for some reason. I wanted to forget and erase the day and I didn’t consider it a blessing. I’m assuming that will change one day and maybe I will want to celebrate being alive, but for now, I feel a little jaded about being expected to be so grateful when really this past year has sucked.

I’ve heard people refer to cancer as ‘a gift’ and for those of you who have never had cancer, yes, you read that correctly, a gift. I think that stems from having a new perspective on life, taking fewer things for granted, treating life as precious as it is, etc. And, I think I am the first to say that I have been given a lot of opportunity since I’ve had cancer and yes, I do have a new perspective on life. I have made many friends, been given some incredible opportunities, (for example, next week, I get to do a photoshoot for a magazine where I even have my own stylist), I have been flown from here to there, I have spoken in front of hundreds of people, I’ve been given gifts, been in newspapers, magazines and on national t.v., I mean, if anyone understands the positive side of cancer it’s me but in saying that, I would give it all back to not have had cancer. In my pre-cancer life, I may have been more ignorant, less perceptive, less equipped to deal with the real issues in the world and may not have amounted to a whole heck of a lot but damn a life without cancer sure does beat this. Even knowing that I would have remained the same naive, ignorant girl whose life was touched by cancer but who never really understood what it meant to go through it, I would gladly go back to March 10th and rewrite the future if I could, just to stop cancer’s continual hold on my life. I hate that I will forever have an oncologist, I will always fear cancer’s sequel and my right breast will always be missing.

Sometimes I just feel like I need to justify why I didn’t spring out of bed with a huge smile on my face, thrilled to be alive. Most days I do wake up pretty happy to be alive, and I don’t play the victim card that often but on the days when I wake up crying, and those days are so few and far between, I don’t want to have to apologize, I don’t want to consider myself lucky and I don’t want to be grateful. On those days, I don’t feel like a cancer rockstar, on those days I feel more like a one-breasted, emotionally overwhelmed, cancer victim.

As we have entered the month of March, I am obviously bombarded with dates; March 1st, 11th, and 28th; biopsy, diagnosis, and mastectomy, respectively. And to be honest, it’s more like March 1st, 11th, 16th, 19th, 23rd, 28th.

March 1st – I was so scared for the biopsy, the radiologist even called me the night before because she knew that I was terrified of needles. I begged them to let Keith come in and although they never let partners accompany patients, they made an exception in my case. I obviously thought the worst of it was over after they bandaged me up and although I was curious about the results, I certainly never suspected cancer.

March 11th was the day I found out. I still remember walking into my doctor’s office and hearing Rihanna playing in the pharmacy beside the elevator. I was vibrating with nerves in the waiting room but still thought it was nothing; I was anxious for the results. The doctor came in and started making small talk, I told her I just wanted the results and her exact words were ‘it’s not good’. She told me it was cancer and my response was ‘Holy shit, I wasn’t expecting that.’ Nothing can prepare you for that moment. My mom was withme and she was just as shocked as I was. I wanted to protect her and I’m sure she was thinking the same about me. I didn’t want her to hear the news although I’m not sure how I would have told her. I was on the phone with the breast healthcentre within about 5 minutes to figure out the next steps. My chest was heavy and my legs were weak but I didn’t feel like I had cancer. Nothing inside of me made me feel sick. We got in the car, and I called Keith. How do you tell someone that you love, that you have cancer?

The 16th was the first time the word ‘mastectomy’ became a part of my reality, the first time I found out that children may not be part of my future, the first time I found out I would lose a nipple, and the first time I found out how severe of a situation this was, and how little time they had to react and therefore I had, to make decisions.

The 19th was my MRI, which I’m sure isn’t a big deal to most but it was my next big needle after the biopsy. Many fear the closed space of an MRI, I feared the needle. Once they had the IV hooked up, I was fine and to be honest I almost fell asleep in the confined space. The needle however, it caused many many many tears. I knew the MRI was going to show how much the cancer had spread and I knew that I didn’t want the words ‘liver’, ’bones’, or ’lymph nodes’ said at my next appointment.

The 23rd was when I met my plastic surgeon. The whole expander process hadn’t really been explained in detail so there were that many more tears in his office when I found out that they must inflate the ‘implant in training’ by injecting it with saline up to 12 times. I can’t tell you how petrified I was sitting in that office. All that kept going through my head was ’is a breast that important?’ I had 5 days to determine whether I wanted to go through with the process or not. I left his office thinking I was going to go through with it but on the drive home I wondered how I was going to handle each injection. Needless to say, I did figure out some way to get my breast back, well if you can call this a breast.

I don’t suspect it will be an easy month but I am grateful that what I have gone through is in the past. I think the first of each occasion is difficult; first birthday post-diagnosis was a little tough considering I was in treatment, bald, not used to only having one breast, and going through hot flashes in the middle of August. My first Christmas post-treatment was a little teary eyed having not known if I was going to see Christmas back in March. And now this will be my first anniversary of my diagnosis and it is met with some opposing feelings.

Is it something we are supposed to recognize but not celebrate or am I supposed to be thrilled that the first year is behind me (the hardest year) and I feel pretty good about life? I can no longer say ‘a year ago’ to indicate my life before cancer, now I have to say ‘over a year ago’ which only makes me realize that I’ve had cancer for way too long. I’m assuming that most of these dates will fad away with the exception of the 11th; it will be an anniversary for the rest of my life and I hope I don’t accumulate any more cancer anniversaries, because I feel like I have enough dates to keep track of as it is.

So, as an anniversary gift, I would appreciate that all you women check your breasts. At this point, I don’t give a shit about guidelines and I think I’m living proof that 40 is just too late to start self examinations. So, if you’re in your teens, twenties, thirties, or older – do self examinations once a month and I can’t stress this enough; if you find something, tell your doctor. It probably is nothing but it’s better to find out at stage 1 than stage 4.

If you’re on Twitter, say ‘Hello’ @lovlykatielumps and you can subscribe to my blog at lovelykatielumps.blogspot.com

I’m a ‘list’ kinda girl. I like writing lists, crossing things off my lists, and completing lists. I like grocery lists, to-do lists, people-to-call lists, and any other kind of lists. This week, I created a list of things that I have felt lately that I wanted to convey but couldn’t really expand on any one issue in particular.

Here goes nothing;

1. Is it weird that the word ‘cancer’ has lost all it’s previous meaning and now has the same impact as the word ‘toast’ or ‘shower curtain’?
2. Is it weird that when someone says ‘Tell me about yourself’ the word ‘cancer’ is the first that comes to mind?
3. Is it weird that I wonder if I should stop using deodorant, stop using microwaves, become a vegetarian, only drink bottled water, work out 2 hours a day, drink 4L of water a day, never get another X-ray, tell all my girlfriends to get off the pill, stop drinking coffee, drink more coffee, stop using my laptop, get rid of my cell phone, eat only organic foods, stop using household cleaners and substitute them with lemon and hot water, stop wearing make-up, hold my breath around people who smoke, etc. etc. etc.?
4. Is it weird that I think I looked better bald than I do with this Orphan Annie hairstyle?
5. Is it weird that I squeal with excitement when I get my period?
6. Is it weird that I wonder if anyone would ever date me if anything ever happened to Keith?
7. Is it weird that sometimes I wish I had to go back into treatment because then I would be under the constant care of doctors and nurses instead of left to my own devices? 
8. Is it weird that I am more scared for someone I love to get cancer than for me to go through it again?
9. Is it weird that I feel like my cancer defines me?
10. Is it weird that I can’t remember my life before March 11, 2011?
11. Is it weird that I put pressure on myself to get back to normal even though I don’t know what normal means anymore?
12. Is it weird that although I love the camaraderie of connecting with other survivors, I find that most times it’s very overwhelming afterwards?
13. Is it weird that I have learned to expect to hear ’Well, we don’t really know because we don’t have any data on [insert topic here] for women your age’ at least once every doctor’s appointment?
14. Is it weird that I’m proud to be a cancer survivor but ashamed of what it did to my body?
15. Is it weird that the thought of going back to work brings me so much joy and so much fear at the same time?
16. Is it weird that when someone comments on my hair, I want to tell them that I just finished chemo?
17. Is it weird that sometimes I feel so isolated because 26 is just too f*&%ing young to have cancer?
18. Is it weird that sometimes it feels like the whole world has just caved in on me and it seems that at times I realize that I had cancer when 2 minutes before I felt invincible?
19. Is it weird that nothing could have prepared me for being the reason that my mom is now ‘high-risk’ in terms of developing breast cancer?
20. Is it weird that I felt like more of a warrior in treatment than I do now?
21. Is it weird that when I don’t feel positive, I feel like others see me as really really negative instead of just not-positive?
22. Is it weird that I feel like this happened for a reason or do I just tell myself that because I can’t comprehend another explanation?
23. Is it weird that I feel comforted when I’m at the hospital instead of angry or fearful like so many others?
24. Is it weird that when I see someone getting aggravated because they have to wait in line at the grocery store or flip someone off for driving too slow, I want to say ‘do you not have enough to worry about?’ and then show them my mastectomy scar?
25. Is it weird that every ache or pain that I feel, I wonder if cancer is attempting a sequel?
26. Is it weird that I’m bored telling my own story and I feel like I need a new story to tell?
27. Is it weird that overnight, we are expected to mentally prepare for losing a body part and are given a numb lump in its place?
28. Is it weird that when I look at pictures of the pre-cancer me, I feel sad?
29. Is it weird that I feel guilty for being so tired all the time?
30. Is it weird that although I wish I wasn’t on Tamoxifen, some days I wish I had to take it for the rest of my life?
31. Is it weird that my niece and nephew are totally used to relatives going bald due to cancer on both their mom and dad’s side?
32. Is it weird that some days I want friends/family members to totally go over the top and tell me how proud they are of me for dealing with all this shit?
33. Is it weird that some days I want friends/family members to not mention the word ‘cancer’ and especially avoid the fact that I’ve had it?
34. Is it weird that I get angry when someone says ‘you can always adopt’ when I say we might not be able to have children?
35. Is it weird that I hold a lot of guilt for being the reason that Keith and I may not be able to have children even though I know I had no control over it?
36. Is it weird that I wish I would have had radiation because I fear that one cell snuck through chemo?
37. Is it weird that I feel like cancer robbed me of many parts of my womanhood?
38. Is it weird that pink ribbons kinda make me angry anymore?
39. Is it weird that when I see someone who is obviously going through treatment, I want to hug them and tell them to call me if they need anything?
40. Is it weird that I’m the reason that my whole family has to tick ‘cancer’ on the family history questionnaire at the doctor’s office?
41. Is it weird that I feel like I’m complaining when I write lists like this?
42. Is it weird that all this time I thought 3 consecutive periods 28 days apart was a fantastic thing when really, according to my oncologist, that may be an indication that my Tamoxifen isn’t working as well as it should be?
43. Is it weird that when I sleep for 8 hours straight, I feel like a celebration is in order?
44. Is it weird that I make jokes ALL THE TIME about having cancer or having one breast even though cancer’s not funny?
45. Is it weird that I fear lymphedema every time I stir a boiling pot, I stay in the shower for too long, or my shirt is too tight?
46. Is it weird that estrogen has taken over for cellulite as my current enemy?
47. Is it weird that I didn’t fight any harder than others who lost their battle with cancer but I’m still alive?
48. Is it weird that I catch myself staring at other women’s chests trying to remember what it was like to have 2 breasts?
49. Is it weird that I have a damn anniversary for everything related to cancer (diagnosis, mastectomy, treatment start date, treatment end date, etc.)
50. Is it weird that I worry about all of these things when I should just be so friggin’ happy to be alive?

Many times I think the word ‘cancer’ is what scares people when I tell them my story but for me it is the word ‘mastectomy’ that I choke on every time. It has been a great source of embarrassment and although I had no choice in having cancer or the location in which cancer was growing, I feel a sense of shame when I say the ‘M word’.

I have always said, from day one, that having breast cancer at 26 is no harder than having breast cancer at 56, it’s just different and I continue to stick to that but I do have to admit that only being able to enjoy two breasts for 26 years is a hard pill to swallow (and I’ve had my fair share of pills to swallow in the past year). My boobs weren’t fantastic, they weren’t perky, and they certainly weren’t perfect but they were mine and there were two of them and before cancer, I had pride in my boobs when I didn’t necessarily carry a lot of pride about the rest of my body.

At a time when I am supposed to be at the peak of my sexuality, I only have one breast. How am I supposed to feel sexy when part of my sexuality has been cut off. At a time when I’m supposed to be using my breasts to nourish a child, I am told that I will never be able to breast feed. At a time when I’m supposed to be filling my closets with a new wardrobe, I wear scarfs and baggy shirts.

In the shower, I let the soap from my neck run over my chest so I don’t have to touch the place where my breast used to be. I wear my mastectomy bra when we’re going somewhere ‘formal’ because while every one else feels good because they are dressed up, I want to feel good because it looks like I have two breasts. I will never be able to fill out a bra or a bathing suit or a dress shirt properly again. The word ‘mastectomy’ is no longer a fear, it’s a reality. My breasts betrayed me and although the night before surgery, Keith and I cursed at ‘Righty’ for a few minutes, I miss her very much. I wonder how Katy Perry’s rendition of ‘California Gurls’ would sound with ‘….and mastectomy bras on top’ instead of the original use of ‘bikini’.

I’m not sure how well I will be able to explain this but waking up without a breast didn’t bother me at the time; I had woken up from surgery (always a good thing), they were confident they got it all, I didn’t have cancer in my body any more, and a breast isn’t a limb or a lung or a kidney. However, the feeling of relief didn’t last long before the shame kicked in and the word ‘mastectomy’ made my ears bleed.

I remember going to a friend of a friend’s house a few weeks after surgery, I couldn’t hug him (which he understood) and a girl I had never met asked why. My friend was quick to say ‘she had a mastectomy a few weeks ago’. Now a comment like that these days could be compared to some like ‘I had toast for breakfast’ because it just rolls off my tongue anymore but then, then it was fresh and the word was still so new. The word ‘mastectomy’ carried so much meaning. This is what I heard her say; ‘She had her femininity removed a few weeks ago’ or ‘she became less of a woman a few weeks ago’ or even ‘she can’t provide the same sexual satisfaction for her boyfriend as she once could a few weeks ago’.

I also remember an e-mail that was sent by a family member to update others in the family that included the word ‘mastectomy’ and as I read it (after it had been sent), as soon as I read ‘mastectomy’ a lump appeared in my throat. Why did that word need to be written, why did any one need to know that I was having my breast removed? I realize how foolish this may sound, but at the time, this 10-letter word was horrifying.

I try to make it easier for others by using humour to put them at ease (at a wedding in the summer, at a ‘dance-off’ I danced to ‘All the Single Ladies’ by Beyoncé and pointed to my left breast implying a whole new meaning of the song). Although I make it easier for others to talk about cancer, and start/continue a dialogue, I sometimes wonder, ‘who is going to make it easier for me?’. I look at the pamphlets that I was sent after first being diagnosed and the women on the front pages are old enough to be my mother and sometimes my grandmother. The stats inside always start at 40 years old and all I ever heard during chemo was ‘Well, there is no data for someone your age’. None of my friends have been through breast cancer (thankfully) so I can’t relate to them either. It’s truly isolating. The only person I really confide in is Keith and I can safely say I am the only single-breasted woman he has been with. Although I would like to make some witty comment about being one of a kind, instead I feel like I’m the odd one out.

Now any time I write a blog entry like this I always feel like I need to say how lucky I am to be alive and how grateful I am that the cancer wasn’t in my pancreas like my Aunt Sandra or hadn’t metastasized like so many other women. I try to be upbeat and I try to see the positive side of things but some times it just gets to be a lot. This entry isn’t coming from a place of complaint, rather a place where there is a void in my life. Some days I notice myself looking at other women’s chests because I miss the days of having two breasts and it’s almost like I have forgotten what it is like. There’s a sense of jealousy and sometimes I feel annoyed that they are taking their breasts for granted (I’m not sure what I expect - women to caress themselves in public to show their appreciation for their breasts?).

Any time I have to sign up for something that requires a username anymore, I use LovelyKatieLumps as a way to be sarcastic, like, most women have ‘lovely lady lumps’ whereas all I got were ‘lovely Katie lumps’ and those lovely Katie lumps ended up being lovely cancer lumps. I think with the use of humour, I am able to protect myself a little bit from the reality of not having two breasts at the age of 27. I think in a weird way, I am almost numb to the term ‘mastectomy’ anymore because when I speak of what I’ve been through, I feel like I am talking about someone else, like I am telling someone else’s story. Can this really be happening to me?

Although I stick to what I said about it being different dealing with breast cancer in your twenties, what’s frustrating is that I will have to deal with this in my twenties, thirties, forties,…