BC Becky

Never thought I'd want to be a breast cancer survivor

Tag: reflection

  • The role of fate in my life

    Although I don’t believe in a god per se, I do believe in some form of fate. Throughout our bicycle journey (http://goingeast.ca/blog) we often felt that something was looking out for us. When I started my PhD, I reflected on fate here.

    I think that fate played a role in helping me be prepared for the challenges that lie ahead. Fate directed me towards the PhD program, where I ended up working with the Department of Family Medicine (DFM). Without this, I never would have found myself working in medical education. The last three years working with DFM has meant that I have developed a much deeper understanding for how medical education works, how some aspects of medical research work (e.g. I know what implementation research is), and how medicine is practiced in an academic setting (even the difference between a community and academic setting). These all have proven to be very valuable, as I learn to navigate the American health care system. I also now have friends who are physicians, and they have been a great support.

    The PhD program also helped me discover myself as a blogger. It helped me create a wide reaching social network (really several networks) – which I am very grateful for. When I first heard that I had cancer, I had people that I could reach out to – friends who put me in touch with other friends – all helping to form a network of support. It is at these times of crisis that we discover the true power of being part of networked communities.

    Thank-you everyone for your supporting words. When we were on our bike trip, we learned to ask for what we needed – it was not an easy thing, as it isn’t normal in our culture. I wrote about hospitality and permitting others to help us on our journey. To that end, a small help that you could provide on my journey would be to send a postcard, at some point over the next year (not all at once please) – something random at some random time. A postcard with a smily face, a poem, or a joke. Getting a small thing in the mail will put a smile on my face. I’m not sure I want to post our address here – so email/facetime/twitter me and I’ll provide it. Thanks.

  • The speed of things

    Everything is either too fast or too slow. I feel like the cancer is growing too fast. With each new ache in my body I am worried about it spreading. Is this another symptom? Has it reached my lymph nodes? I am constantly wondering, should I be worried about this or that?

    And at the same time, things are too slow. I cannot even book appointments without the pathology report. They need the definitive pathology – confirmation – before they will schedule something. The good news is, they will guarantee that they will fit me in when the pathology comes back. So, logically it makes sense. They cannot recommend anything until they have all the information, but at the same time, I want an appointment time so that I know that I will not be unnecessarily waiting.

    In the waiting, there is also the feeling of over-reacting. Am I making more of this than I should? What if it is just a ‘minor’ cancer? One in eight women will get breast cancer in their lifetime, so it is really that big of a deal? But, I am young and that is a concern. A new friend pointed out to me this article Why Everyone Seems to have Cancer, which she found to somehow be comforting. Cancer is a ‘normal’ part of aging, it argues. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help me at all. In some ways, it scares me, cause I’m too young. Two-thirds of women with breast cancer are over 50. I’m not.

    The too young thing is not new for me. In June last year (hmm, June seems like a bad month for me) I started developing cataracts. By October, my vision could no longer be corrected with glasses. In January I had my first cataract surgery – three days before my 43rd birthday. In March I had my second cataract surgery. My vision hasn’t turned out how we had planned – and I had additional surgeries planned to get there – but that is on hold now. It too is in a holding pattern.

    So, I am waiting, and while I wait the cancer grows. But also with the waiting, I have time to consider the options, time to exercise and get stronger, time to think about how I want to spend my time over the next year. There is a freeing that happens – an ability to let go of things that I don’t want to do, an ability to put things on hold until all this gets figured out – and all the unknowns start to become more known.

    There is also a new appreciation for sunk costs. The idea is that when you make quality decisions, they should be based on the future, not the past. However, we have a tendency to say things like “but I’ve spend x years on this, I might as well finish it”. The x years spent are a sunk cost. It is in the past. It should not be used as something that influences future decisions. Being told you have cancer helps you see the sunk costs that are affecting your decisions. The focus becomes only on the future (with a high priority on the immediate future), with no regard to the past. So now I shall think on the future, but first, a nice long bike ride … Oh ya, and on Saturday we are going sailing on the USA 76 Challenger from the 2003 America’s Cup.

  • Humour in the moment – which boobs should I wear?

    In this moment, we (Scott and I) often find ourselves laughing at things that are rather absurd, but real none-the-less. I recognize it clearly as a coping mechanism, and something that is definitely needed. But I’m also aware of how easily something funny can turn into something not funny.

    I recall back in my undergrad days, one of my friends had cancer. She had cancer before I knew her, and had a re-occurrence. I did not know her well, but well enough that I remember her clearly. Last I had heard she had two beautiful children and was doing well. I mention her because of a particular story. At her wedding shower (she had recently been diagnosed with the re-occurrence), we were laughing about this or that, and for some reason the jokes turned to wigs. There was laughing at first, but then a sudden transition to tears. This is what I’m aware of every time I laugh about something. I’m aware that at any moment that laugh will turn to a cry.

    Today’s laugh was about prosthetic breasts. I never even occurred to me that one would make special prosthetic breasts for swimming. They even make aerodynamic (or I guess aquadynamic) prosthetic breasts. Who knew? I was reminded of Aimee Mullins TED talk about her 12 pairs of legs. She talks about how having various legs allows her to be different heights. She talks about legs as things that allow her to specialize her superpowers (when she wants to run fast, she has special legs for that). So that got me thinking about fake boobs. You see, if I don’t opt for reconstruction, and if I end up with cancer in both then I too could have multiple sets of prosthetics for multiple purposes. I could have bigger boobs to fill out my favourite shirt, or smaller ones when I want to appear more professional. Then of course, it occurs to me, that people who saw me regularly would find it rather odd that my chest size kept changing, and how would you go clothes shopping? Which boobs would you wear? And if I were to get into competitive swimming, would the boobs I choose to wear affect how fast I swim? Would that be considered cheating?

    In all seriousness, I am thankful that the surgeon highlighted that a mastectomy is a real possibly. Not that I want one (the whole idea scares the crap out of me), but that I have a little more time to mentally prepare for it. When the diagnosis is in, and the treatment options are presented, I will be better prepared to make a decision. I at least will have had a chance to explore the options. It never would have occurred to me to search the Internet for breast prosthetics. My fear of being ‘lopsided’ does have some solutions – but frankly, given that I hate wearing bras, I’m still dealing with choosing between two bad options. Reconstruction means more surgery, more complicated surgery, and more healing time. No reconstruction means a life of prosthetics (at least for formal settings).

    On a related note, Scott and I went for a walk around Sausalito on Saturday. I notice that I was looking at other women’s breasts. I had never really taken notice of other women’s breast before – but now, I find myself drawn to them. I am looking. I’m not even sure what I’m thinking when I’m looking, but I am certainly finding myself drawn to look. It is all very odd. Perhaps I’m admiring? Perhaps window shopping? Who knows.

  • I am an academic

    Last week, I was reflecting deeply on who I am and where I want to go. I did not get shortlisted for my dream job. Part of the reason for this is that they had an ample sufficiency of candidates. So many candidates, that they didn’t need to consider someone who had not yet completed their PhD. My concern was, if they had so many candidates, then it is a sign that the market is flooded. This was a position that I was qualified for and well suited for – so I found myself wondering, is academia for me? Do I want to fight for the limited number of faculty positions, especially when the faculty jobs themselves are eroding. They aren’t the same jobs they were 10 years ago. And frankly, this isn’t my first career. I don’t have the energy nor the desire to climb the ladder from the bottom rung.

    So, I was also looking at consulting, and looking at careers at large high-tech companies. I’m in silicon valley after all – there are 10-20 new instructional design jobs posted every few days.

    Then came breast cancer – and with it a chance to reset – but also a lot of deep reflection – with more deep reflection to come I’m sure. A bit of advice I was given from an academic friend (and please, if you are not a cancer survivor, hold back on the advice) was that one approach is to treat the disease with curiosity. Scott and I had already decided that we would treat is as a new adventure – the next chapter in our lives.

    Curiosity is a trait of an academic. And I realized that I want to approach this problem as an academic. I want to read the literature to figure out what I’m dealing with. I want to write about my reflections throughout the process. I want to look at how I might use my reflections and this process as research – can I do an auto-ethnographic account of my experiences as a breast cancer patient? It was then that I realized, I am an academic. I want to approach my experiences in the world through the lens of a scholar – not through the lens of a practitioner.

    I am now thinking, that once all the unimportant stuff in my life gets peeled away, the essence of who I am will rise to the surface. That has started now, and I expect that as the weeks progress I will find out more interesting things about who I am.

  • It all started …

    … with denial. I felt something. Could it be what I was feeling was just a muscle strain. Surely if I waited a couple of days it would go away.

    Breast cancer was never something I thought that I would ever have to deal with. I know of no relatives with breast cancer – well, that is not completely true – my cousin was diagnosed with breast cancer at about my age, and she passed away about a year and a half later. But, she had breast cancer on the side of the family that I was not related to by blood, there were additional circumstances that led to her diagnosis – it did not apply to me – I was still safe.

    One reality is that the major of women who get breast cancer do not have relatives with cancer. I am now part of that statistic – or at least, my part in that statistic will be positively confirmed by Wednesday. I wonder, how it possible that majority of women who get breast cancer do not have relatives with cancer? If one in eight women get breast cancer, then I cannot see how those numbers add up. I am definitely going to have to do some more research into this.

    So, my approach to this new challenge in life is to look at it as an academic. Why not? It gives me a perspective and a way to focus. I shall look at this blog as a journal into lived experience. Combining the medical jargon with the lived-experience of someone with breast cancer. I shall be negotiating how this new identity of mine changes who I am as a open academic.

    So, today my goal in life changes. Today, I can now say that I want to be identified as a breast cancer survivor, as the alternative doesn’t look so grand!

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