It’s been a year since my breast cancer diagnosis.
While I feel like I have finally recovered from treatment, that doesn’t mean my cancer experience is over. I am on medication to prevent a recurrence, and of course, I still need imaging.
My wonderful surgeon told me to be prepared for abnormal imaging this month. Calcifications are common in post-surgical healing but they have to be biopsied because sometimes they are a sign of breast cancer. That is what happened to me last year: a biopsy of calcifications found cancer.
“We might see calcifications in the same place we did the surgery,” she told me, “but none of my patients have ever had those calcifications indicate a recurrence of cancer. Just be prepared for another biopsy.”
Have you ever heard of scanxiety? Scanxiety is the anxiety people feel before, during and/or after imaging scans, and it is very common in cancer patients. I’ve always felt a little nervous waiting for the results of my annual breast imaging, but after my abnormal mammogram last year it got worse. Waiting for the results of every scan has been nerve-wracking.
I was scheduled for a mammogram and MRI on October 3rd, and my scanxiety was slowly ticking up for the week before. Then I tested positive for COVID on October 2nd and had to reschedule. Fortunately, I got a mammogram appointment for just two weeks later (my MRI will be delayed until December).
Two more weeks wondering if they would see calcifications. Two more weeks of thinking that I might need a biopsy again. Two more weeks of tamping down my fear of cancer recurrence. My thoughts would race: I am just getting my life back now. I can’t go through this again.
I am very uncomfortable with uncertainty, and I have a vivid imagination, so I tell myself all kinds of stories about what will happen. One of the practices that got me through the past year is going one step at a time. I am learning to slow down and hold the empty space where information will eventually go, instead of filling that space with catastrophic thoughts. There’s no point in worrying about cancer treatment when I don’t even know if I need a biopsy yet.
Two more weeks of reminding myself that I can only go one step at a time.
I had my mammogram last week. My scanxiety is most intense before a scan and while I wait for the results. On the drive into the city, I completely shut down and turned inward. David didn’t tell me not to feel scanxiety, and put his hand on my knee to reassure me that we are in this together.
When you’ve already had cancer, you get a “diagnostic mammogram” at follow up, which means that you wait while a radiologist reads your scan. My hospital has a separate waiting room for people getting diagnostic mammograms, and I sat there for a long time. Every once in awhile, a woman would be called into a separate room and not come back, which meant she had an abnormal result and was getting an ultrasound.
Waiting is the worst. I cannot be distracted, not by the annoying home improvement shows on the waiting room television and not by thinking about normal day-to-day stuff. My mind wants to play out possible scenarios: how long an ultrasound will take, how soon they could do a biopsy, what my surgeon would say, how upsetting it would be to rearrange my life around treatment again. Scanxiety for me is not an anxiety attack, but I feel a tightness in my body and my mind is intent on predicting what could happen. Over and over, I have to remind myself that there is no problem to solve yet. I need my scan results first.
After what felt like hours but was probably closer to thirty minutes, the radiologist called me into the little side room. He didn’t even ask me to sit down, but just turned to me and said, “You’re fine. The mammogram is normal.”
I had to ask him to repeat himself because I was partially stunned. A normal result?
“There are no calcifications anywhere, and we don’t even see post-radiation damage,” he said.
I had been so certain they would see calcifications and I would be back on the cancer conveyor belt of more tests and appointments. Instead, I got to leave the hospital and start texting the good news to my family and friends.
It’s hard to describe what it feels like to have a medical test go well and produce a normal result. I am so used to having symptoms that doctors don’t understand, weird side effects they’ve never seen. My body does not respond normally to pretty much anything. Since I got sick thirty years ago, my body has not been my ally. Most days, I struggle mightily against my body and its limitations. If I could transplant my brain into a healthy body or robot, I would do it. I would leave this body behind.
Now I am getting used to being in this body that responded perfectly. My surgery removed the cancer, and I healed so well you can barely see the scar. My radiation treatment was so well designed that it did not cause corollary damage. Despite how deep my post-treatment crash was, I climbed out of it and got back to baseline. And now I know that–at least on mammogram–there are no calcifications or masses anywhere in my breasts.
My body healed. It is such a strange feeling, to think that this body that has frustrated me so much can still function and respond normally–even to cancer treatment.
It gives me hope.
Favorite Reads of 2024
Now that I have been tracking my reading for a few years, it’s interesting to look at the trends. I read sixty books in 2024, only a bit more than 2023 and 2022. That surprised me because I thought I read a lot more last year, and I would like to be reading more. I go through stretches where I’m just inhaling books and then I’ll go a few weeks and barely pick one up. That is largely due to how well I’m feeling (or not).
Compared to 2023, I had a lot more five-star reads this year. I don’t know if that’s because I picked better books or because I was more enthusiastic/forgiving/positive overall. Out of sixty books, I gave twenty-seven five star ratings. I doubt anyone is interested in hearing about all twenty-seven of those books, so I narrowed it down a bit to share my favorites.
Non-Fiction
Books related to ME: I reread Encounters with the Invisible by Dorothy Wall this year, and loved it even more than I did when it first came out almost twenty years ago. Wall captures the experience of ME–of crashing and recovering to baseline–better than just about anybody. I enthusiastically recommend it. I also recommend Living Well with Orthostatic Intolerance by Dr. Peter Rowe, a plain language summary of what we know about coping with orthostatic intolerance. Dr. Rowe is one of the best experts on this, and this book captures what has worked for his patients over many years.
Trailed by Kathryn Miles: I am a true crime buff, but this book is about more than murder. Miles traces the investigation into the murder of two women in Shenandoah National Park in 1996, but uses the case as a springboard to talk about women in the wilderness and safety in national parks. I camped and hiked in multiple national parks in 1993 and 1994, and I believed I was completely safe. I was wrong (and foolish) and Miles explores the reasons why.
All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley: Bringley worked as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for ten years, and takes us behind the scenes of the museum in this memoir. This book is a love letter to museums, art, and how it can sustain us. I loved it so much that I ended up sending copies to multiple friends.
Fiction
Novels by Shirley Jackson: I decided to read all of Shirley Jackson’s novels during spooky season, along with some of her short stories and the excellent biography Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin. Friends, I am big mad that I got a degree in English Literature without reading Shirley Jackson before now. She was a brilliant writer, and reading her novels in order of publication allowed me to see her grow and develop. You may have read her story “The Lottery” in high school, and I recommend you read it again, but I also highly recommend The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. There are no jump scares in those books. They’re chilling and gothic, not straight up horror novels, and deserve to be considered among the best American literature.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver: My favorite literary fiction all year. This book won the Pulitzer Prize in 2023 with good reason. Kingsolver set this retelling of David Copperfield in present-day Appalachia, examining poverty and addiction with compassion. It’s deeply affecting and brilliantly written.
Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell: This book made multiple “Best Of” lists for 2024, and deservedly so. It’s a monster story, it’s a romance, it’s delightful. I did not expect that a story about a monster who creates its own body out of spare parts (human and otherwise) would turn out to be so heartwarming.
Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay: A horror novel about a horror movie? Paul Tremblay pulls it off. If you liked The Blair Witch Project, this book is for you. It’s super creepy with more than a few twists, and is a lot of fun (if you’re into this sort of thing).
The Secret History by Donna Tartt: I don’t tend to read buzzy books when they come out, I don’t know why. Book oppositional defiance order? Anyway, The Secret History was published when I was still in law school more than thirty years ago and is widely considered one of the best novels of the 20th century. It’s a compelling psychological thriller centering around participants in a special classics seminar at a New England college. Read this if you like dark academia, philosophical debates, charisma in group dynamics, and New England winters.
The Origins of Iris by Beth Lewis: If you are not reading Beth Lewis, then you are missing out. I’ve been a fan since her first novel, The Wolf Road. That was a story of a young woman trying to survive a serial killer in a dystopian wilderness. In Origins of Iris, the narrator is a woman who goes to the wilderness to escape her abusive marriage and figure out who she really is. Lewis’s protagonists have strong and unique voices that stick with you long after you finish the book.
Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse: I can’t close out this list without talking about Mirrored Heavens, the final book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy. The trilogy is a sweeping saga of magic and religious war in a world inspired by pre-Colombian American cultures. Sometimes, the end of a series is disappointing but not this one. Roanhorse absolutely sticks the landing, weaving all the threads together in an emotionally satisfying and authentic way.
Up Next
In 2025, I not only want to read more, but I want to read the books I own. My new year’s resolution is that I will read two books I already own before I can buy a new book. Library books don’t count towards that two book rule, either. I’ve got so many great books! It’s time to enjoy them.