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 2023
Listen, I know that everyone posted their favorite books of 2023 already. I wanted to as well, but my recovery from breast cancer surgery took longer than I anticipated, and now I’m getting radiation treatment. However, I still really want to share the books I loved last year, and since it’s still January, I think this is valid.
I’ve gotten more intentional about reading in the last few years. I used to just pick whatever book I felt like reading, without trying to hit a reading goal or focus on a specific list. I didn’t keep a book journal, so I tended to forget not only what happened in books I’ve read but even whether I had read them. Goodreads was great because at least I had a record of what books I read, but I deleted my account a couple years ago after one of the many review-bombing controversies.
I was inspired by the Reading Glasses podcast to try new ways of tracking my reading, and I ended up creating a personal database to help me manage my TBR (To Be Read) list and keep notes on what I loved (or didn’t). Don’t worry, I won’t inflict my nerdiness on you. All this is just to say that now I make more thoughtful choices about what to read. I don’t set specific goals or challenges for myself, but I don’t just choose books at random either.
I read fifty-six books in 2023, about the same as 2022. Interestingly, more of my 2023 favorites were fiction (unlike last year), and some of them were big chunky books. You’ll notice that I’m not into cozy mysteries or romance, but maybe there will be something in my list that appeals to you too.
Non-Fiction
Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley: I received this book as a gift, and I was skeptical at first because what did I have to learn from an Academy Award winning actor/screenwriter/director? I was wrong. Polley is a gifted writer, and this essay collection blew me away. The most compelling part to me was Polley’s description of her suffering and eventual recovery from a severe concussion. This book is inspirational without being glib, and Polley’s sincerity makes her writing feel like a personal conversation. I loved it.
Some of Us Just Fall by Polly Atkin: This memoir was published in the UK last year, but it looks like it will be available in the US in March. Atkin has Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and hemachromatosis, although it took many years for her to be properly diagnosed and treated. This memoir interweaves the experiences of being chronically ill with being in nature. Atkin lives in Grasmere, in England’s Lake District, the home of literary greats such as William Wordsworth, and still a place of incredible natural beauty. She brings us along on her walks and swims in a landscape that can heal some things but not everything, and shares her journey of learning to live well with her diagnoses.
Fiction
Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix Harrow: This is a short story, and I generally don’t read short stories, but this one is brilliant. I don’t even want to tell you anything about it and risk spoiling it for you. I will only say that when I got to the moment when the pieces of the story came together, I put my hand on my heart and gasped. Just trust me and read this.
Ordinary Monsters by J. M. Miro: This is a honker, and it is worth every minute it takes to read. If you like reading about dark academia, the grime of the Victorian era, magical mystery, and/or remarkable children, this book is for you. It’s the story of a shining boy, the people who love him, the people who want to use him, and the strength of found family. I got it from the library and ended up buying a copy because it is that good.
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang: I love everything by R.F. Kuang, and her novel Babel was one of my favorites last year. Yellowface is a completely different kind of book but equally amazing. The narrator steals her friend’s just finished manuscript and passes it off as her own work. As the story hurtles along, the characters grapple with racism, diversity, cultural appropriation, social media, and fame–or utterly fail to do so. Kuang is such a skillful writer that I found myself caring deeply for the narrator, despite the fact she’s a complete trainwreck who makes some very bad choices.
Starling House by Alix Harrow: Read this book if you like gothic mansions, small town secrets, a young woman discovering her strength, true love and sacrifice, and/or supernatural mysteries. Harrow’s first novel, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, is one of my favorite books of all time, and Starling House is pretty high on the list now, too.
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward: This is the first book I’ve read by Ward, and her entire backlist is now on my TBR. It’s described as a mystery/thriller, but it’s horror as well. Something very odd is going on in the creepy house on Needless Street, and a new neighbor wants to find the truth. The suspense kept yanking me forward, and there’s a solid twist that I did not see coming. Don’t read this if you are easily creeped out, but if you love psychological thrillers then definitely check it out.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke: Most of my 2023 favorites were new releases, but this one is almost twenty years old. I read it around the time it came out and liked it, but I read it again in 2023 and LOVED it. The premise is that magic once existed in England, and now in the Napoleonic era, Strange and Norrell are trying to bring it back. They get more than they bargained for, with terrible consequences. Read this if you love the Regency period, myths and magic, faeries, and/or books with footnotes. Clarke is a quietly brilliant writer, and that didn’t really hit me until I finished the book.
Right now, I’m reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, another chunky book by another brilliant author. I hope you’re reading something great, too!