The Diagnosis

How I Got Here.

It's been a month. The day was September 25, 2013. One of my favorite times of the year... as the brutal Texas summer was coming to an end and the start of the 2013 NHL season was just a week away. The new and improved Dallas Stars team was ready to take the ice to open the season on October 3rd, and after a summer filled with some fun trips to Canada, Mexico, Colorado, and Florida, I was ready to buckle down and dive into the new hockey season head first. It was going to be a big year for me. I was in ongoing talks about a possible new gig to be the rink side reporter for the Stars, and I was getting ready to go into my 5th season as producer/reporter for Stars Insider, a weekly show on the team. I couldn't wait. My career is my passion and I've been so lucky to work in Dallas covering professional teams since I graduated from Mizzou in 2007. After working as the team reporter for the Cowboys, doing sidelines for Ranger games for two seasons, covering NASCAR out at Tx Motor Speedway, and even hosting a fishing show for 5 years, I've really come to love this hockey thing the most. My life basically revolves around hockey season. My live-in boyfriend of three years is on the coaching staff for the Dallas Stars, too, and once the season kicks into gear- he goes everywhere the team goes. That's 82 games all over the US and Canada from October through April. He's lucky to get a day off a month. We're lucky to get 3 date nights a month. But that doesn't matter to us- we love what we do and we love the day to day thrill of coaching and covering an NHL team for a living. It's what brought us together and it keeps our lives exciting. And I always have my faithful feline (best) friend Cranberry to keep me company when he's away!

So, back to September 25th. The day that would change my life forever... the day I was diagnosed with  something I had never even heard of, something horrible, something that would "never happen to me", something called inflammatory breast cancer.

I guess it all started when I went to Florida over Labor Day for a lifelong friend's bachelorette party. One of my girlfriends since 6th grade, Lucy, who we love for her humor and bluntness, commented that my boobs had gotten bigger. I figured she had too many Pina Coladas. But looking back, it should have clicked then that something was wrong, why would my boobs randomly get bigger at age 28 on a beach vacation? But hey, I wasn't going to question it! I did fill out that new bandeau top quite well.....(on one side.)

I came home from that trip and noticed that my right breast was in fact enlarged, and when I went to inspect it, I felt something hard. It hurt. My boyfriend confirmed that I wasn't crazy, that something was a little "off", and that it was firmer than it should be. It hurt when I touched it. Since I'm 28 years old, I don't get regular mammograms. Every year when the doctor asks if I give myself breast exams,  I say yes. But I don't even know what that really means.  Yeah- I guess I see my boobs every day? They look good? I wish they were bigger? That was my self examination. I never thought twice about breast cancer. Why would I? It didn't run in my family... and I guess I'd worry about that when I turned 40. I had way more important things to worry about.

At first I tried to blame the pain on a hair straightening mishap that may have left a burn on my boob. (I know, it doesn't make sense.) But something made me call the doctor that day. I guess it was the pain combined with the swelling. It wasn't comfortable and I didn't like not knowing what was going on. So I called my OBGYN and got in quickly to see him. His initial reaction was that I had a cyst. That's how I'd self-googled-diagnosed- it, too. He said sometimes they go away on their own. But he wasn't positive that it was a cyst so he suggested a sonogram. I went in for my sonogram a couple days later. I knew what a sonogram was from the pics my friends were starting to send as they all got to see the first glimpse of their new babies. My first sonogram wasn't so special. The nice sonogram lady didn't have any clue what was wrong with me, but she didn't seem overly concerned. With the sonogram, though, she was able to rule out a cyst.  She called my doctor and suggested that perhaps it was an infection, and said that if so I could probably kick it with some antibiotics. My doctor wasn't convinced that it was an infection and suggested a biopsy. Until this point I was not worried. I figured it was just some weird thing that had happened to me that would go away. (FYI- other "weird things that have happened to me" include doing the splits in a fire ant bed in my cheerleading uniform in High School, busting my ear drum with a Q-Tip at a lake house party, and having what I thought was pink eye but turned out to be "Iritis", an eye disease common in 80 year olds, on prom night.) But when the doctor suggested a biopsy, I got nervous for the first time. I don't know much when it comes to medical terms, but I knew that a biopsy meant that there was at least some suspicion of cancer. I had been hesitant to tell my mom about any of this, in an effort to keep her from worrying about something silly, but I immediately called her after scheduling the biopsy. That phone call was the first of what would be many times that cancer made me cry. The first hospital I called said it would be 2 weeks before I could get in. I booked the appointment, slept on it, woke up and thought to myself "F that." If I need a biopsy I'm not waiting two weeks. My doctor suggested I call Dr. Sally Knox at Baylor Medical Center. I'm so glad I did. I described my symptoms to Dr. Knox's nurse, Deborah, (AKA Angel #1), and she had me booked for a biopsy 2 days later, then booked me for an appointment with Dr. Knox the following day to get the results. Come to find out, "she had a feeling" after my description on the phone, when nobody else knew what was going on.

Well, let me tell you this. That biopsy was perhaps the worst 30 minutes of my life. It was painful, scary, and torturous. Why they don't knock you out for that thing I don't know. The biopsy doctor, bless his heart, could tell I was worried and told me that although he couldn't say for sure, he felt that this was going to be "just an infection" based on what he was seeing. That's how scary and misleading this inflammatory breast cancer can be. It disguises itself as all kinds of things, none of which is how your stereotypical "cancer" presents itself. Needless to say, when the doctor told me not to worry, I took it to heart and I didn't worry. I went home, slept well, and almost forgot about my appointment the next day with Dr. Knox.

The following day, (September 25th) my mom and I arrived at the appointment, running late. (Shocker for me, I know.) I'd forgotten my "insurance card" (which was actually my information written out on an index card because I had lost the real one.... I never used it! I was healthy!)  and my mind was preoccupied with what I had to do for work that afternoon. I wasn't worried about a thing. I was even wearing flip flops with fish on them. That's how much I didn't care.  Once I was called in, Dr. Knox came into the room, did an exam, and then promptly stated that she had received my biopsy results about an hour ago, and matter of factly told me that I had cancer. I thought it was a joke. I think my exact  response was "Are you serious?" as my mom simultaneously screamed, "What?" (sidenote- I can't imagine having to tell people they have cancer every day. There is no right way to do that.) After our outburst of shock, Dr. Knox confirmed the news, and then gave us 10 minutes to ourselves. We cried, prayed, and cried some more. She came back in and told me that they believed it was "inflammatory" breast cancer, a very rare and aggressive form of breast cancer. (Oh, goody. As if it wasn't bad enough.) She told me that the tumor was about the size of my breast and said they would start chemo as soon as possible. Then I would need a mastectomy followed by radiation. She scheduled me for a PET scan that following Friday so we could see if the cancer had spread. (It had, but only into the right lymph nodes.)

My mom and I left the doctor in shock; speechless and numb. So we did what anybody who just found out they have cancer would do- we went to pick up a package at FedEx in downtown Dallas. That may seem odd, but we needed something to do, and that was our next task at hand for the day.  I realize now that deciding to continue our day with that little errand was perhaps a microcosm of my current mindset about this whole thing. It's shitty. It's shocking. It's horrible. And even though I'm sitting here at work with my hair falling out and hidden under a baseball cap, I'm still sitting here at work. I'm going to get on with my life.... and oh yeah, my life is not going anywhere.