Today started out like any normal day. Kids making messes, and making me insane. I finally got the call- my PET CT is scheduled for Friday the 13th at 2 pm. Perfect day to have radioactive chemicals put into my body to the point where I can't be around small children. I can't eat for 6 hours prior. Water is OK. I have to drink a lot of water Thursday, but no coffee, alcohol, gum, pasta, bread or rice. I must eat high protein diet and keep warm for 48 hours prior. Then I can't be around my kids for approximately 24 hours. Great, more babysitting to arrange. The appointment takes 2.5 hours total and it's out in Orange so I get to sit in traffic on the way back. At least I know it all ahead of time, unlike my last experience with this test.
Then I finally got a hold of the surgery scheduler. Apparently they were waiting to schedule my surgery until I had a consult with my breast surgeon. Great! Thanks for the notification! Was anybody going to tell me? So I call the surgeon's office and request a same day appointment. I get one for 2 pm. Perfect since I have cheer practice at 3 (grrrrr). I rush down there, kids in tow, to get told the same information I already knew: we are doing a skin sparing, not nipple sparing mastectomy, and removing lymph nodes on the left. Yep. And? Jenna has her feet in the stirrups, Bria is screaming. Then she drops the bomb: I will need to meet with the radiologist to determine my schedule for potential radiation. Wait... what? Radiation? This is news to me! This must have been when my hot flash kicked in because I suddenly got angry. As calmly as I could, I said I was not aware of needing radiation and she says "Oh I must have mentioned it during your initial consult but that day you found out you had cancer and probably were in a fog." Um, no. I'm pretty sure if someone had mentioned radiation, I or one of the several other people with me would have heard it!!! (Deep Breath...)
Now I'm going to try not to go on a rampage about what happened next. To sum it up: I broke down into tears. I explained how I feel like just a number and how upset I am that it seems nobody takes the time to actually read my pathology reports. Crystal Hofmann is just another cancer patient, let's scan her records, oh oops you had two tumors not just one, hmm, they were pretty big, well hey maybe you should see a radiologist, no rush, your tumor is just growing back, but no big deal....
This is my life. Nobody else has to live with this, I do. And everybody else gets to go to sleep at night without feeling a tumor in their chest, wondering when the HELL it's going to be coming out. Nobody else seems to care, or have any sense of urgency about it. Just keep smiling you say? No, not today. I am tired. I am frustrated. I am angry. I am crying. I am over it.
Yes, I have cancer. No, I don't want to talk about it.