Susan's Story: My 20 Years From Diagnosis to Survivorship
Susan Paprocki is a Breastcancer.org community member in Northbrook, Illinois, USA.
2005
I am now a three-day survivor of breast cancer. When one faces a serious disease, I am sure it is important to set benchmarks on survival. Well, I have survived the diagnostic news that I have breast cancer. It is amazing to read that and overwhelming to comprehend it. Three days ago I had no inkling I had cancer. Five days ago I went for a routine mammogram which turned out to not be one bit routine. That mammogram revealed I had cancer. That had to be wrong so we move right into a sonogram. That was the monkey wrench. I had cancer. I never felt it coming an I still don’t…..no lump….no nothing.
“It presents differently,” the breast doctor states. Leave it to me to be the outlier.
I haven’t cried although I keep thinking I should. Now that would be normal. Nor have I told many people outside of my family. How does one talk about something that just jumps into your life out of nowhere? I suppose when the surgery takes place, I will know how to present the news in a normal and sane way. Right now, I am so unsure of my reality that my credibility would be questioned.
“Are you sure you have cancer in your breast? Which one?” I can hear my best friend ask me. And she would look at me, at each breast, and wonder if I had it right.
Periodically throughout the day I ask myself if I in fact have it right…the cancer, that is. Bad dreams can be so tricky for the dreamer.
When baffled or scared, I resort to a list. So the list starts here:
I will not call it breast cancer. From now on I will call it BC which sounds friendlier. I have BC. Many people may not get what I mean but my job is not to be crystal clear right now. I will say I have BC and quickly point to the affected thing.
Dealing with death due to BC. I find myself thinking of all the people I have ever known with BC and they fall into two categories: dead and still alive. I will only think about the people who had BC and not only survived but thrived.
I will pray for strength and not survival. It seems presumptuous to jump right into a return to God (after all these years) and request a cure….an instant cure…. like it happened yesterday. God can read between the lines…. He knows I would still be oblivious of his existence had this trauma not descended upon me out of nowhere. I can pray for strength to deal with it with integrity and courage. I am very sure God would be impressed with that sort of attitude. But beware, reader, I will pounce and destroy the first person who tells me there is a purpose for every event in life. And, I am warning you…. never refer to this part of my life as a journey. BC is currently a road block and not a journey. Frankly I am terrified this is the end of the journey so watch your words.
I will rethink the wine. Last night I drank enough wine to settle down an epileptic in seizure. I have rationalized for years that red wine is a deterrent to cancer. I have proved that one wrong.
I searched for number 5 on my list as it seemed important to round things off with a fifth, but nothing happened regarding its emergence.
People keep suggesting good books written by people who have had cancer or by people whose loved ones had cancer. I go to the library and gather a stack of them. I begin each (establish the kind of cancer and stage) and then skip the bulk of the narrative and skip to the end…..to determine if they lived or died. I am not satisfied with just that. If they survived, I Google the name to see if I come across an obituary that was written after the publication of the book. I was especially enthralled with Elizabeth Edwards. She succumbed to BC after what would be termed a “valiant” fight during a wretched journey. Edwards fought valiantly but cancer fought more viciously or more aggressively or more relentlessly than she.
I check out the books when the victim of cancer survives and leave a stack of losers behind. When they are reshelved, some librarian may utter a prayer for the poor soul who collected them in the first place.
On most days, I kept to the very short list:
Shower (at least by noon)
Eat
Drink Water
Breathe
Visit Mother (she won’t know you…..but visit her anyway)
Thursday I did that. I visited Mother. She has late stage Alzheimer’s Disease. I could tell her anything and she would forget it within one minute of the telling. It is like talking to a cow and I mean no disrespect….just touching a piece of reality in my life right now.
I held her hand and said a Hail Mary that I could get through the upcoming MRI. Her big cow eyes showed no reaction but I realized one thing for myself, I had one prayer under my belt.
In addition to BC I also suffered claustrophia. They gave me two pills to take before the procedure. I knew I had arrived when I read the sign “Center for Advanced Imaging Reception." The word “Advanced” taunted me even under the influence of the pills. The technicians were brisk and business-like. They knew what they were imaging and why but did not chitchat about it. They wore uniforms and never made eye contact. Technicians in hospitals are generaly the kind of people who come out of nowhere in your life and then go right back into oblivion when they are done imaging you. The room was freezing. They asked me if I suffered claustrophia and I mumbled that this was covered on the phone. I did suffer that and I took the two Xanax pills that had been prescribed. They seem relieved that I did. They asked me if I had ever had an MRI before. I tell them I have not and they offered me headphones. There would be a banging sound, they warned, so headphones were good. I looked at the headphones like they were just one more weapon in my arsenal against breast cancer. Then I realized that headphones could not be used against cancer so suspected the pills were working to numb my thinking, my nerves, my claustrophobia….if not my cancer.
"What genre of music, would you like,” the technician in blue asked. I was impressed she used the word “genre” in place of “kind”? She was cultured. I tell them I want "Something soothing. Let’s stay away from the Blues." The technician in green selected Mozart and after a few minutes of him, I respected her taste.
The banging was intermittent as the MRI did its work; yet it seemed distant….much like the cacophony what one would hear in hell when one was distanced from hell….perhaps in purgatory with a guaranteed pass out in a short time. My thoughts were confusing but not terrifying. The technicians periodically asked me through some sort of speaker if I was doing okay. I was tempted to respond, “No, actually, I am not okay…. I have breast cancer.”
But I have enough good judgement to refrain from the dark humor that cannot be appreciated and I truly want to get out of that machine and they were just the girls to see to it I did.
IT is over. It was like I was a cake; shoved into the oven, baked and then when time was up, pulled out to cool in that frigid room. The technicians tell me I did good and I actually felt proud of myself….like I was a ten-year-old girl who won the class Spelling Bee.
I do not remember much of anything after that day but eventually I had the surgery, the chemo, the radiation, the hair loss, the wig, the support group and time passed. With the passing of time came the realization that I would die but probably not of the breast cancer that invaded my life at the age of 59.
2015
I no longer call it BC (which sounds more like a battery), I called it what it was...breast cancer. The fear never totally dissipated until I made it to ten years and I am currently a ten-year survivor of breast cancer (knock on wood). I was stage III which is nothing to snicker at, but I survived.
My mother died of Alzheimer’s Disease and never (as far as I can determine) knew I had cancer even though I told her so many many times. I gave up telling her the day I said, “Mom, I have something hard to tell you. Look at me! This is important. Eye contact, Mom, I have breast cancer.”
She looked at me with those huge yet empty brown eyes and said, “I am sad you do. And who are you?”
It was the only time I felt sorry enough for for myself and so I cried. It felt good to shed a few tears on my behalf as I never would allow anyone else to do it for me. Cancer, pain and fear can only really be owned by the person who lives with it.
I am a little bit more tolerant when people refer to cancer a journey; although I would never use that word myself to another with cancer. I am stubborn about that. Maybe cancer is a journey and if it is, for most of us it is a journey to hell and if we are lucky…a journey back from cancer.
2025
I survived and am alive 20 years later.