June 2011.
It’s June and my pain is back. It’s a deep-inside pain that stops me in my tracks and makes it hard to breathe. Sometimes it brings me to my knees. Imagine the worst heartburn and then times it by 100. I have not felt this pain since my last episode three years ago. Back then, it started simply enough. It wasn’t as intense in the beginning and slowly built over time. I went through a myriad of tests – wore a heart monitor for two days, took drugs for acid reflux, and finally had an ultrasound looking for gallstones. No gallstones, but I did have a splenic aneurysm. A super interesting fact about aneurysms is that they are symptomless. Usually they just rupture and kill you, end of story, unless you are lucky enough that the medical team recognizes what is happening and saves you in time. The surgeon said that I had about a year before it would have ruptured and that I was lucky we found it in time.
So does this mean that I have another aneurysm? Same symptoms as last time, what else could it be? Back to my GP, who ordered some more testing, starting with an ultrasound to check out that pesky vein. The night before I see Dr. C for my results, I am lying on the couch, rubbing my breastbone trying to get rid of the pain. Nothing is working. I am scared. I feel a lump in my right breast. Have I felt this before? Where did it come from? I walk into Dr. C’s office and tell her about the lump. “We’re not here for that today. We’re here to talk about your ultrasound report. Book yourself in for a mammo”.
Three weeks later, I am back in her office alone, waiting for my husband, Carl, to show up, and she is telling me that I have breast cancer. What? How can this be? Are you fucking serious? No one in my family has had breast cancer. I am only 42. I start to cry. Am I going to die? What about my daughter? She is only 6 years old. How can this be happening to me? Carl shows up as Dr. C is leading me over to the surgeon’s booking desk and his face turns white when he gets a look at me. I am sick to my stomach and crying, standing mute in disbelief.
I spend the next nine months in treatment – surgery to remove my breast, four months of chemotherapy and another two months of daily radiation. The Agency calls it ‘a journey’. It’s not a journey - a journey is a lovely trip along the west coast checking out amazing sunsets and little towns along the way. Chemo and radiation is more of a descent into hell. Now, I’ve never been to hell, but I am pretty sure I was skirting the edges of it after four months of getting toxic chemicals injected into my veins while a pretty nurse wearing a Hazmat suit tells me that I am going to be okay. Am I? Am I doing enough?
Aside from my immediate family, Krista has been a wonderful friend and support person over these last few years. Krista is a unicorn…one of those magical creatures that shows up in your life and you don’t realize it but you always feel happy when she is around. Krista and I became fast friends and I love to watch people that meet her for the first time. EVERYONE wants to be her best friend. It’s funny to watch actually. She dazzles them with her warmth and in that first meeting, they are asking her to have lunch or coffee or just hang out. I think back to when I first met her…did I do that? Was it so obvious to other people? All I know is that it was one of the luckiest days of my life. I never thought that we would embark on this kind of experience together, but I am a firm believer that everyone comes into to your life at exactly the right time.
She has been there through it all, from jabbing me with needles to crying with me when I couldn’t understand why this was happening to me. This is my story, Krista’s story and the story of my village – all of the people who were with me along the way, helping, encouraging, crying and laughing with me. It takes a village to fight cancer. It also takes a lot more than what the traditional medical system has to offer.
- Kim
photo: Krista McKeachie