1. Cancer Diaries - The Discovery Phase

They say that you should look out for the extroverts during a pandemic as it is they who may suffer the most from the lockdown isolation. As a raging extrovert who generally thrives on human interaction I managed to cope quite well. I learnt to enjoy the small things in life, peppered with cake and champagne. Having regular connections with the Salesforce community and friends in a virtual format helped my need for connection too. During the pandemic I never knowingly caught Covid. I was careful. I thought I came out of this well. I was wrong.

Warning, the following may contain TMI.

If you have a partner they will sometimes give you that look to suggest that you have done something wrong. That's how it started. It was a Saturday and my fella, Piers gave me that look. He then went on to say that he thought he had felt something, a lump in my left breast. It then followed us getting into a position to find said lump. I couldn't feel anything at first, and then I did. A sense of dread completely filled me. 

On the Tuesday I called the Doctors for an appointment. I didn't think it was an emergency so I fixed an appointment for the following week. This was the first wrong thing to do. I grew up being told that unless blood was streaming out of my eyes then I wasn't going to have a day off school sick. I'm pretty robust when it comes to being sick, and this is to my detriment. For that week that I waited for the Doctor's call I spent trying to push the thought of the lump out of my head. I told myself it was just a cyst and all will be OK. 

Thing is, I had been experiencing some aches in that general area and had put them down to being peri-menopausal, that great catch all for all women of a certain age. If you're feeling a bit crap then its menopausal symptoms - end of. I'm now starting to think that is not true and that Doctors should be more aware of potential wider symptoms. More about my past aliments another time. 

I told a few people about my lump very early on. I'm a Project Manager at heart and I put myself firmly on the Risk Register as a potential risk for all the things I am involved in, namely work, London Admins Group and London's Calling conference. At this stage it was on a need to know basis and was contained. 

I did this as I could feel myself being distracted by the lump. My mind was racing all over the place so I needed people close to me, who could be affected by my behaviour to know what was going on in my head. 

On the day of the Doctor's appointment I missed his call - twice. Did I mention that my head was all over the place? I managed to speak to the Doctor in the evening, having got an emergency appointment that evening after missing the planned ones. Oh the madness, I took the call in an office of OwnBackup as they were hosting us for a London Admins night. I talked through my symptoms and the Doctor recommended a trip to the Breast Clinic at the local hospital. An appointment was arranged for about 2 weeks later. 

I walked to the hospital as it's only down the road. I'm familiar with the place as I did volunteering in January last year for the wellbeing team looking after the exhausted medical teams working through Covid. 

After a short wait I am seen by a Doctor who examines me, with a chaperone in situ. This was the beginning of my boobs now being donated to medical science. Everyone gets to 'cop a feel'! He finds the lump and draws a 'X' marks the spot on my boob in the area of the lump. He tells me that I will now have a mammogram and ultrasound and will see him again later.

I go sit on a chair in a small corridor and wait. I am sitting amongst other women, all here for similar reasons, a few quietly weeping. 

I am called into have my mammogram. A man designed this machine. It's painful having your boobs squished tightly in one position and then in another. I'm astonished that boobs don't come out rectangle shaped after the procedure.

After my turn I returned to the corridor to sit. About 15 minutes later I was recalled for more mammograms tests. Fuck. What have they found? I was subjected to a more intensive squishing plate to get more shots of the inner workings of my boobs. That smarted a bit.

Completed, back into the corridor to await my turn for an ultrasound. I was called in and popped myself onto a bed. In medical terms one ‘pops’ behind curtains and onto beds.

Remember, the lump was found in my left breast so I was slightly alarmed when the Ultrasound specialist started scanning my right boob. I mentioned that it was in my left and the but the Specialist calmly noted that the Mammogram possibly showed something in the right one too. Fuck!

She then moved to my left breast and acknowledged the lump that had been found. She then moved to my lymph nodes to the side of my boob. This is procedure apparently. She spent a while in that region and my anxiety crept up.

Biopsies were taken from my left boob and from my lymph nodes. The local anesthetic used wasn’t enough for the lymph nodes area as I yelped in pain. More was administered to continue the task to collect samples. I started thinking this was no longer just a cyst and I was in serious trouble. I shed a few tears. Procedure finally over I got dressed, feeling rather shaky from the experience. I returned to the corridor of quietly weeping women and joined in.

A little while later the Doctor called me into his room. I sat down and looked at his face expressing emotions of kindness and seriousness at the same time. And then he spoke. A form of breast cancer had already been identified in my left breast and they suspected cancerous activity in my lymph nodes too. Fuck. And yes, I did say that out loud.

Cancerous cells present themselves differently to healthy normal cells and that's why, when samples are taken, that specialists can often see by the naked eye that something is wrong. I'm not sure if it is standard process to tell someone this information immediately on the day, or maybe it was just me. I'm someone who is naturally curious and asks questions about process, on what they are looking for, why they are searching elsewhere and not in the initial zone of concern. Maybe that was why I was given an immediate diagnosis, even though I was on my own. 

The information was a shock, as you can imagine. I started talking about my year that I had planned, big birthday celebrations and holidays. Cancer was not what I had planned. The Doctor asked if someone was coming to pick me up, that I shouldn't be alone. I said that he would be on his way, that I would meet him outside. I was asked to return for formal diagnosis in 9 days time, to go to the Macmillan Cancer Centre in the hospital and to bring someone with me. 

I walked out of the Breast Clinic, through some more corridors of the hospital, and out the main entrance. I walked along the pavement, my brain focusing on every step. In my head I thinking; pavement, step, road, look for cars, all clear, cross the road, back onto the pavement, keep walking. I see Piers walking towards me and at about 5 metres away from him I start sobbing uncontrollably.