Yom Kippur, 2021

May we be inscribed in the book of life for another year. And may we, dear lord, be healthy.

How do I say this, let me count the ways. My husband is failing, in a nursing home. My son announced his engagement and the happy couple are searching for an unusual venue: I am trying to be happy. I hide from Covid and from myself on a daily basis. I live in a body that I don’t know how to make sense of. Day by day.

Yesterday morning I went back to sleep after being up for hours, as usual in the middle of the night. During that attempt to return to or find some rest, a message came in from my surgeon with “good news.” The pathologist finally issued the report and not without the surgeon breathing down her neck—the report was weeks delayed. The area was benign. No treatment was needed. In essence, it was done.

But, she said, in essence, I will call you this evening to discuss the rest. And I was thinking, so what could the rest be, what more could there be?

And so she did call, during my usual night-time-binge watching of one show or another or another.

In 2004 I had a mastectomy for DCIS, ductal carcinoma in situ, for which she couldn’t get a clear margin. It was cells, a scatter of cells and because they were scattered, there was no way to contain them. This time, what I had in that amorphous “12:00 region,” was LCIS. LCIS is lobular carcinoma in situ, except, confusingly enough, it is not cancer, in fact it is benign. The semantics are frightening but that is what it is called. Again, an area, this time not in a milk duct, but in a milk gland. Abnormal cells. Then the kicker:

Having this condition increases the risk for breast cancer. Here I was, I thought, doing so well since October 2004. I thought I was done. This condition is another form of a cell mutation. This condition increases my cancer risk to 20%. This, this, this.

Everything she said was in a comprehensive article on the Mayo Clinic site. I read it over and over. I had been on tamoxifen years ago and it was not prescribed by my then oncologist, but by my physician. I remember having muscle pain as a side effect. Now I have to meet with a (new) oncologist to discuss the possible need for medication: Perhaps an estrogen inhibitor. However, my first cancer episode was not estrogen sensitive.

So, this situation is good, bad, ugly, in fact, downright confusing. It’s enough to make you crazy. Not knowing is worse than knowing. Or maybe it is better to be in not-knowing denial.

Again, it is another thing to rob me of a feeling of stasis…

It is almost October, it is breast cancer awareness month. This turn of events has pushed me into the educator role again. My job is to spread the word and to document everything that goes on so if something in YOU feels or looks awry, you have a frame of reference. You need to know.

The protocol now is: My annual mammo and sono have been pushed to February and  I will have an annual MRI every August; I used to go every three years. This means that every six months I will have some kind of checkup.

And now you need to know about this condition, LCIS.

Here is a link to The Mayo Clinic Site, where you can educate yourself about this condition, a condition I knew nothing about.

I can crawl back under the covers, yes I could. But I want to believe that having increased monitoring will keep me safe. And I have to face another day and look for some joy. In the meantime, be well, stay educated and don’t forget all of your medical appointments.

The complete series, Blogging for Breast Cancer, starts here

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