Feel It On the First
Twelve days a year, on the first of every month, women’s health and breast cancer health advocates will be shouting this to anyone who will listen.
Perform a self check of your breasts. To establish a baseline. To take note of any changes. To catch anything that forms in between mammograms.
One year ago today I did exactly that. I was getting ready for bed and I casually ran my hand into my armpit, to cup my swollen breasts as they prepared to make milk for my daughter who grew inside me.
I felt something foreign. A lump. A small, hard nodule that seemed to be right under the skin.
I tried to work it out. If it was a clogged duct I could work it out like a knot. It didn’t budge.
Panic set in. My chest tightened. My lungs, already cramped from the infant pressing on them, struggled to fill with air. My gut screamed. Could it be breast cancer? I lived through the 1990’s, the golden age of breast cancer awareness and my mind raced. I did not have any particular reason to worry, no alarming history or risk factor, but I knew a lump was not a good finding.
As I got into bed, I told my husband. He said not to worry, “it’s probably nothing.” He said my pregnancy hormones were making me worry, but encouraged me to ask my doctor about it. I tried to put the fear in the back of my mind and focus on my favorite early fall movie, “You’ve Got Mail.” I drifted to sleep thinking about “bouquets of pencils,” and how under-appreciated the appearance of Dave Chappelle is along side Tom Hanks in the classic rom-com.
It was Labor Day weekend. Tuesday morning, I called my OBGYN’s office the moment they opened for business. I had an appointment on Friday of that week, but I found a lump, could they get me in any earlier? “I’m sorry, m’am,” the secretary said with a dry lack of urgency, a direct contrast to the alarm with which doctors would speak to me with just a few months later, “We’re completely booked. They’ll have to see you Friday.”
I told my friends. They told me not to worry. It’s probably nothing.
On Friday I labored my giant pregnant body onto the exam table at my OBGYN’s office. I sipped my coffee and took note of the faded poster on the wall: “WOMAN UP,” it read. “EARLY DETECTION SAVES LIVES.” I was definitely a woman on top of my heath. I definitely planned to get mammograms when it was time. I was not to “that phase” of my OBGYN visits yet though. I was still a young woman having a baby. Those posters were for women my mother’s age.
I definitely did not think my life would need saving.
One of the OB’s in my doctor’s practice creaked open the door and strode into the exam room. My regular doctor was out for the week but I was familiar with this doctor. This was not my first rodeo with pregnancy and childbirth and I had seen every doctor in the practice. His hair was white. “He’s been doing this a long time,” I thought. “I’m sure he knows what this thing is.” I falsely permitted myself to believe. He asked me questions about my pregnancy. All normal. Baby is fine. Baby is healthy. I asked him to feel my lump.
“It’s probably just a lymph node. It’s probably nothing.” He confidently assured me. “These changes happen all the time in pregnancy.” This was not the first time I had my breasts or female reproductive organs mansplained to me, and it would not be the last.
“But this is my third baby,” I pushed back, firm enough that he would understand me, yet not so strong as to be considered Ophelia-esque, “I’ve never felt a lump like this before.” Even when faced with the prospect of cancer, I let societal stereotypes get in the way of my self-advocacy. My mother taught me to be a nice, polite, girl, but my inner lawyer was twitching and seizing.
“We could send you for imaging, but they’d confirm what we already know, it’s just a lymph node.” He brazenly dismissed me with the type of confidence I have yet to see in an oncologist.
I called my husband on my drive from the OBGYN to my office. I relayed the dialogue between the older OBGYN and myself regarding the lump. “Now you can just relax and get ready to have this baby,” he assured me.
I set aside my concern as pregnancy anxiety, and I put off being diagnosed with the most aggressive form of breast cancer for another three and a half months.
It’s probably nothing.
On December 19, 2019, at 37 years old, I was diagnosed with stage 2, grade 3 invasive ductal carcinoma. Triple negative breast cancer. It was considered stage 2 due to the size of the tumor. The tumor that grew for another three and a half months while medical professionals told me not to worry. The breast cancer tumor that was so aggressive that I had to not only have surgery to remove it, but required six months of the harshest IV chemotherapy to kill any micro-metastatic cells it had unleashed into my body, ready to prey on my organs and take me from my young children.
I kick myself for listening to anyone. My friends. My husband. My physicians. The only person who can properly advocate for my health is me. It’s true, doctors can be held responsible for their negligence and arrogance in dismissing concerns like mine. For them, the price is paid by their insurance company and maybe a mark on their medical license, but for someone like me, the patient, we pay with our lives.
You’ll hear us shout, “feel it on the first!” However you should know that the self exam is not enough. If you find something, even if you think it’s probably nothing, demand imaging. Get a biopsy.
I probably would not be here if I trusted “probably” any longer than I did.
