Well, I'll tell you what happened so far. Although going back to my relationship with cancer, I have to go back over 30 years. I had a mass on my right breast and it kept getting larger. No one equated caffeine with breast lumps, so I was a voracious consumer of coffee. The mass kept growing and growing.
I went to Dr. after Dr. in the
outland where I lived. Each of the
small town Misters, and they were all male at that time, said to me "You're young, it's just a huge lump, it's nothing, don't worry". Except I wanted it out, really wanted it out. I thought it would kill me but I was just another
hysterical female.
My life went into deep freeze for several years. I moved home to recover from a health problem, and then my Mother's cancer got serious. So, I stayed and took care of her, dealt with my Father's rages, the isolation of a small town and pressure of being a single woman in my 20's. I spent my days plotting my departure, while doing laundry and bed baths, going to the doctor's and visiting the hospital every day when needed. I was the loyal dog, the one everyone kicked, but who stayed on, determined that I had a job to do. I couldn't walk away from someone who was seriously dying and so the time went.
After my mother's death, I got my license, my job, my apartment, my life back. I went back to college, but I still had the damn mass in my breast. Finally, someone told me to go to Planned Parenthood, not for birth control, but because they had women doctors, who
were actually doing things for their patients. I went and the doctor was woman in her 40's, who was astonished and outraged by the fact that I had gone so long without having found anyone to do my surgery.
I was rushed to Buffalo General Hospital, where I was told surgery would happen the next week. I was
ecstatic. Everyone around me was horrified. No one really believed how long I had waited for this day, and I became again, another hysterical woman, looking for a doctor to solve all my problems.
In those days, surgery was taken
seriously. One entered the hospital for a lengthy stay, both before and after.
Convalescence was taken; one got enormous amounts of time off.
The fact that I had no money was of no matter.
Lives had to be saved and finances be damned in the old world of medicine. Ultimately, my surgery was so strange, my journey so long to the cutting table, my doctors donated the
surgical costs
just for the privilege of having such a strange case. My lump, my "grapefruit sized" mass was gone. I felt much better.
Two days later, I was evicted from the hospital, for being too healthy and young, for annoying my older co-
patients with my walking, my singing, my radiance. I left with my giant x-rays, my diagnosis of
pre-cancer and my life in hand.
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