The Unbecoming

I'll be honest. I'm not sure I'm using "unbecoming" in its true definition, but it's the only word I could come up with that explains my current state of mind. Let me backtrack.

Monday was my bilateral lumpectomy. We arrived at UK at 6:45, I got taken back to pre-op shortly after 8:00, and I was scheduled at the breast center from 9:00-10:00 for wire guided needle localization to mark the spots where my surgeon needed to make his incisions. I was then supposed to meet with nuclear medicine at 10:30 to get injections to find my sentinel lymph nodes, and surgery was supposed to begin around 11:30.

Things didn't go exactly as planned.

From 9:00-12:00 I was doing some serious bullet-biting while they tried to find the tumors in my left breast. When I was originally diagnosed, there were two masses side by side: a fibroadenoma (a non-cancerous lump) and the cancerous tumor. When they were biopsied, the radiologist puts clips in the masses to mark their spots, but they were the same clip and the pathology report didn't differentiate between them. Therefore, my radiologist on Monday couldn't definitively say which clip was where the tumor was, and which clip was the fibroadenoma. Furthermore, my breast tissue has changed over the course of the last six and a half months, so the ultrasound tech wasn't able to easily compare images from October with the images on Monday and was having a hard time finding the second clip. Everyone ultimately decided we were better off doing a mammogram because the clips are clearly visible on the images.

Had I known what the next two and a half hours were going to be like, I would have requested a cranberry and vodka.

It was hell. There is really no other way to describe it. I held it together, and the nurses, radiologists and ultrasounds techs were AMAZING. I received LOTS of compliments for holding it together so well. But everyone has their breaking point, and looking back, it's amazing I didn't just throw my hands up and say "to hell with this" after about an hour.

If you've ever had a mammogram, you understand how uncomfortable they can be. If you've never had one, just be prepared. Now take your typical annual mammogram and multiply it by 10, because I was easily compressed 40 times. The problem was one of the clips had migrated to my chest wall and they were having a difficult time getting it to show up on the mammography image. Since it wasn't showing up on the image, they couldn't determine where to insert the needle to mark it. "Try standing up," "Try sitting down," "Try bringing that part of the breast into the paddles," "There's no more tissue to compress; we're in her ribs right now." Bless them, seriously. They did everything they could to find the darn clip! I truly do not know what eventually happened that made them find it, but all I know is I was compressed, I was numbed with lidocaine, a needle went in, and I had to hold my boobs like little baby heads on the way back to pre-op so the needles wouldn't move and dislodge from the spots. Oh, and I forgot to mention I was in my hospital gown completely naked underneath with a surgical cap on my head the entire time. Any vanity I still had left was ultimately slammed on the ground and stomped on 😂

Once I finally got back to pre-op my surgeon was waiting outside my room and jokingly scolded me for being late. Being an enneagram 1, I completely understood! We were already an hour behind schedule at this point! Nuclear medicine came in shortly thereafter and injected a radioactive dye in my breasts to help my surgeon find the sentinel lymph node during the surgery. The sentinel node is the first lymph node that drains lymphatic fluid from the breast, so if the cancer were to spread, it would go to that node first.

Things sped up fairly quickly from this point on. Anesthesia came in, we talked for a bit, they were impressed with my description of what was going to happen during the procedure, and the next thing I knew I was requesting Versed so I could just take the edge off. My next memories involve me asking how long the Versed would begin working and the anesthesiologist chuckling and telling me I probably wouldn't have any memory of being rolled in to the operating room. We then left the pre-op room, they asked me if I had any funny jokes to tell, some guy named Caleb joined us, and I do, in fact, remember being rolled in to the operating room (insert panic, because I should have been knocked out by now). My last seconds of hazy consciousness was the following ridiculous conversation:

Some guy in the OR: Ice, Ice, Baby!
Me: What?? Like Vanilla Ice?
Guy: Yes! That was the first CD I ever bought!
Me: Well the first CD I ever bought was Boyz II Men.
Other guy: Boyz II Men! What was your favorite song?
Me: (words are hard at this point) On Bended Knee
Girl: First CD! I never even had to buy CDs because we just had MP3s when I was old enough to buy music!
Guy: Well we are clearly an OR full of people born in the 80s!

The next thing I knew, I was waking up and checking to make sure I still had nipples and no drains due to the lymph node removal. Luckily everything checked out as I expected. I remember hearing the PACU nurse asking to speak to Mr. Willhite, and her saying, "Oh, you don't have to write all of this down! I'll give you a packet with all the information." There were two nurses then at my bedside saying they'd just talked to my husband. One of the nurses said, "He's so sweet! He thought he had to write all this stuff down!" To which I replied, "Well, he doesn't know how to properly load the dishwasher, so it's probably good you are giving him written directions." Post-anesthesia Meagan is not the nicest...and I'll spare you the story of my car ride home with Jeff. It's a wonder he didn't drop me off on the side of the road and make me walk home. Let's just say lack of information + trying to do multiple things at once + driving does not make me happy while still coming out of anesthesia. At this point it was 8:00 at night and everyone was done!

On a scale of 1-10, I would say recovery has been about a 3.5. I've not had much pain, mostly soreness. I attempted a shower for the first time on Wednesday, and taking off the surgical bra about sent me over the edge. It was pretty serious pain, but luckily went away rather quickly. I took pain meds the first two days after surgery, but only needed ibuprofen the third day and nothing since then. All in all, it's been fairly easy. I do get tired more easily and have to be careful in what I lift or how I move my arms, but I've found ways to compensate. It could be so much worse, and I feel like I've gotten off rather easy.

But now back to "The Unbecoming." (I know realize this is going to be a really long post.) A cancer diagnosis will change you. And I'm not talking like, "I'm going to get a little nervous before each scan" change. I'm talking like a fundamental, at your core, complete overhaul change. I'm not going to compare it to a butterfly in a cocoon because that analogy is overused. It's more like the way an earthquake completely alters the landscape of a town or village, yet the people who live there still need to resume their lives. That's a cancer diagnosis. Everything changes - YOU change. But you have to find a way to take the new you and insert yourself back into your old life with your old friends, and your old job, and your old ways. And I'm beginning to wonder how that is possible.

In full transparency, I have very very little tolerance for people's complaining these days. We all reserve the right to complain, and every single one of us is guilty of it. However, if you're whining because you're overwhelmed, yet do nothing to change your circumstances, I really just want to wash my hands of you. I never EVER want to compare my situation to someone else's - everyone's "big" is big. However, I've gained a perspective I am honestly grateful for. I would venture to say 98% of our "problems" (especially prior to COVID-19) are not true problems. Inconveniences? Yes. Annoying? Yes. Not fitting in 'your' plan? Yes. But a problem?? Likely no.

Yet out of the other side of my mouth, I struggle with my "I don't give a damn" mindset because I never EVER want to diminish someone's else's feelings. This is one of my biggest weaknesses...I can see both sides to every situation. However, I can already feel my anxiety rising thinking about once I'm out of active treatment and having to insert myself back into reality. I've been able to be in my little bubble the last few months and hide away from the drama of the world. It's been kind of nice if I'm being truthful.

My other concern is people's perception of me. I do not want to always be known as the girl who had breast cancer. Yes, it's a part of my story, but it isn't the only thing that defines me. However, with that being stated, I'm going to have some long-term effects that are going to probably take awhile to wear off. Active treatment is like being pregnant; you have a "due date" for when you'll be finished, and then you're still on people's radars for the next two weeks or so. But then you fall off the radar, just like you do after having a baby, and everyone assumes you're doing great and the baby is sleeping since your social media posts show everything being just dandy. But in reality, it's the time AFTER the first few weeks when you really need people to support you. Sadly, I will not finish radiation and then bounce back to the old me within a few weeks. It's going to likely take months for my energy to resume back to where it was, my neuropathy to completely disappear, my hair to grow back to an acceptable length, and to also lose this damn weight from the steroids. It's a process - and it's not one that just ends at the conclusion of treatment.

"Unbecoming" is inevitable. I will likely lose friendships over the course of the next several months because I will realize they don't serve the same purpose they once used to. I will likely find new hobbies that fulfill me because I now realize there is more to life than work. I will likely be much more protective of my time because I realize it isn't guaranteed. I will likely schedule a monthly check-in with myself so I can allow myself to do something for ME, and no one else. I will likely make diet and exercise more of a priority because I understand what a gift it is to move the only body I'll ever have. I will likely say "no" when before I would have said "yes." However, with my children, I will probably start saying "yes" a lot more when before I would have said "no." I will start new family traditions because those are the things my family and I will look back on in twenty years.

I have often looked back on this whole chapter in my story and felt like it was God's way of finally waking me up. It's sad it took a cancer diagnosis to do that, but I'm equally as grateful I'm 35 with this newfound perception than being 70. Change is hard. Change is brutal. However, having the courage to make the change that you'll be better off for in the long run is what ultimately leads to a more fulfilling life. If I have to lose some things in order to gain that, I think it's worth it.