The Stranger Within -- Cancer; The Unwanted Visitor

I am writing here from my perspective and experiences. I am as different and as the same as the next person. We all share some common ground. Certain experiences will be similar. But still, we are unique. Each of us.

What I share here may touch a chord with you. It may speak to you. It may cause you to think you really are different and have you questioning why you´re reading this book at all. It doesn´t matter. I´m putting it all out on the page to share it. You are not alone...

In all the literature I was given to read, I didn´t come across one piece, other than a short magazine article, that opened up the doors of a person´s mind and heart and laid it out to share with others.

I´m hoping that in reading this, one person will be touched positively and will be able to grasp something that will empower them, give them strength, and even peace. If I can do that by the sharing of the months with my unwanted visitor I will feel honored.

It was summer of 2001 and I was driving home from having spent a nice weekend camping at the coast. While in the cab of my Toyota truck I experienced a startling pain in my left breast. I drew my right hand to the spot, testing for tenderness to touch. It didn't feel sore as a bruise would. I pulled my shirt away from my body and took a quick glance to discern if there was a bruise and saw nothing. But the pain persisted. I then questioned if I had injured myself while setting up or taking down camp. Maybe I had inadvertently stepped into a pole, the camper's corner and brushed it off at the time. I could recall no such incident, however, and the pain was a mystery.

It radiated from an area thick with masses and cysts. I have a fibrocystic breast condition. Have had it since I first developed breasts. My mother, and her mother, and her mother's sisters also had a fibrocystic condition. My grandmother had had a mastectomy in her mid-life years. Not because she had breast cancer, but because, at the time, doctors felt a mastectomy would be the safest course to take as they felt she stood a fair chance of developing cancer in that one breast. Her sister had breast cancer and eventually died from it. My mother had breast cancer and a mastectomy. She is now a 13 year cancer survivor.

That I could develop breast cancer was a painful possibility I was aware of. However, I did not expect to develop it for another 15 to 20 years. Not at 48 years of age. And I felt, if it happened, it would be the same kind of cancer that my mother had: Estrogen receptive.

Having the fibrocystic condition, I am accustomed to running my fingers over a landscape of lumps and masses whenever I do my breast self exam. I am fairly familiar with what is new, what is old, flare-ups and the like. The spot where I had experienced the pain was of a certain lumpy nature. The only change that area had experienced in the past would be to swell, with accompanying pain, then the swelling and pain would diminish. Having the fibrocystic condition is, at best, frustrating. Breast self exams can be discouraging as there might be changes each month: a new lump, a swollen mass. At times it made me want to never examine myself again because I felt if something foreign did develop I'd never be able to tell the difference.

Each time I did my self exam, I would pay special attention to that area, in the upper, inner, right quadrant of my left breast. For a time, it seemed that the lumpy mass was getting smaller. And where once was a rounded edge, now was a more pointy edge. Then 9-11-01 occurred and I don't recall if I kept up with my self exams, or not. Come the new year I became aware of another change in that area of my breast. The lumpy mass seemed harder and larger. Gone was the pointy edge and the more rounded edge was back. The area around it was somewhat tender so I wasn't too concerned. I had long been told cancerous lumps or cysts did not hurt. The area around the lumpy mass also itched occasionally. I was feeling some concern, but decided to keep an eye on it and let it be.