March 11, 2016

An appointment with the surgeon - finally - and I have cancer. Dr. Barnes speaks quickly and quietly, so it’s all kind of a rush. I hear “triple-negative” and “typically aggressive but treatable” and he explains the options from here: A lumpectomy (his recommendation) or a total mastectomy. He’ll also take some lymph nodes to see if the cancer has spread. Oh, and he highly recommends genetic testing to see if I have the BRCA genetic mutation that puts me at higher risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer.

Pretty soon, the nurse is in the office. The earliest available surgery is March 17. “That’s St. Patrick’s Day,” she says, but I look at Jeff and kind of smile. We’d discussed this before. He had even said that he thought he’d be watching the first round of the NCAA Tournament by himself in a hospital waiting room, while I was in surgery.

Nope. We’ll have our two-day beer, fried foods and basketball fest. We schedule surgery for Wednesday, March 23. 

After the appointment, Jeff and I go to Benchwarmers for lunch. I need a drink, and we need to figure out how to tell everyone. We’ve got the weekend, and Tom wants to come home from Cornell with his girlfriend. 

I don’t know how to do this - Jen has known about the biopsy, and she knows about the appointment, so I’m sure she knows that I would text her and tell her if all is clear. But I don’t want to text her and tell her it’s cancer, either. So I kind of ham-handedly call the school and ask that she be dismissed early for a family emergency. When we pick her up, she gets in the car and says, “So, it’s cancer.” She’s pretty matter-of-fact, and no, she doesn’t want to go with us to pick up Tom. So we take her home and head west. 

I don’t want to tell Tom in front of his girlfriend, so I text him that we’re on our way and that I’d like to have a few minutes with him by himself. He’s immediately asking what’s wrong, and I end up telling him to just wait until we get there. It’s not a bad drive to Mt. Vernon - the sun is shining and we’re listening to music by bands we might go and see.

I tell Tom (awkwardly) in the parking lot behind his dorm, before he goes up to get his girlfriend and their stuff for the weekend. He doesn’t have much to say - he knew it was health-related, because he asked if it was about my doctor’s appointment.

Tom and Jen have been through this before. They lost their young stepsister to neuroblastoma a couple years ago. I wish I didn't have to put them through this.

It’s a pretty calm weekend - we’re all just enjoying hanging out together. I take Tom and his girlfriend back to Cornell on Sunday, and enjoy listening to the alternative 80s station on the way home, blasting the Go-Gos, The Clash and Big Audio Dynamite.