Gratitude and Attitude: What One Woman is Packing for Her Quick Trip Through Cancerville.

Hello. Welcome to my blog. I’m new to this, so bear with me. I’m Barbara Keith. Not Barbara. BK to my friends. And yes I do go by both names. And here’s the deal: I have breast cancer. I am healthy. I am invincible. I am 42. (Just barely, by the way.) And yes, cancer stinks. (Plenty of you can attest to that.) And no one has been more shocked than I was just a few weeks ago to hear the news.
I have been thinking over this entry for a couple of weeks. I hope I can say what I need and want to say, and not bring you down or wear you out. I think you are probably reading this because you know me. You may know me really well, or just a little, or maybe you know somebody who knows me. That’s cool. I am glad you are here. Those of you who know me well know I am not shy. I don’t mind being center of attention and I am not a super private person, but going public and “putting it out there” about all this has been particularly hard. Moving out of Healthyville is a BIG leap. I have always lived there and never even been on a vacation to Cancerville. Now I am taking up residence, temporarily.

Here are the facts for those who are interested: I have a 1.8 cm. tumor surrounded by 2 cm of calcifications. It was discovered in a routine mammogram. And yes, I can feel it (and so have many many doctors in Nashville). But no, I didn’t know what I was looking for so I did not “palpate” it before I knew it was there. I have no family history of breast cancer whatsoever. If you know cancer-speak, my cancer is hormone positive and Her2Neu negative. This is good. Right now my cancer is being called a Stage 1. This could change once the pathology comes back after surgery. Hopefully it won’t. I will probably have chemo just because I have a borderline “intermediate” vs. “low” grade tumor. I am having a bilateral mastectomy by Dr. Ingrid Meszoely of the Vanderbilt Breast Center and reconstruction by Dr. Jason Wendel. Surgery is Thursday, September 3rd. Scary stuff, but these are the professionals and this is not their first rodeo. I have confidence in them and my case is straight forward. One nurse called it “generic” breast cancer. Love that. Never thought I was someone who wanted to be average...until now. And this is also a fact: I will be fine. I will be cured, and I will die of something besides breast cancer a very long time from now.

So what about the rest of it? How I am going to get from here to there? How did I get here in the first place? There is so much to say. This is, and will continue to be, my story. And I hope my story will help someone else who has to cope with this insidious disease.

I thought I had problems, issues, and “stuff” before that fateful Friday afternoon in July sitting with a radiologist who said, “You have a very worrying mass.” WHAT? Wait. Back up! Some of you know what it feels like to hear news like that. (I hope the rest of you never do.) You’re overwhelmed by this sudden urge to travel back in time and take back all the complaints and whining. You find yourself asking why all those small things (i.e. your formerly unblemished, perfect health record) went unappreciated? Fast forward through the next couple of weeks. It all seems like a blur now, but I can tell you those were the longest two weeks in history. There was a biopsy. There was an MRI. Then there was telling my parents. That was hard. Really hard. They would trade places with me in two seconds flat. I knew that before I told them, because it’s exactly what I would do for my own children if tables were turned, if I could.

And there is saintly Richard. I am deeply loved by Richard. He has been to every appointment (we have seen no fewer than 8 doctors), and he listens patiently to all of the ranting and raving and crying that punctuates his already-stressful 60 hour work weeks. We are grieving for the life we had, but we know, also, that we are lucky.

And then there are my friends, family, and frankly, even my acquaintances. The messages, the voice mails, the emails, the offers of help and comfort are simply overwhelming. It is humbling in a way that only people who have experienced this or something similar can understand. I will never be able to say thank you enough. The word gratitude has a taken on whole new dimension for me. Oprah is big on it, and now I know why: it fills up the hole created by uncertainty and waiting and an unknown future. So thanks. That’s all I can say.

I will try and post updates after Thursday in a timely manner. Feel free to post a comment or shoot me an email. I hope I will have enough to say to make this interesting reading.

That’s all I’ve got for now. All of you who follow along with me on this detour through Cancerville, thanks. It’s good to have you along for the ride.

BK

P.S. And if you’re going to follow my blog, beware of shameless plugs for the Wine Chap. Business is going well thanks to all of you but the season (the holiday season that is) will be here before we know it, and we hope you will toast it with delicious beverages from The Wine Chap! And don’t forget to tell your friends, too.

pps Thanks to a clever friend for the title of this entry. I cannot take credit!