Breast Cancer: The "Lucky" 1 in 8, Part 1

Prologue: Famous Last Words

Is breast cancer even a big deal anymore? I remember thinking not long ago. I’m not sure why. I was probably reading an article about breast cancer and just thought the world had bigger problems, like pandemics and Trump. One in eight odds didn’t sound so terrible. I knew at least three women who’d had breast cancer. Maybe that’s why I felt my risk was lower, as if being part of their eight-woman cohorts rendered me immune.

Rosh Hashana 2019 I prayed for one of them, a mother of four. I prayed hard. Repeating the brief prayer Moses uttered after his sister, Miriam, was stricken with leprosy. Ah na El na r’fa na la. He apparently cured her immediately. Not being a prophet, I repeated it for hours those days.

I can’t say I was responsible for my friend’s recovery, but being diagnosed myself in November 2021 felt like a delayed ironic cosmic slap.

Sure, I’ll heal your friend, purred the universe. Tag, you’re It!

Part 1: A “Lucky” Finding

I almost didn’t get a mammogram in 2021.

Like many, I skipped my annual pelvic exam and mammogram in 2020. I regretted that after I left a work-from-home gig for an in-person position in Gowanus, a part of Brooklyn that isn’t close to anything, including where I live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It’s a former industrial wasteland of factories, wholesalers, and bus garages that is slowly being gentrified into hip sandwich stores, java bars, and Pilates garages. I have to take two subways and walk 7-10 minutes to get to the office. On a good day it’s 45 minutes, and on a bad day it’s an eternity.

Going to the doctor or dentist now requires a great deal of coordination, rescheduling, and requested time off. I called my gynecologist in May 2021 and was given an appointment for mid-October. A few weeks before the exam, I started calling imaging facilities in Manhattan. But I couldn’t schedule a morning mammogram that month to save my life. (Literally.) I didn’t want to have to take off most of the day for 20 minutes of intense discomfort. I decided to try a women’s health practice in Flatbush; it’s not exactly close to my office, but it’s closer than Manhattan, and it’s affiliated with the same medical system as my gynecologist, Dr. Stratton.

I never expected them to find anything in my left breast. I knew I had a big fibroadenoma on the right. According to the Mayo Clinic,

A fibroadenoma is a noncancerous breast tumor that most often occurs in young women. Reproductive hormones may cause fibroadenomas. A fibroadenoma feels like a firm, smooth, or rubbery lump in the breast with a well-defined shape. It's painless and moves easily when touched.

Fibroadenomas are common; about 200,000 are discovered every year in the US. I didn’t notice the lump until my startled gynecologist guided my fingers to it during my annual 2015 exam. We hadn’t detected anything in 2014.

In sonogram stills, the fibroadenoma looks like the end of a tobacco plug. One side flat, one curved. Discrete edges. Hasn’t changed much in six years, when it was biopsied. Every year after the biopsy, along with my annual mammogram, the right breast has been ultrasounded to make sure the growth hasn’t expanded or turned malignant.

A few days after I made the appointment for my 2021 mammogram, the Brooklyn clinic called and said the ultrasound tech was out and wouldn’t be back by that date. They rescheduled me for the following week. Just before I went in, they called with more apologies: they didn’t know when the tech would come back, so I would only receive a mammogram.

Brooklyn has one breast ultrasound tech? I wondered. Damn bridge and tunnel crowd. I almost canceled the mammogram out of spite, since I’d have to go for an ultrasound later anyway. But I’d already changed my work schedule for a later shift and rescheduled a bunch of meetings. I decided that if the mammogram didn’t show much of anything, I wouldn’t rush to get an ultrasound.

I had no idea how many ultrasounds, mammograms, MRIs and biopsies I would endure in November, December, and January. How many needles—small, large and ginormous—would pierce and bruise me. How many strangers would palpate, poke, or position my breasts. How many thousands of dollars I’d put on my credit card. More than $8,500, my yearly out-of-pocket maximum, plus $3,000, my annual deductible.

The culmination, of course: a partial mastectomy on February 14, 2022, a day of overwhelming pain and excruciating tedium. Another oddly karmic coincidence; instead of giving me my heart’s desire, on Valentine’s Day the universe took a little piece of my heart.

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