Chapter Five – Trying to Strike a Deal

    I am a fairly good negotiator. Well, I am when it comes to getting things for other people. For myself; not so much.

I did feel that after my diagnosis that I should have been able to negotiate a timeline for my treatment. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to try my negotiation skills. I was always faced with "We need to do this within the next two weeks." Why two weeks? Why not a month? How fast was this cancer growing? Didn't it take me years to get where I am right now? Doctors don't negotiate. I guess they don't have to.

    I began to wonder if doctors try to schedule surgeries based on their own availability. If my surgeon were leaving tomorrow for a trip around the world for two months would she have given me two and a half months to get the surgery performed or would she have referred me to another doctor?

    I needed at least six months to do everything I could to find out answers to my questions, get things in order and live what was left of a possibly normal life. Would they consider giving me six months? No? Why the rush?

    Maybe some people faced with a diagnosis such as this pull out their insurance card and jump right up on the operating table. Since my insurance was limited, I wasn't going to be one of them. I didn't have the insurance and I didn't have all my questions answered.

    This may be what saved my life or at least allowed me to make my own decisions.

Chapter Four (Meeting with the Consultant)

The day arrived when I was going to have everything explained to me regarding the mammogram and sonogram that I had gone through earlier in the week. Although I wasn't really looking forward to it, I knew that it wasn't going to be as bad as I thought it was going to be. I wasn't one of those people who was always sick or had migraines or had a regular doctor even. I wasn't allergic to anything. I wasn't even overweight.

    I drove myself to my appointment. After all, it wasn't necessary for Scott to be there just to hear them say that I was going to be fine. I could call him over the phone for that. We had already discussed that we would meet after my appointment for lunch.

    I sat in the waiting room. This time I was prepared. Although I didn't bring my laptop I did bring a book. It always made me feel good to have a book on me. Sure, doctor's offices have stuff to read, but I want something of my own choosing that I can dog ear and even mark up if I choose.

I couldn't remember a time in my life when books weren't important to me. They were often the only companions I really trusted. This book I held in my hand was no different. This book would be the only witness to this meeting between me and what I had decided to call 'the consultant.' I didn't want to think of myself meeting with a doctor. Doctors weren't meant to be questioned. After all they were the 'experts.' Consultants, on the other hand, would give you their opinions and then you had the chance to ask them questions and eventually decide for yourself. I wasn't planning on dealing with anymore 'experts' I had decided to start dealing with consultants.

    I had found Dr. M through a friend. Carol owned the local herb store and someone had come by with a book written by Dr. M. In his book he talked about preventing breast cancer through proper nutrition and the use of bio-identical hormones. Carol had become intrigued and handed me the book as soon as I had told her about the initial diagnosis. After reading the book I searched out this doctor and found that he was located less than an hour from me. I called to make the appointment and was told that it would be several weeks before an opening would be available. Okay. I'll wait.

    I had promised Meria (my doctor) that I would keep her updated so I picked up the phone to give her a call. When I told her about the delay and that I was fine with it she sounded noticeably concerned that waiting that long was not a good thing. She made a couple of phone calls and was able to get me in within a week. I was almost disappointed that the she was able to get me in sooner. After all, if they didn't think it was important enough for me to come in I figured it wasn't that serious. Evidently Meria didn't think the same way I did. The day of my appointment I left my house early enough to swing by the Diagnostic center to pick up my films to take to Dr. M. I was glad not to have to be going back there and I secretly hoped that I would not run into Dr. V. I didn't want to have her ask me what I had decided to do especially since I hadn't decided to do anything yet other than stall. I picked up my films and hurriedly made my way back down the same elevator where two weeks earlier I had misplaced my brain.

    I was fifteen minutes early for my appointment with Dr. M. I had completed my paperwork prior to arriving there. This was done with the help of a fax machine and a very efficient office manager. Who ever thought you could fill out paperwork for your doctor ahead of time? Was this a sign of progress? Perhaps I am in the right place after all.

    Dr. M walked into the room and I liked him instantly. He looked at my films all the while explaining everything to me. Then he looked at my sonogram results explaining those to me also. I was waiting for him to say something like 'I don't see anything really out of the ordinary, why don't we give it a couple months and see what happens.' I was waiting for him to say it but instead he said. 'I know you don't want to hear this but I think we really need to have a biopsy done. The sooner we get the results on this the sooner we can talk about viable options.' He wrote something on my chart, smiled and said that he would have a nurse schedule me for an appointment. We talked about his book and how I found him and why I wanted to come to see him and how I thought even if it were malignant that he could cure me with nutrition and supplements and that surgery would not be necessary. His smiled faded as he began to explain to me that there was no alternative if the biopsy returned a malignant result. Surgery was necessary. Chemo and radiation however might be optional depending upon the results. The best thing for us to do right now was to send me for blood tests and then for the biopsy. We could then go from there.

    Then he said, "You are young and in good health, with surgery and all the progress that we have made in understanding cancer you could live a long and productive life."

    What was that sound? That loud thud. It sounded like the first nail being pounded into my coffin.
Long and productive life? You don't say 'could live a long and productive life' to someone who 30 minutes earlier thought the worst was behind her. My heart was racing. I know that he could tell there was something wrong since the color was now gone from my face.

    My only question, "Do you mean that I could die from this?"

    That's when he started quoting statistics on how many women survive breast cancer and lead 'long and productive lives'. How we shouldn't jump the gun until we have all the test results back and can make decisions based on facts. How I should not be worried and how we needed to take it one step at a time.

    Let's just go get the blood tests done and schedule a biopsy. He would see me after the test results had been sent back to him. He smiled, shook my hand and asked me to visit the nurse at the front who would give me my appointment for my biopsy.

Chapter One – The Now You See It, Now You Don’t Lump)

The lump came and went several times after that. It became such a regular occurrence I decided to ignore it all together. It didn't seem to grow any so why worry about it? I had heard from other women that if it moved around and wasn't painful that it was probably just a cyst brought on by stress and caffeine. The qualifications of stress and caffeine made me a prime target for these cysts so I went about my daily routine. After all, who isn't stressed? Most everyone I knew couldn't make it through the day with at least some form of caffeine. At least I didn't add sugar and cream to mine.

I thought about going for a mammogram just to make sure that I had no cause for concern, but those things hurt and weren't covered by the kind of insurance I could get as a self employed business owner. I recalled the last mammogram I had two years prior was not only painful but reminded me of a modern form of torture. Surely we have come farther along in technology not to have to squeeze painfully stretched body parts between two plates of cold metal while holding our breaths and allowing a machine using radioactive material to take a fuzzy picture. So for right now I ignored the 'now you see it now you don't lump' until January. In January, shortly after all of the holiday decorations had been put up and I began working on achieving my carefully thought out goals for the year I remembered that it was this time the year prior that I had thought of adding 'regular self breast exams' to my resolutions for that year. I had not done it this year either. I reached for the spot where the lump had been a year ago and felt it again. This time it was no longer the size of a small pimple. It had grown. The lump was about the size of a pea. Should I be concerned? Probably not. It would probably be gone by the end of the week. I'll just cut back on the caffeine. That should do it.

I forgot about the lump until a week later when I felt for the lump again and it was still there. Okay, maybe I had cheated a bit on the coffee. I'll give it another week and see what happens. Besides, I didn't have time to make time for an appointment…or was that true? I could make time to call and make an appointment. I just didn't have time to go to the appointment. Especially since it seems that you never get in at your designated appointment time and I don't like sitting out in a waiting room filled with sick people. I'll make the appointment and then cancel when the lump goes away.

I called up a doctor friend of mine who I knew would get me in as quickly as possible. Meria had always been one of my favorite doctors. She didn't even look like a doctor. She was pretty, petite and really loved what she did. I felt that going to a female doctor would give me a one up on this lump thing. She'd probably seen it a hundred times and knew exactly what caused it and how to get rid of it for good. I knew that Meria would see me and tell me something like, "It's nothing to be concerned about. Women get these all the time, especially busy women. Drink more water and cut back on your coffee. That should do it." I made my appointment for the next week and looked forward to being able to cancel it when the time came and the lump once again disappeared.

The week passed. The lump remained and I made my way to my appointment with Meria. After filling out the necessary paperwork and flipping through a couple of magazines I was called in. I hadn't seen Meria in a while so we made small talk about the weather, her practice and everything else besides my lump until she asked me to show it to her. I watched her face as she felt the lump with her fingers on both sides moving it slightly from left to right and up and down. In what seemed like less than a minute we were finished with the exam. Meria said, "It's probably nothing to be concerned about, but I would like for you to have a mammogram just to be on the safe side. Let's get you scheduled for one as quickly as possible so that you can put this behind you." I agreed to the mammogram and scheduled it for January 31st in Southlake, a nearby town.