“I think you’ve got a breast cancer” said the radiologist, after she spread the sample she’d taken from my breast and lymph nodes on slides.
She turned away attending to their samples.
“I always tell people if they ask” she said, defensively.
“Oh, thank you for being honest” I said, whilst thinking “how odd, “a” breast cancer, as if you can have two, or more. I mean once you have breast cancer you have breast cancer.” The thought spun in my head.
“Well” I thought, “I think I have mastitis, I’m 42, I have no genetic history of breast cancer, or even much of any cancer. My relatives live into their 80s, 90s. I have a great aunt whose 102. We don’t die of cancer in our 40s. I’ve got a 20 month old. I am still breast feeding. I don’t have a breast cancer …”
And then, “so this is how it will end.”
Denial to acceptance.
I’d been to see the general practitioner only four hours before.