I got a phone call from my surgeon today. He told me that the results of my biopsy are back, and that I have breast cancer. Not only do I have cancer, but the tumour is either a high grade 2 or grade 3 which is pretty aggressive. We won’t know some of the other details for a couple of weeks while the lab analyzes the tumour.
I’m not sure that anyone can really be prepared for being told they have cancer, especially at my age. I’m not even eligible for mammograms because I am too young. Screening for breast cancer only starts at the age of 50. I work out, don’t eat junk food on a regular basis, don’t eat red meat (I know that only reduces risk of colorectal cancer and maybe a a couple of others, but whatever), and I am even careful about what I put on my skin.
I checked my risk of getting cancer, and depending on whether I am considered to be black or white, the percentage is either 0.8% or 0.9% respectively. So let’s call it 0.85%. Alas, here I am. The good news is that the surgeon wants to see me on November 30th for a consultation to remove the tumour.
In the meantime, I will try my best not to freak out too much, but I am really not good with not knowing. Christmas is right around the corner, so I am probably not going to say anything to anyone until I know what’s happening. I don’t want my family worrying like crazy if this turns out to be early stage breast cancer. Either way, it will be crappy to some extent, but I don’t want them worrying about whether or not I am going to drop dead in a few months, if it’s 99% unlikely to be the case.
Speaking of which, there is every reason to believe this was caught early. The tumour was only 1.67 cm in size. If it really is grade 3, that means it hasn’t been there long. Hopefully, it didn’t have the chance to do much damage before it was caught. We’ll see.
