Survival

I don't think of myself as a cancer survivor. I rather think I'm surviving my healthcare system which has been far more difficult than my experience with cancer. I joke that I have spent more time on the phone with my heath insurance provider than I have with all my doctors in the last two and a half years combined. (For reference, I've had six surgeries so that's saying something.)

My brush with cancer was so brief it's as if I never had it which is a good thing. It means it was discovered in its earliest stages, before it even became invasive. It was, in fact, categorized as Stage 0 or as a pre-cancer: cancer cells that were growing in the milk ducts of my right breast (where most breast cancers begin) but hadn't yet ventured into the breast tissue. 

A lumpectomy was not possible because there was no lump, yet it was recommended that I have a mastectomy. Even though the breast tissue was, at that point, fine there wasn't all that much breast tissue to begin with, meaning the cancer cells, on a relative basis, occupied most of what little space there was. Ergo, it all had to go.

I have survived six surgeries: mastectomy, emergency drainage of hematoma, implant, removal of implant, insertion of tissue expander, final implant. In the span of two and a half years, I feel as though I've aged 10. It will take a long while for my body to recover from the effect of so many surgeries, or not being able to be active during six post-surgery recoveries.

Cancer survivor? More like cancer avoider. I was very lucky in that regard. Warrior? Maybe. But I didn't so much beat cancer as ran the other way. Yes, I survived but we're all surviving something.