I'd Rather go to California

By Sandra Bruney

A breast cancer survivor, the author embarked on a journey of self-awareness that led to physical, emotional and spiritual wellness. Cancer is a life-altering experience, but it can be a life-affirming one as well. Even if we cannot be cured, with God's help, we can be healed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sandra Bruney
• Release date: May 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458120922

Sandra Bruney

I am a writer living in North Carolina. I enjoy reading, crafting, gardening, and obeying the whims of my rescue cats.

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I’d Rather Go to California

Revised Edition

by

Sandra Z. Bruney

Published by Sandra Z. Bruney at Smashwords

Copyright 2003 by Sandra Z. Bruney.

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Introduction

Four words you never want to hear are: I want a divorce and You have breast cancer.

I got through the first worst-case situation, but not without a lot of screaming and tears. Since neither did any good, I reacted a little differently when I heard my doctor’s diagnosis.

I knew screaming and crying weren’t going to make one bit of difference.

At first, I had no idea that the lump I found just before Christmas 2000 was malignant. There had been lumps before, and each time they had turned out to be harmless. I kept telling everyone I was confident this would be a same-case scenario.

It wasn’t, and that is the reason I wrote this journal.

I was going into uncharted territory, and from the very beginning I knew that I had to document the trip. In those first weeks I gathered information in bits and pieces from the Internet, the library, friends and acquaintances who had been there before me, television talk shows, and my doctors.

The second reason I kept a journal was because I felt I was supposed to learn something from this experience. I was afraid if I didn’t keep a record, I would miss the message. So I wrote, even on days I didn’t feel much like sitting at a keyboard. And, sometimes just by writing down an experience I was able to see things that I had missed while going through it. Sometimes the lessons were clear and simple. Other times, I had to struggle to discover the meaning.

Some I am still learning—the reason for revising the book and adding the insights I have learned since I first sat down to write about my experience.

Chapter One

Omens, Signs and Portents—or Possibly Not

The first thing I did on learning that I had cancer was, naturally, to wonder if I had missed any warning signs that might have prevented the long and invasive treatment I learned I was about to endure. As I said, this wasn’t the first time I had potential problems. It was just the first time the potential turned into the actual.

I know that one of every eight women will get breast cancer, and that your chances of getting it increase as you age. Still, it isn’t something that is constantly on everyone’s mind. It certainly wasn’t on mine.

I was enjoying life at 62. When Jim retired in 1995, we briefly considered moving from Wadesboro, North Carolina, where we had moved to from Pennsylvania in 1977. We decided instead to remodel the house and stay put. Frankly, we were a little surprised to find out how deeply our roots had grown in this small, close-knit community.

In 1999, I retired from a stressful job as a newspaper editor. Having found the transition from a sixty-hour-a-week job to having a full day of nothing in particular to do almost as stressful, I decided to find part-time employment. To be honest, the jump from a fairly good paycheck to nothing also prompted this decision.

My first plan, until they changed the rules, was to apply for Social Security. However, the cut in benefits, beginning with my birth year, made that plan impractical.

I heard about an opening at the Chamber of Commerce. Since the director, Elbert Marshall, and I had worked together at the newspaper some years earlier, I felt it was providential. The job proved interesting and challenging, and I felt good about the change.

Our three sons were all married and successfully employed. Rob and Leslie lived in Decatur, Georgia; Scott and Dana lived near Louisville, Kentucky; and Geoff and Theresa lived in Clermont, Florida. Jim’s family lived in Ohio, and mine in Pennsylvania, so we had plenty of opportunities for travel which my part-time job made possible.

I guess I could be forgiven for thinking that having raised our family, it was now time to do something for myself. Both Jim and I had busy schedules, but our schedules were filled with things we chose to do. We found more time for our church, our friends, and for each other.

Then, everything changed. Maybe I should have been better prepared. The signs were there all along, I had simply decided to ignore them.

The first lump was found in 1989. I had just begun my mammograms, feeling that it was time to take better care of myself, which included annual exams. I was really scared when I got a letter suggesting a follow-up, and the subsequent need for a biopsy.

I had it done locally; the surgeon was the husband of one of my bridge group friends. Dr. Matt Hahner had just graduated from medical school after retiring from an engineering career. I was impressed. After all, he could have just stayed retired, for heaven’s sake, and not gone after a second, demanding career in midlife. I also was impressed with his calm, practical attitude. It did a lot to make me less afraid.

I had a local anesthetic—one of the kinds where you are awake, but you really don’t give a hoot what’s going on. I remember my surgeon and the nurses gossiping, and then he said, Well, why is that lab taking so long? Call down there and see what’s going on.

They finally did call up the results, obviously, and I was stitched up and sent home. I was in quite a bit of pain, I may add, and resentful that I had gone through all that for a benign cyst.

The truth is, I don’t remember exactly what I was thinking. Geoff, then 19 and a student at Carolina (the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to purists), was seriously ill in Carolinas Hospitals in Chapel Hill, and I rushed up there after the surgery, only returning to have the stitches out, and then rushing back up. I got a speeding ticket, I might add, because I worried about being gone even that long.

Thank God, he survived. My own scare became just a blur.

The second time, in 1996, I had a distinct feeling of been there, done that. This time, I was put to sleep. Missed the gossip. I wouldn’t have known the people, anyway, because I had it done in another town. I had decided to go to a gynecologist when I approached menopause, so I went to the surgeon. he recommended, Dr. Edward Bower. I probably would have insisted on Dr. Hahner again, but he had moved his practice to Asheville and that was a little far to commute from Wadesboro.

Again, the spot they saw in the mammogram was a cyst—two, actually. One drained when they did the needle placement (I learned later that this is fairly common); the other also was benign.

Needle placement is not the same as a needle biopsy, I learned during this experience. In a needle placement they take an x-ray (mammogram) of your breast, and insert a needle to show the surgeon exactly where to cut. Surprisingly, this is not at all painful. It is just a little amazing to walk around with a couple of six-inch-long needles sticking out of your breast. Makes your gown fit a little oddly, too.

This time, I had very little pain in my breast afterward. I was delighted to see that I still had only one scar, since Dr. Bower had cut over the previous scar to do the second biopsy.

I was faithful to my mammogram schedule after that, but no mammogram showed me what was coming. I had some suspicious spots in my left breast and it was suggested that I repeat the procedure in six months.

I had this follow-up mammogram done, and it looked clear. I was told to go back on my yearly schedule.

In the meantime, I had other problems. I will probably never know if they were connected. Maybe the doctors don’t know.

In January, 2000, I called my gynecologist, Dr. Brown (not his real name), and set up an appointment to ask about some strange symptoms I had been experiencing. He thought they might have been caused by endometriosis, so he set up an ultrasound in an office just across the hall. I was soon lying on the examination table.

I was impressed to see my ovaries on TV, but that was the highlight. The tech couldn’t seem to figure out what she was looking at, so she did a vaginal ultrasound.

If anyone mentions this procedure to you, be prepared. It is even more invasive than a gynecologist’s speculum. The wand feels like it is coming up out of your liver, with a detour around your kidneys and pancreas.

Still no answer, so I was sent to the hospital for another ultrasound.

This time, two techs discussed the mysterious thing in my tummy, pausing every once in awhile to reassure me that, it isn’t anything serious, it just looks funny.

Pardon me if I don’t laugh.

The CT scan made everyone feel better except me. They decided it was a tumor and had to come out, along with my ovary. I was scheduled for laparoscopic surgery.

I was a little bit afraid it was cancer. Who wouldn’t be, if they had any sense? But it wasn’t. Dr. Brown seemed rather proud that it was a rare type of tumor instead. The next few times I saw him, he asked if I had looked up Brenner’s tumor on the Internet yet, like some long-lost friend whose address I have been searching for.

I finally did, only to learn that it is not only rare, but harmless. If he hadn’t been looking for something else, he might never have known it was there.

What really ticks me off is my husband insisted I didn’t have real surgery since they did it outpatient. He maintained it was only real surgery if you had a twelve-inch incision and had to stay overnight.

I thought I was going to get even when he had his gall-bladder out, also scheduled as outpatient laparoscopy, except that when the surgeon got in there he found that Jim’s gall bladder, full of rather large stones, had dropped and attached itself to his colon, necessitating full surgery and a five-day hospital stay. So he still one-upped me.

Not that laparoscopic surgery is a picnic compared to being sliced open. There are three smaller incisions instead of one big one, and they heal relatively quickly. I say relatively because it was a week before I could get up and down, or roll over in bed without moaning.

In addition to feeling like a stabbing victim, I had a horrendous sore throat. The anesthetist suggested if I ever had surgery again, to let them know I had a small trachea. He’d had a tough time getting the tube down.

HE had a tough time!

I had a busy year after I healed from that operation. I was working part-time on my paying job, and part-time on a volunteer position as general manager of A Ripple in the River, an outdoor drama I had helped to write with other members of the Anson County Writers’ Club. Our family reunion in June coincided with the last performance and I was pleased that my family could see what it was that I worked so hard at.

That fall, our church formed a drama committee and Jim and I were asked to be a part of it. Our first ambitious project was Scrooge, the musical version of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. When the director defected after one reading, I was asked to help co-direct. I also had a small part—my first time on stage since college. I love theater and am always happy to be asked to be a part of it, whether it is publicity, sewing costumes, or designing programs.

Then, it was Christmas. We had been blessed with a third grandchild and Lachlan’s christening was to be on Christmas Eve Day. My mom was with us when we drove to Decatur for the event, which included a party after the church service. Everyone was solemn during the baptismal service except Lachlan’s big brother, Gavin, then three, who was pretty bored by it all and