The Diagnosis Story – Pt. 1

When I tell people about my breast cancer journey and how it all came to be, it often feels like they want the process to check the boxes as they understand them. But, as my dear oncology PA said week after week, “Cancer is homogenous.” It does whatever the fuck it wants to. 

I didn’t have the experience of finding a lump or going in for a mammogram, getting the weird news, and processing a diagnosis and treatment plan. This is not to say that I think that is preferable in any way to my experience, but my diagnosis came out of the darkness like the freaking Boogeyman. While not reality, my memory is that everything was fine, and then it was not fine anymore. 

In March 2020, everything did start fine. I had just started working at a company that had acquired the previous company and role I adored, so my coworkers and I were getting used to a new world of operating. They were in Minnesota, so we would travel from Texas more often to meet with them. My husband, Nic, and I decided that we could be open to having another child and dealing with the terrible twos one more time. Everything seemed normal enough. Donald Trump was president, so not entirely normal, but whatever, fine. How bad could it get? 

More news started buzzing about COVID the first couple of weeks of March. Everything was so intense, confusing, and consuming. I was one of the people who went to our local grocery store and shopped as if it were the end of days.  My cart was full of junk food, hamburger helper, dried beans, and booze. I may have confused the impending pandemic for a hurricane or snowstorm, but I headed home, and fully Clorox wiped everything I had just bought nonetheless. 

My husband owns restaurants and spent a hellish week figuring out what to do with the businesses. I had been feeling a little weird, but chalked it up to the unprecedented times we were navigating. Just in case, I decided to take a pregnancy test while my husband was out trying to keep his work life together. He walked in the door, announcing they would have to close the restaurants. I, never with the best timing, also announced that we would have another baby in around nine months. 

Truthfully, the oddest thing about my pregnancy is that it happened during a pandemic. Nic could attend my first appointment with me, but that was the only one. My back hurt quite a bit, but no one thought much of it because I am very short, and pregnancy is rough on your body. I saw a Chiropractor, and she tried everything. I would have some relief briefly, but the pain would return with a vengeance. My blood work was normal at every visit. I had gestational diabetes, but I had the same in my first pregnancy, and everything was fine. As far as I knew, and my doctors were concerned, there was nothing to be worried about. 

Once I had Enzo, I hoped my back pain would improve, but it didn’t. Now we were explaining it away with posture issues (of which I have many) or how I was holding him to bottle feed. I was referred to a physical therapist, but they never called me back. I took these as signs from the universe that I was fine and had nothing to worry about. I went back to snuggling my brand-new baby and learning new ways to get off the couch and avoid the worst of the pain. 

One night, we went out to celebrate a friend’s birthday. I was not doing well but didn’t want to miss out. I foam-rolled, stretched, and did everything I could to feel better before we left. I made the group Uber around a 3-block radius in downtown Austin because walking was painful. That night, I dealt with the pain by drinking silly cocktails and falling asleep on my couch when we got home. 

I got up and fed Enzo around 3 AM and went back to sleep on the couch. I heard him cry around 7 AM, but I was no longer able to get off of the couch. I called Nic to help me, and he was confused by what was going on. Twelve hours earlier, I had been out having a fun time! This was a Saturday, so I decided that the best bet was to go to orthopedic urgent care and see if they could help me. I hobbled in, unable to stand straight or find a position that didn’t cause pain. They took X-Rays (which turned out to be on the wrong part of my back) and sent me on my way with a prescription for muscle relaxers. 

Truthfully, the timeframes over the next two weeks are squishy in my memory. There were a few days when I lay in bed, begging friends and friends of friends to come help with the boys. I reached out to friends who are PTs, had a PT come to my house, and had my chiropractor come over. I even had a massage therapist set up at the foot of my bed, and I (literally) crawled on the table, desperate for relief. Unfortunately, none of these things helped at all. 

My angel of a Mother in Law came to stay and help with the boys since I was basically out of commission. During an awful night, I lay in bed and googled spinal tumors because I knew something had to be wrong. This made me decide that we should go to the ER because, at least there, they could send me for imaging. We left the boys with her, and Nic drove me to the nearest hospital. I had to ask for a wheelchair to get in, and once I saw a doctor, he told me I was given the wrong muscle relaxer, prescribed a new one, told me I could maybe see a spine specialist, and sent me on my way, but without a wheelchair this time so I felt like I must be making all of this up.

Never one to be discouraged, even though I was rightly pissed off at this point. I quickly made an appointment with the local spine specialist, still desperate for an answer. Again, with Nic in tow this time, I hobbled into the office to see a PA. She took one look at me and immediately sent in a STAT referral for an MRI. I finagled a late-night appointment outside of Austin, so once again, Nic and I loaded into the car and drove out searching for answers. 

A day or two later, as my Mother In Law headed home, I received a call from the spine specialist. The sweetest woman on the phone told me that I had pathological compression fractures in my spine and to come in to see them in person, with my husband, as soon as possible. I was so happy to have an answer that I missed the ominous nature of her statement. I told my friends we had an answer- broken vertebrae!- and called Nic to come home and pick me up to go to the doctor. 

When we arrived, they shepherded us into a small room in a back hallway. The same lovely PA I talked to on the phone walked us through my MRI results. She said that they found the fractures but also found lots of worrisome lesions in the imaging. At that moment, I felt as if the entire world stopped spinning. The only previous conversations I had about this were when my mom was sick, and we talked about lesions on her brain. Those conversations are cemented in my memory, and knowing where they landed, suddenly, I was terrified.