Last time I wrote about how the pain I had taken for intercostal neuralgia was the cancer, about the friction with my previous doctor that led up to that, and about meeting a doctor I could trust.
The previous piece is here ↓ ↓
Do not ignore it when something feels wrong about your doctor
And on 14 December 2023 I came safely through the operation.
A hundred patients means a hundred different cancers, and it feels far too easy for a layperson to talk about breast cancer purely in terms of stage and size.
So this blog leaves out the fine medical detail.
The chest pain I had reported for six months. I had convinced myself it was neuralgia — but when my new doctor started the tests again from scratch, it turned out my breast cancer had reached the fascia of the pectoral muscle.
The place was less the breast itself than below the collarbone.
Ah — the image shows the left side, but it was actually my right breast.
It had not only reached the fascia but pushed forward, so on top of the dimpling of the breast, when I went for a body scrub the attendant asked “is this all right?” and I said “oh, it’s cancer” — that obvious, even to someone with no training.
The pain was a slow ache, and sometimes a throb.
But what you believe matters: I had it fixed in my head that neuralgia was simply something you live with, so whenever I was absorbed in something I forgot it entirely.
This was roughly what I was told before the operation. And for some reason my face is a picture of gloom whenever I am at the hospital.
And then — afterwards I was told they had taken it away cleanly, fascia and all, and stitched the muscle back together.
Well, beyond a certain point I do not really follow it, but I came out with a handsome medal exactly as simulated.
It was a full mastectomy, and given where it was, the scar is long — but that cannot be helped.
I talked it over with the plastic surgeon, and given that it had reached the fascia, and how many months there were until the challenge I have been dreaming of, reconstruction is on hold. For a while I have resolved to live cleanly with the new version of me.
A friend who saw my scar sent me this drawing, and I think it is rather splendid.
In hospital I made a TikTok of the scar healing, set to music.
The theme was: me, just as I am.
I started training on day three. Because I had a start line to get back to.
Rather than judging what happens as good or bad, I try to leave myself to the larger current, accept reality as it is, and put my attention on here and now.
To keep driving with a smile, I go on as myself.
You will be all right too.
A first for a Japanese woman — the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge 2024,
and on I go. The start is not far now.
Thank you for reading to the end.
I will keep writing these up.