Greta's Story

My doctor found the breast lump during a routine check-up. She was asking me about my summer vacation and we were talking casually as she did the breast exam, then suddenly she asked me to be quiet. That made me nervous. She told me that there was a lump in my right breast and when she pressed my hand against it, I could feel it. I immediately teared up and started worrying. Although she said that it was probably a cyst, I went for a sonogram the following week. The results showed that it was a tumor, not a cyst. Even though I was nervous, I knew that tumors were uncommon in women my age and so I was expecting that it would be a cyst. When they told me that it was a tumor, I got really freaked out. I went to work that day but I broke down and had to go home. At home, I sat down at the computer and started writing: I am 26 years old and I do not think I can handle this. I think that I am too young to have to handle this. I do not even want to try to deal with this. Life is hard enough without this. I wrote a whole article that was later printed in the Targum. It was a very private thing, but I wanted to publish it because I know that most women my age do not do self-exams; I know I didnt. Everyone thinks that breast cancer is something that happens to women in their forties. I thought that, my friends thought that, even my mom told me that she had expected this to happen to her, not to me. When I went to see the surgeon, I was the youngest woman in the waiting room. The doctor came over to speak to us and addressed my mom, because he thought that she must be the one with the breast lump. So even doctors dont think of breast cancer as something that can happen to younger women.

After seeing the surgeon, I realized that there was nothing I could do about the lump so I might as well get myself together and get on with other things. I had missed a couple of weeks of classes while I was depressed, but I started catching up on my work. My professors were understanding, and studying actually helped me to feel better because it kept me busy and forced me to think about other things. The key to overcoming the depression was to keep living my life the way I have been. I realized how close my family is and how many friends I have. I also realized that I was proud of the way I was living my life, especially of how I treat others and of myself for coming back to school at the age of 22. I come from an economically disadvantaged background and most of my family didnt go to college, although they are wise in other ways. We lived in a pretty bad neighborhood when I was growing up, but I came out of that with a positive outlook. I know that people cant and shouldnt be judged on the basis of money or color. Although I pursued a musical career after I graduated from high school, I came to college five years later because I wanted more for myself and for the children I want to have. After finding out about the tumor, I thought about my life and began to appreciate it even more.

One of the strangest things about this experience is that I feel fine. Inside, I dont feel any differently than I normally do. I dont feel sick, which is the weirdest thing-how can I not feel sick when something this drastic is happening to my body? Id like to know how it got there in the first place-how did something that isnt normal grow inside my body?

I have to have surgery because the lump is growing. Right now its about as big as the circle you make if you touch your pointer finger to your thumb. It doesnt have a jagged edge, which is good news, but it is a very hard mass, which isnt such good news. The doctor told me that the lump was as hard as a rock, and when they tried to put a needle into it, the needle wouldnt go in. He also told me that theres about a twenty percent chance that the tumor is cancerous. Of course, Id rather have a zero percent chance, but thats not how it is. The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow; theyre going to remove the lump and then biopsy it to find out if it is cancerous. Im a little anxious; I havent ever had surgery that I can remember. I dont like needles, and I have to be on an IV for an hour before the surgery. I also worry about not waking up after the surgery. But the scariest thing is probably the prospect of bad news. When I thought that everything would turn out okay before, they gave me the bad news that it was a tumor; Im afraid that will happen again.

UPDATE: My tumor turned out to be benign! Things turned out okay after all the fear and I feel in a silly way like I got a second chance. Something perhaps was telling me to live a little more and appreciate everything a little more. I hope that my story will encourage other young women to do regular self-exams.

Last Modified 12/22/2005