I wrote this at the end of August, but didn’t feel it was appropriate to post it then.\u00c2\u00a0 Then I forgot about it in my draft folder.\u00c2\u00a0 The good news is that everything checked out fine, and there was no Cancer.\u00c2\u00a0 (I spoil the ending, I know…)<\/p>\n
B came up to me today and asked to talk.\u00c2\u00a0 she seemed really distressed.\u00c2\u00a0 strangely the kind of distressed i usually associate with someone about to tell me that they are really mad at me.\u00c2\u00a0 i was really confused.\u00c2\u00a0 we went over to where the chairs are at eyebeam, and sat down.\u00c2\u00a0 i asked her if she was okay, and she said “no” with real conviction.\u00c2\u00a0 she paused, and said that\u00c2\u00a0 she went to the doctor for a mamogram, and then she paused.\u00c2\u00a0 stunned.\u00c2\u00a0 i just reached out and held her hand.<\/p>\n
they found calcifications (nodes) in her breast.\u00c2\u00a0 apparently they are concerned about them.\u00c2\u00a0 that some patterns are worse than others.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know much about the histology and prognoses of breast cancer.\u00c2\u00a0 i only know about melanoma, and each are so different.\u00c2\u00a0 but what i do know is what it feels like to be told you need to have a biopsy.\u00c2\u00a0 i told her the things i wished i had known at that moment.\u00c2\u00a0 and i did it with a calm and collectedness that surprised me.<\/p>\n
i told her that until they confirm that it is malignant, she needs to remain calm, and not go down that road mentally.\u00c2\u00a0 i told her that percentages and odds of outcomes are irrelevant: i was supposed to be in the 85%, but I ended up in the 15% (with metastisis).\u00c2\u00a0 i told her that she could come and cry at any time and i would hold her.\u00c2\u00a0 and i told her that she shouldn’t keep it bottled up: i waited way too long to tell people, pretending that it was not a big deal.\u00c2\u00a0 but the fact is, it is a big deal from day one of discovery.\u00c2\u00a0 emotionally, and physically.\u00c2\u00a0 i told her to figure out what she can ask for help with, and ask for it: from her parents, from her friends.\u00c2\u00a0 and i told her what SL told me the first day: she needed to learn how to meditate.<\/p>\n
and i told her the story of when i was 17 and they found big nodes in my lungs on a routine physical.\u00c2\u00a0 they had to do a biopsy.\u00c2\u00a0 i thought i was going to have cancer and die.\u00c2\u00a0 but it turned out that it was just scar tissue from a childhood pneumonia or something.<\/p>\n
until you get confirmation that something bad is going on, you have to be optimistic and remain mentally strong.\u00c2\u00a0 so much of it is a mental struggle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I didn’t write it at the time, but the other thing I was how I was becoming The Cancer Expert, and people were coming to me to talk about their histories, and their current scares.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I wrote this at the end of August, but didn’t feel it was appropriate to post it then.\u00c2\u00a0 Then I forgot about it in my draft folder.\u00c2\u00a0 The good news is that everything checked out fine, and there was no Cancer.\u00c2\u00a0 (I spoil the ending, I know…) B came up to me today and asked … Continue reading a friend’s bad news<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20,16],"class_list":["post-100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-metanarrative","tag-diagnosis","tag-other-peoples-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions\/248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}