"Heavenly Day"

Amazing song above by the way.......



It was a Sunday night in October of 2003 and I was doing a self-exam on my breasts at home. The self-exam was branded in my brain by my mom who lost a sister to breast cancer at a young age. I remember feeling it. It felt like a pebble or the size of a pea in my right breast. And it was close to the skin at about the 4:00 position. I panicked. I yelled down to my ex-husband, “Something is wrong. I feel something in there”. He felt it too. He was calm, which was his demeanor all of the time and of course I was panicking. It didn’t hurt. But I knew this might not be good. That next morning I called my OB and went in right away. She then referred me to a breast surgeon.

I was in the surgeons office(who shall remain nameless) who did the exam and was told I had a cyst in my right breast. The doctor had a difficult time aspirating the “cyst” and decided that it was nothing and I should come back in 6 months. Fortunately, I went back. This time the cyst was aspirated. Not thinking it was anything, I left the doctor’s office with a clear mind and not a care in the world. 3 days later? I get a phone call at work around lunchtime and these words come out:

“Dr ____________ needs to see you today in her office”

I hung up the phone and immediately texted my then husband.

• “She wants to see me today. I know its cancer”
• “You don’t know that. Think positive”
• “Why the hell would she need to see me today. Doctors aren’t going to bring you all the way to a doctors office to tell you good news”

I remember having a breakdown. I remember going into our conference room with Joanna and just losing it. I knew it was bad. I just knew it. I am even tearing up writing this because it still brings me right back to that time of my life when all things just simply changed.

I remember going to her office. It was late because we both worked and we didn’t get there until around 5:00. Nobody was in the office except the surgeon. We walked into her office and I remember this clearly about how messy her desk was. Papers everywhere. We sat down and she looked for my file.

“It’s here somewhere”

Proceeds to look. I am thinking to myself, “You have to be fucking kidding me”.

“Oh here it is……..yes you have cancer………blah blah blah blah blah blah”

I mean I just blanked out. Maybe blacked out. I don’t really know. You hear stories all of the time when people get diagnosed and then the rest of the info the doctor is telling you just literally goes in one ear and out of the other. Well, it is true. At that point she decided she was going to schedule a lumpectomy, where they simply remove the tumor. The surgery was scheduled but she also wanted me to have a MRI. Not thinking anything of it I went for the MRI. Now let me tell you something a breast MRI is possibly the worst thing I have ever endured. To be put on your stomach with your arms raise up for a half an hour and put into a basically a tomb is completely awful. You can’t move. If you move, you ruin the MRI and have to go through it all again. I got about 25 minutes in and started panicking.

“When are you going to be done? I need out of here!”
“Just a few more minutes Ms Terrigno”

When that thing shut off, I literally flew out of there. I can’t believe in this day and age of technology we can’t come up with a better device. It is ridiculous. A few days later, with my surgery scheduled in a few days, I get yet ANOTHER call at work for the MRI results. This time it’s the surgeon calling me:

“Hi Mrs Terrigno. We have your results in and we found some other areas we are concerned with so we are cancelling the lumpectomy and we are going to now have to do a core biopsy”

This is all over the phone, in my cubicle, at work. Again, I have another breakdown and I leave work. I can’t believe this. How did this go from being a cyst to my worst nightmare? I had the core biopsy done and it confirmed another area of cancer which was at the 8:00 position but back farther. It was at this point I decided to switch doctors and went to Dr. Robert Shenk at University Hospitals. There was no way in hell I was allowing this woman to operate on me. She would never return my phone calls when I would call asking a question. Her demeanor sucked. And I couldn’t get it out of my head how unsupportive she was when she told me I had cancer. Maybe she was used to telling women their worst nitghmare but there was zero compassion.

Switching doctors for me was a massive blessing in disguise. From Dr Shenk to Dr Soltanian, my plastic surgeon, to Dr Silverman, my oncologist, I can’t praise them enough. Although Dr Shenk, is all business, he is the best of the best at UH. I can’t count how many times when I was at UH and asked who my surgeon was the reply back to me was :

“You have the best. He’s amazing”

And same goes for Dr. Soltanian and Dr. Silverman. Just amazing doctors who always had your back. Also, my survivorship RN Marla Sustin. I can’t tell you how awesome she has been for me. Anything I need, I can email or call her and she always gets back to me.

As well all know the story didn’t stop there. I was diagnosed again on the left side in 2012. It was a very early cancer which was contained within the ducts but I decided at that time to just be done with it and do the mastectomy & reconstruction with the same doctors. No chemo this time but I went on Lupron for a year then had my ovaries out in December of 2013 since I was high risk for ovarian cancer.

For everyone who stuck by me, I want to thank you. For those that listened to me cry & bitch(especially the girls at The Gathering Place), I want to thank you. For those that treated me like crap, ignored me, avoided me, etc during those times, I don’t forget. You learn a lot about people in your darkest days. You learn who true friends are and who are too selfish to put their big girl/boy boots on and not make it about THEM. I learned little things like a hug can make your crappiest day a lot better. I learned not to tell people to “just deal with it” when they are angry. I learned it’s okay to be pissed off at the world because it isn’t fair that anyone has to go through this. And lastly, I learned that you do need to live every day like it is your last one. If you want to go meet Sarah McLachlan, you go and meet Sarah McLachlan. I am.


Peace & love……peace & love

B-