A Second Opinion

Week 2 A.D. (after diagnosis).

My oldest daughter, Jillian, blessed me with a major distraction to my assumed cancer diagnosis. We kicked off the month of December with surgery to correct her deviated septum and tilted crus cartilage at the inside tip of her nose. It was a long-time coming since she busted her nose at the age of two, by tripping and falling into the corner of our living room glass tv stand. That was the day I learned that blood can in fact come out of a person’s eyes if their nose bleeds enough. That’s also when I reconciled that my first responder husband is much, much more fit to handle those emergencies than I am.

Her surgery was a success and once we made it home, after two hours of what should have been a 30-minute drive, through snow and ice and cars stuck in said snow and ice on the back roads, I was focused on taking care of my kiddo.

I can’t believe how brave she was. After sleeping off the anesthesia, she told me she wasn’t nervous for this surgery at all, just excited to get it over with so she could breathe normally and not have to feel like she’d pass out at lacrosse. Poor kid has had to pull herself out of games when breathing got difficult. Doesn’t help her mouthguard is huge too. I admired her ability to focus on the rewards of surgery, the end game. She thugged out a nose surgery and handled recovery like a champ! Meanwhile, mom is melting down, internally, about what treatment and procedures are in my imminent future.

Expecting to have a million and one appointments coming up for the unforeseen future, I told my manager at work about my mammogram results via email right before vacation. As expected, she was incredibly supportive. I am truly lucky to work with amazing people. That’s why I knew, this week, I needed to tell my team. We are a small, but mighty group and we’re mutually supportive of each other in ways I’ve not experienced before in the workplace. As a team that supports inclusion in the workplace, I think it comes with the job. We’re all empaths, to varying degrees, and honestly each other’s cheerleaders. That’s why it felt so strange to keep this health scare/reality a secret to my other two teammates. Plus, as hard as it is for me to admit, I need support.

My team meets twice a week for an hour, we call them “Focus Hour” on Tuesdays and “Power Hour” on Thursdays. Focus represents discussions on what we plan to focus our energies and time on. Power represents powering through to finish the week, including what unplanned work hit us and how can we help each other out. My “focus” was going to be on getting by, mentally. So, I let the team know about my cancer on Tuesday.

I am lucky. I know it in the response that my coworkers gave me. I am supported. I genuinely felt it. And I needed that. In true Nikki fashion, I delivered the news straight-faced and was able to keep the tears at bay, ignoring the lump threatening to tear open the back of my throat. But these are smart people who know me. Individually, after the announcement in our meeting, each person sent me a message of support, encouragement, and offered a shoulder to cry or scream on. Because they know I will let it fester until I burst. Who knows if I’ll take them up on the offer, but just knowing they’re there and they care, without obligation, this is how I know I’m working at the right place.

My first appointments at KU were scheduled for Friday at their Westwood location. I had been there before for a Saturday class offered for family and caretakers of people with brain tumors. This was back in 2012, shortly after Zach was diagnosed with his brain tumor. It was diagnosed benign from the start, but I was young, at the end in my twenties, and scared, and wanted more information. It was an informative class, but equally heartbreaking. I was almost certain, but not positive, that Zach would be ok. But sadly, the other attendees in class did not have that same diagnosis for their loved ones. They were all still welcoming, gave their well wishes, and shared their joy for me, that that my husband would be ok. What will be forever burned in my mind is the portion of the day spent on palliative care. While helpful to know, especially when my dad required it at the end of his battle with cancer, it is a topic that triggers my anxiety. I’ll just say it, I fear death. And in my mind, as irrational as it is, cancer tempts death.

Westwood reminds me of cancer and death. I was hella nervous to go back there.

The day came, and Zach was working. He mixed up the appointment time, since there were technically two, so I’d have to drive separately and he would meet me there. I didn’t love that, but raging about it wouldn’t help anything, it’d just be me taking out my stress on him. I knew he felt terrible. He’s not one to love apologizing, but he did. Multiple times.

He beat me to the office. The place is kind of confusing to navigate almost as soon as you get in the elevator, but we made it to the oncology waiting room where four other women sat. I could tell a couple were in treatment, by the scarfs they wore wrapping their heads. They were older than me by many years. I couldn’t help but trade glances with a couple of the ladies. I’m not sure if it was in my head, but it looked like they were giving me their sympathy. By the same glances, I began to wonder if they were thinking, “That’s too bad, she’s so young.” I’m not in my twenties by any means, but these ladies likely were twenty years my senior.

I met with a P.A. and discussed the mammograms and ultrasounds I had, sharing what the previous doctor and radiologist had told me. I also pointed out, as I did at the initial imaging visit, that I was surprised the issue was in my right breast considering I have a lump in my left arm pit that gets swollen and painful. She also looked at it, and assured that it wasn’t anything to be concerned about. Only the lump we couldn’t see or feel was of concern. Breast cancer is confusing.

I’m immediately following that visit, the P.A. walked me over to Imaging, where I donned a fancy purple kimono “gown” and locked up my belongings and walked away with a spiral key ring on my wrist. The waiting room was small. No cozy little private closet marked as “Galapagos”. However, we did have HGTV! I was unsurprisingly nervous and imagined what the other women in the waiting room were going through. Was this a routine mammogram for them? Are they also getting a second look, a second opinion, like me? Were they just as nervous and scared?

It was my turn. I was treated to just the handheld ultrasound this time. The radiologist slipped a wedge under my right side and squeezed the warm jelly on my breast. She knew exactly what she was looking for and where, after taking out a ruler to measure the distance from nipple, noted in my chart.

“There it is.”, she said. As if it were a fetus we were looking for. She meant nothing by it, the experience was just strange. Familiar and yet so foreign.

A different doctor came in shortly to join us. She reviewed the images and confirmed what I had already heard before.

“This is very likely cancer.”

She explained that the next step would be to schedule a biopsy. From there, it’ll be confirmed and the type, grade, etc., would all be determined from there. She wished me luck, in the kindest voice. Then I went back to my locker to change out of my purple kimono and head to the lobby.

Entering the lobby, I looked around for Zach, but first spotted a colorful, bedazzled bra in a clear display case. I knew what it was. Bra Couture KC is a fashion show, featuring breast cancer survivors as runway models. I worked with a woman at KCTV5 who went through breast cancer, and was a runway model one year. I thought of her. Then of another former co-worker, also from the tv station, who is currently battling a breast cancer reoccurrence. And my good friend from back home who beat cancer twice. And wife of a police officer Zach worked with, who also fought twice, but passed. I’m now a member of this breast cancer club. A club I never imagined I’d join and am absolutely terrified of.

We walked to my car in the parking garage, where I bawled in Zach’s arms, thinking, “How the hell am I going to get through this?”