Kelly Corrigan's
memoir of
growing up—
the first time,
and the second time.
[Click here]
....................................

by Kelly Corrigan, 36 years old, Stage III Breast Cancer Survivor
Kelly writes a bi-monthly column on everyday life. If you'd like us to email her columns to you, click -->

LUMPECTOMY

Although my surgeon often described my upcoming lumpectomy as "a piece of cake," I found the days leading up to surgery surprisingly upsetting. Unnamed anxieties laid around my feet like broken glass. Every step closer to the table made me wince.

Hidden cells. Unforeseen complications. Human error. The total vulnerability of anesthesia.

The most rational fear was around finding the remaining cancer. Chemo had reduced the tumor from seven centimeters to one tiny pearl of cancer floating within a C cup's worth of healthy tissue. Finding that exact centimeter of cells would be the test of my surgeon's competence. Cancer cells don't look different than regular cells. They don't hold signs or wave their arms.

Ultrasound was one way to find it. A few days before surgery, they did a dry run with the machine. It was not specific enough.

The next option was a mammogram, which would show exactly where the cancer lived, at least while my body was upright and my breast was squeezed between two plates. On the OR table though, I'd be horizontal and my breast, permanently deflated by years of breast feeding children, would be splayed out to the side. A mammogram would not be sufficient.

The last option was a "needle loc." Guided by mammogram films, a doctor would implant a tiny steel tube into the top of my breast and then slowly guide a 12 inch wire down, down, down until it hit the dense tissue of my shriveled tumor. I was assured that this procedure would definitively locate the heart of the tumor.

So, on the morning of surgery, I started with a squat Asian doctor who narrated the needle loc procedure, step by step, as she did it. She seemed irrefutably proficient; I imagined that she was at the head of every class she ever enrolled in. I could see her in the front row, completed assignment on her desk, arm raised, shoes shined.

After the needle loc, radioactive material was injected into my breast to direct the surgeon to my sentinel nodes. Sentinel nodes block the path of cancer and other undesirables from the other 25 or 30 nodes higher up, near the armpit. If these gatekeeper nodes show no signs of cancer, the surgeon will close up the area, confident that the higher nodes are clean. The doctor who made me radioactive wore a cashmere, cable knit sweater and when he saw my 35 mm camera on the gurney, he volunteered that he was headed to Venice in the fall to photograph Carnivale. He charmed both Edward and me, such that our interest in the procedure faded away without notice.

After the mammogram, the wire insertion and the injection, nothing but anesthesia remained. Edward and I sat in a bright, clean room for several hours, waiting for word from the OR that we were up. About six hours after I arrived at the hospital, a huge woman came in to wheel me over to the OR. I kissed Edward 5 or 6 times, crying like I used to on the way home from summer camp. My brother was there too, to keep Edward happily occupied until I came out the other side. I kissed him too, laid bare by quivering, puffy lips and a sloppy, childish, running nose.

Knowing that in moments, my awareness would be shut down by the anestheologist, I felt free to unravel completely. I thought childish thoughts like "Get my mom...take me home...I don't want to do this...Nooo" but I didn't say anything. I just stared at my surgeon, one woman to another, and shook my head every so slightly from side to side while my face burned with fresh tears.

Five hours later, I came up from the anesthesia like a girl lost in the circus, asking a stranger, an intern younger than me by a decade, to hold me hand and watch me cry until my husband could be found. After 10 minutes or so, Edward barreled in, strangely chipper, fresh from shopping on Fillmore Street with my millionaire brother, hardly able to settle down long enough to wonder why unstoppable tears had the best of me. They nearly laughed at me while I tried to tell them how much I love them. The tenderness I wanted was replaced by the joy I was given.

"We saw the surgeon. Your nodes are clean. She said it was a piece of cake." Edward was ecstatic. My brother was thrilled. I was relieved, in a way that isn't done justice by the word or any of its synonyms.

After a while, they went home to see the girls and I took a double hit of Vicoden, which left me more or less paralyzed in bed. I glossed through some television programs, eventually watching Entertainment Tonight hosts try to find the right mix of credible and bubbly. Watching them from the haze of Vicoden in hospital room 414, they seemed especially foolish. But it was uncomplicated content and I spent a truly carefree hour, knowing that no children would wake me up if I drifted off, knowing that I could stay there as long as I needed to, knowing that surgery was over.