Women's Work

Annie says most of cancer treatment is admin. She’s right!

When a woman spends some time inviting people into the (sometimes gory) details of her life through weekly essays published online, she feels a certain responsibility to keep those people updated on the various issues and events described therein. Whether they like it or not.

A short time ago, I let you all in on the fact that after some tests, a biopsy and an MRI, I’d likely have to get a lumpectomy. Because breast cancer. And that procedure is scheduled for this week. I’ve been trying to play it off like it’s no big deal: I mean—I have other things on my plate right now that require pretty much most of my time and energy, not the least of which is that the spring semester began on Monday. Plus, I’d spoken to some friends who have had the very same procedure—can you believe it? In the space of just a few months, I’ve had two friends who needed lumpectomies. Each of them assured me that they were fine—no big deal. The hardest thing was not showering for a few days afterwards.

But you know what? It is a big deal.

There is cancer in my body and a surgeon has to cut into me to get it out. And hopefully, she’ll find it all—but they thought they found all of it in Annie’s body, too. After the surgery—which it definitely is—and not the more benign “procedure” because I’ll be under anesthesia and someone with a scalpel will be cutting into my body and removing part of it, it is recommended that I follow the standard of care treatment. For this diagnosis it is radiation and hormone therapy. I looked it up—one of the articles wasn’t particularly positive about it since this treatment is based on data which is 15-20 years old.

So, after a couple of weeks of practically forgetting about my own cancer and the upcoming surgery, suddenly I was all in. I looked up the treatment options (see above article), I Googled pictures. (They’re…uh…concerning.) I’ve been staring at my breasts more in the last week than I have in the last four decades—after they were done providing life-giving nourishment to my babies. As far as vanity, I don’t think I will mind the misshapen result after such a procedure, but will I? 

I hope I look like that when it’s over! (Actual photos are MUCH different.)

And that’s only if a slightly misshapen breast and possible radiation is the outcome. What if they get in there and find more? Then what? In a pre-registration phone call, I already checked all the boxes that holds harmless anyone that does anything that causes me to pass out, bleed out, or pass away. I’ll be under general anesthesia anyway (also risky) so they’re not going to ask me. Will they run out to the waiting room and quickly ask Angelo? “Excuse me, sir…is it okay with you if we take the whole breast instead of just a bit? In fact, while we’re in there, we might as well grab both.” It could happen.

In anticipation of the MRI I had to have, I only slightly joked that the procedures women have to endure border on the medieval, they’re so painful. I’ve had four mammograms in less than three months, and one of them included a biopsy. They hurt! I’m beginning to feel that the so-called standard of care doesn’t appear to take into consideration what happens to a woman after all these diagnoses, procedures, surgeries and treatments. Our bodies are cut into, zapped, dosed and manipulated in a way that doesn’t seem to recognize that we’ve used them to create and sustain life. And even if women didn’t use their bodies for such purposes, they were still made for it. The functions, organs and cycles a woman lives with day in and day out are essential components to our psyches. A lumpectomy isn’t just a bit of removed tissue, it’s part of the story of our life so far.

You don’t have to remind me that many of these procedures are lifesaving for some women. I know. But I’m starting to think that standard-of-care is bullshit. I don’t want standardized healthcare anymore than I want standardized tests: tests which only distinguish a privileged few. I don’t want to be the next 65-year-old white woman on the conveyor belt of treatment. I don’t want to fall into the “well, it works for most people” kind of medicine. I don’t want to feel like a lab rat to provide data on the latest technique. I don’t want my pain or my history or my struggle to receive glazed-over eyes because I’m just complaining.

A podcast called The Retrievals debuted last year and it focused on the story of women who were undergoing egg retrievals in a fertility clinic who had their pain medication swapped out for saline solution. That the women were in pain is key to the stories, but “looming nearly as large is the way that pain was interpreted by authority figures. The podcast examines how society receives, tolerates or minimizes the accounts of women. Those experiences were felt “as much as, if not more than, the actual pain they felt during the retrieval.”

Women’s bodies are under attack. I honestly never really thought of it that way and even stating that makes me feel like I’m some sort of activist. (I’m not.) But after the last few years of Annie’s treatment, the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the danger that poses to women, and my own foray into more medical treatment than I’ve ever had in my life, I think it’s true. Our bodies are under attack and we women need to work harder than ever to advocate for our healthcare.

A woman’s work is never done, but it’s worth doing.