What was it like to find out I had breast cancer?

In January 2009, I had my yearly mammogram as usual.  I had never had any problems before or needed a repeat mammogram.  Wait... when I was 28 years old, I felt a small lump in my left breast and had it removed.  It was benign.  Otherwise, there had been no problems with my breasts.

About 3 weeks after my mammogram, I was called in to have additional mammography done on my left breast due to some tiny calcifications that showed up on the first films.  I wasn't worried.  This happens to a lot of women.

But after the second set of films were taken, I got a phone call from my gynecologist that caught more of my attention.  He did not sound worried, but he was emphatic that I needed to have a biopsy in my left breast AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.  Wow.  Still, there was no history of breast cancer in my family and I was (and still am, in my opinion) a very healthy person.

The biopsy of my left breast was an odd experience.  I've had biopsies and minor surgeries before, where I was given a sedative, made numb in the area, and had the necessary tissue removed.  This was different.  I had to lay face down on a table that had a hole in it for my left breast to hang through.  (I wasn't that big, so it didn't hang down very far!)  My breast was then squeezed between two mammography plates and x-rayed so the surgeon could identify the spots where tissue needed to be removed.  He was under the table and inserted a device into my numb breast to extract the tissue sample.  I remember that it made a loud popping noise (like an air gun) when he inserted it into my breast.  It was quick and relatively pain-free, but unnerving.

I remember the moment I found out I had cancer.  I was sitting in my office (at Rowan University in NJ).  It was 4:50 and I was just about to walk down the hall to the fitness lab in my department, where I would meet with two students who were training me as part of their Practicum project.  Domenick Salvatore and John Stevenson were great students and trainers, and we were having a lot of fun every Monday and Wednesday at 5pm, despite the fact that I was working out really hard!  I noticed the message light on my phone; my surgeon had called, requesting that I call him back.  I reached his assistant, who told me that he had gone for the day and would be unavailable the following day.  I was going to have to wait until Friday to find out the results.  She thought for a moment and said "You seem like the kind of person who would want to know right away, so I'll tell you.  You have breast cancer."  Well, she was right.  I am the kind of person who wanted to know right away and I thanked her for telling me.  The conversation was over in 10 minutes.

It was 5pm; time for my workout.  For about 30 seconds, I wondered what I should do.  Should I call my husband?:  My mother?  I decided that what I really needed to do was to work out hard, and that I would rather tell my husband in person and let my mother get a good night's sleep before I told her the news that was sure to cause her a lot of pain.  So I went to my workout with Domenick and John.  Although I was distracted mentally, I just wanted to tune out and push my body as hard as I could, which is what I did.