You're so strong.

Everyone keeps telling me "You're so strong."

I know this is a kind gesture to help me feel empowered and to help convey their love and admiration for me and what I am going through. I know. Wednesday I did not feel strong. In fact, I felt pretty defeated. 

I had my standing Wednesday cancer appointment (as my friends and I like to joke) bright and early, ready to go in the sterile waiting room. I sit there in my hospital gown and booties waiting for my IV to be inserted. When the doctor arrives and asks if I have any concerns regarding my MRI guided biopsy, I say only to make sure I am fully numbed. My last biopsy was painful and I am still sporting the bruises from it. 

He ensured I would be extensively numbed and should only feel pressure. Great! Let's do it! 

Into to MRI Tube I go. If you have never had the pleasure of a breast MRI, please let me paint the picture: 

The room is freezing. You are asked to disrobe and lay belly down on the table. There is a cushion and cut out for your face, like a massage table. 

And what is this below? Another cut out? Oh yes, for your breasts to dangle in. They help guide you into the slots to ensure maximum dangle-age. It's quite humbling. 

Once the MRI locates the area of concern on my right breast, the team comes back into the room and is ready to biopsy. 

"Just a pinch and a burn" in goes the lidocaine. "You should only feel pressure" the slice of the scalpel. 

"It will sound like a vacuum and a drill" begins the biopsy tool. 

OW. OW that hurts. The doctor didn't hear me. 

Luckily the nurse did and said stop. They proceeded with more lidocaine as he comments "wow, we really do have to numb you up." No shit. 

They send me back into the tube as I'm trying to hold in my sobs. They kindly request that I stay still so they can ensure they located the spot. I'm not sure if you can stop crying on demand, but typically if someone asks you to stop it only makes it worse. I try to hold it together. 

The machine beeps and sings as the imagining scans my body. Then slides me forward once completed. 

Next, a gentle mammogram to ensure the marker is in the correct place. They hold my incision and pack it with more gauze to stop the bleeding. The bandages won't hold shut. Off I go to the mammogram room!

The lady guides me in and plops my right breast on the platter of the machine. As she guides the top plate down to squash my breast, she pushes my port against my body so it doesn't get caught in the plate. I pull my body away as I make a pathetic sound of pain. She apologizes as she guides me back in. Tears and blood flow down my chest. My incision has opened and even though I am numb, I can feel the cold drips. 

Imaging is done and I head back to get dressed. I have two nurses helping me clean up the drips and bind my breasts with a compression wrap. 

As I head back into the waiting room I am greeted by my smiling husband. I crumble in his arms. He asks how it went and I just cry. Silence on the ride home. I'm just so sad. I'm frustrated that my current life is filled with pain. I'm sad that he has to endure this with me. I do not feel strong. 

I cry.

It's been 48 hrs and I am feeling much better. The pain is bearable and I have sat in my emotions and worked through them. Hopefully, that is the last of the biopsies. I should have results this afternoon and a follow up with my doctor on how to proceed. 

The rest of my tests are non invasive, minus the IV, but that I can handle. 

I am feeling grateful for the support, the kind words and the laughs provided to help me through this. I am thankful I can find the humor in all of this and I am feeling stronger everyday.