A little history…
When I was finally diagnosed with Invasive Lobular Carcinoma in 2014 at age 38, I had already been having and complaining to my gynecologist of symptoms for two years. Back then, I didn’t know I had any breast cancer in my family. I was young, otherwise healthy, and perplexed about the series of escalating symptoms that were plaguing me and for which no one could provide an explanation.
It began with vague symptoms in 2012. First, I suddenly had trouble recovering from muscle soreness after vigorous workouts. I was having stiffness in my joints and back. My muscles were tight, and the unusual post-workout soreness was lasting for almost a week. This was inhibiting my workout routine, causing me to have to take consecutive days off. Shortly after that, I started waking up in the middle of the night around 3am almost every single day and not being able to fall back to sleep. I was becoming frustrated, but being so young, active, and healthy, I never in a million years thought it was something as serious as cancer…. Until about 6 months later, when my period began changing.
Suddenly, my normally average menstrual cycle was coming more frequently and only lasting for a couple of days instead of the usual 5. I started having severe cramps during my cycle, severe breast swelling and tenderness, and severe bloating, which I did not have before, and this development was making it hard to function during my period. Coupled with the other strange symptoms I had been having, I decided it was time to see a doctor.
She was a gynecologist at an Alta Med clinic in Huntington Beach, CA. I had been going there for women’s health services since I was 15, when it was just the Huntington Beach Community Clinic. I liked it there; it was familiar, and even though I got a new doctor whenever they changed their internists, I felt happy with their services. I explained my symptoms to her, and her first guess was that I had thyroid issues or was experiencing early peri menopause (since my maternal grandmother had experienced that). Both were quickly ruled out by blood work. She suggested imaging of my pelvis, which showed nothing. For the following year, I saw her almost monthly because my symptoms were getting more intense. My period was becoming irregular, and during it, my belly was distended, I was constipated, plagued by headaches, my breasts became quite severely tender and painful, and I began to feel like I was going nuts. Then, I began developing changes in my breast and armpit.
When I was 18, I had pierced my nipples (A choice I later regretted), and though I had long stopped wearing jewelry, the piercing needed to be regularly cleaned because, like most piercings, it made a little discharge. I noticed that my left nipple wasn’t doing this anymore and that I had developed a smell in my armpit that I could not clean away. So, I went back to that gynecologist. Only this time with the additional complaints about my boob and armpit. She ordered a mammogram and ultrasound, which showed nothing of concern. I went home relieved, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. I started managing my period with NSAIDs, turmeric shots, ginger tea, and homeopathic remedies.
Over the course of the next year, I noticed a dimple on my left side boob when I would bend over. My boyfriend noticed it too, but we both ignored it because I had just had a mammogram. I did go back to the gynecologist a couple of times after that and mentioned that I was still struggling with my period and my sleep, and she started talking to me about my “anxiety levels”. It was that attitude that made me start to doubt myself and made me apprehensive about continuing to push for answers. I had had all these tests. They kept coming back normal. I didn’t have a primary care doctor at the time. I wasn’t insured, and couldn’t afford to pay someone else out of pocket, so that clinic felt like my only option. I began to think that maybe I was imagining this, as the doctor had implied.
But in August of 2014, I started having fatigue… and not just a little bit. I was constantly exhausted. I felt tired all day but couldn’t stay asleep at night. My workout routine had waned considerably at this point because I lacked the energy or stamina. I felt like I couldn’t “sleep off” the fatigue. Everything was becoming a struggle. It seemed easier for me to rest in the daytime, so I started taking naps in my car at work and stealing a nap in the afternoon on my days off. I took a vacation to Hawaii later that month, and the entire time I was there, I felt like I was dragging.
When we got home, I was getting ready for work in the bathroom. I was doing my makeup naked and I noticed something about my left boob in the mirror out of the corner of my eye but when I stopped what I was doing to look directly at it, it seemed to disappear. I thought it was odd, but I brushed it off.
I had that experience two more times that week, and the third and final time I had it, I was like, “This isn’t right”. I made an appointment immediately for later that day at the free clinic and went in with a conviction that she needed to check my breast again. She agreed on the condition that I would consider anxiety meds when the results came back normal. I said “fine”. She placed the order. That was on a Saturday. I had this second mammogram later the following week, and by Friday, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.