I don’t remember the exact moment I found the lump. I had casually been doing breast self-exams for a few months, typically before I got in the shower. With my arm lifted and bent behind my head, I’d do a few quick rubs and move on. I was approaching 40, and like most women, knew that was when I would need to start getting an annual mammogram.
I also knew that I would never get breast cancer.
I didn’t have a history of the disease in my family, I had breastfed both my kids until they were nearly 2, I took vitamin D supplements, I exercised regularly, I ate well. All factors that apparently lower your risk for the disease. Looking back, there was so much I didn’t know.
So about a month before my 40th birthday, in September 2023, I did find something. Maybe it was during one of those cursory self-exams, or maybe it was one morning when I was putting on my bra. I don’t know. It wasn’t a lump exactly, more like a ridge under my right nipple. The word “lump” implies something round, a mound of sorts, which is why I think I brushed it off at first. It was near my period, I was used to feeling some denser tissue around that time.
But after a week or so, it was still there. I mentioned it in passing to my husband. He’d be the first to call himself a hypochondriac, and his brow furrowed with worry. “It’s obviously not cancer,” I remember saying to him. “I’ll just monitor it, and if it doesn’t go away I can make an appointment with the doctor.”
I didn’t even have a doctor at that time. We had moved to France from Seattle only a year before. I’d sorted the kids out with all their various doctors and dentists but hadn’t yet done the same for myself. All I’d managed to do so far was find a hairdresser I liked, because, priorities.
My 40th birthday came and went. We celebrated with a big brunch at home with all of the new friends we’d made in Provence. It was a beautiful, sunny autumn day, warm enough to sit outside on the patio, the kids running around in the garden playing hide-and-seek. The following weekend, I flew to the UK for the weekend to celebrate with my two sisters at a farm in the Cotswolds.
I told them about the lump, and jokingly called it my “cancer boob.” Because it obviously wasn’t cancer. I assured them I would get it checked out when I was back in France. My husband, who speaks French, texted me and said he’d made an appointment for me with a doctor in our neighborhood for when I was back.
He came with me to the appointment. The doctor turned out to be another mom from school. She didn’t speak English, or if she did, she didn’t let on. Her manner was brusque and detached. I lay down while she felt me up. “Je sens quelque chose,” [I do feel something], she said.
She wanted me to get a mammogram, and soon. We were leaving for a holiday to Corsica the next day, so we drove to the nearest imaging clinic and convinced them to squeeze me in.
They started with an ultrasound. It reminded me of when I was pregnant, only that this time around, I was hoping they wouldn’t find anything. And they didn’t, not on the ultrasound.
The mammogram was next. It was my first time. No one had told me how painful and uncomfortable it would be. The mammogram also didn’t show any cancer, but the technician acknowledged there was something “atypical.” She said it could simply be some type of cyst, or inflammation, and I should try putting warm compresses on it. Nevertheless, it would be prudent to get a biopsy, just in case, she said. So she referred us to a radiologist in Marseille, who could only see us in a couple of weeks.
Neither my husband nor I think back fondly on the vacation we took the following day to Corsica. The sword of Damocles hung suspended above us, while we ate fresh fish on the beach on a windy day, while we took daily swims in the cold sea near our rental house, and while we lay with our two children in our small cabin on the overnight ferry, the rocking of the waves keeping us awake.
November 7, 2023. My husband and I drove to Marseille, 20 minutes from our home in Aix-en-Provence. His eyes were fixed on the road, his jaw clenching.
The hospital could do with a paint job, I remember thinking as we drove in. It was made up of different batiments (buildings), and we had to go to Batiment 3. The receptionist was curt and unfriendly, like she was in a TikTok video satirizing curt and unfriendly receptionists. My husband checked us in, because again, he speaks French much better than I do. I just stood there wanting to get it over with so I could get to pickup on time to get the kids.
When I was called in, the assistant told me I’d first get another mammogram. I undressed and put on a gown. Then, she positioned my breast between two plates, which started to squeeze and flatten my breast like it was in a tortilla press. It hurt like hell and I yelped. I could tell she noted the size of the lump before abandoning the mammogram and ushering me immediately into the radiologist’s room.
This moment feels like the before and after. The moment I stepped into that room, and the very nice, very kind radiologist, who also couldn’t speak much English, performed a breast exam and an ultrasound.
She gave me a local anesthetic before taking the biopsy, which was deeply unpleasant. It hurt even after the shot, and felt like she was stapling the delicate tissue of my breast. She then did the same under my armpit, to take a biopsy from my lymph nodes.
Something I learnt later is when cancer starts in the breast, it spreads to the lymph nodes in the armpit next, before blooming out to other parts of the body. If there’s cancer in the lymphs, it’s not a great sign, because it raises the possibility the cancer has already metastasized.
For the first time since I’d found the lump, I started to cry on that table. I felt vulnerable and exposed, and truly frightened. I was curled up on my side, my back to the technicians, staring at the wall and wondering if I was going to die. My husband came in at some point. He pulled up a chair and sat directly in front of me, gently helping me sit up. He took both my hands in is, his eyes full of worry and tenderness.
“Peachie,” he said, the nickname he had given me when we first started dating, 15 years ago, “so… there’s a chance it could be cancer.” He went on to explain that the doctor was very experienced, and even without a biopsy she saw signs pointing to the disease. She was so sure, in fact, that she had booked us in to meet with the mastectomy surgeon the following week. Usually the biopsy results took 8 days, but she would try get them to us earlier.
I had entered that hospital building expecting them to tell me it was nothing more than some inflammation. I left that hospital building almost certain I had breast cancer. I called my sisters and burst into tears on the phone. I felt shivery and cold. My teeth were chattering. Apparently that’s your body’s way of trying to dispel stress following trauma or shock.
“Eat chocolate,” my older sister ordered. So in the car on the drive home, I ate dark chocolate like my life depended on it. We drove to our dear friend’s house, who was watching our kids for us, feeding them and taking care of them.
She poured us both a glass of white wine, which I’m pretty sure we downed in the space of five minutes. She fed us bowls of pasta tossed with chickpeas and butternut and parmesan while I told her what had happened, not realizing then how many more times I’d need to recount the same story to others.
We didn’t mention anything to the kids on the drive home, or in the days that followed, not until we knew for sure what it was we were dealing with. That week, my insides matched the cold, gloomy weather outside. All the worst possibilities crowded in. I could die within the year, I thought. It was over. I had been given 40 years on this earth and that was it. My children would grow up without a mother. They would cry for me at night and I would never return to comfort them.
It was agonizing. My husband and I drifted through that week like phantoms, going through the motions of work and childcare, existing in the liminal space between the known and the unknown as we waited for final confirmation of my diagnosis. That week felt akin to the moment before snow falls, when the air has a gray sheen to it and the clouds contract with pressure.
November 13, 2023. Once again we drove to Marseille, back to the hospital, this time to Batiment 2. The waiting room was full of people. Names kept getting called, but each time it wasn’t mine. I watched the clock, my husband read his book. I tried to do a New York Times crossword but I couldn’t concentrate. Finally: “Madame Johnson.” The surgeon had a full head of hair. He wore glasses and he was thin. Handsome. He also didn’t speak much English. He was soft spoken and I liked him immediately.
My husband and I sat opposite him, waiting for the news. He sat behind his desk, his eyes on his computer, and started asking me administrative questions—my full name, date of birth, my address. The questions went on. I looked at my husband. Why wasn’t he telling us if I had cancer or not?
“Excusez-moi,” my husband said, before asking him if for the biopsy results.
The doctor’s eyes widened. “Oh yes, it is cancer,” he said, in French. “I’m so sorry, I thought you already knew.” No, no, we didn’t, we said. It turns out our primary care doctor was meant to call us with the results, but there had been some mixup. To this day I still don’t actually know what happened.
Both the mammogram and the ultrasound had missed my 16cm tumor—the size of an iPhone. I later learned I had dense breast tissue, which can make cancer harder to detect.
So there we had it. I had cancer. He reassured us that the type of cancer I had, called invasive ductal carcinoma, was the most common kind that generally responded very well to treatment. The biopsy showed there was also cancer in my lymph nodes. I would need to remove my right breast, the lymph nodes, and also undergo chemotherapy and radiation.
And this all had to happen rapidement. He booked me in for a single mastectomy the following week. Three weeks after that, I would start chemo. I then had to take my top and bra off so he could examine the breast. He looked at my husband and said it all had to go, including the nipple. That was that then. I had one week left with my right breast before it was gone, forever.
This time, the calls to my sisters were more muted. I didn’t cry. My teeth didn’t chatter. I had had a week to somewhat prepare for this possibility. We decided that it was a good thing I had an action plan. It was better than the uncertainty we’d been mired in for the past week. We could focus on the treatment, get things in order, move forward. And to some degree, that was right. It was good to at least know what we were dealing with.
I had to tell my boss. I had to text and call friends and family. We had to figure out how to tell the kids. It was a lot, and I pushed the emotions deep down, where they, for the most part, lay dormant until my treatment was done. But that’s a story for another day.
I had to open a packet of dark chocolate that’s been in my pantry for weeks just to get through your story Alison!! Beautifully written. Keep writing!! I feel for you and your hubby very deeply. I’m sorry you have been through all this. xx
Oh Alison, your story took me right back to my diagnosis last year. I felt nothing (no lump) and if not for my mammogram, it would not have been detected. My story is at www.marciasonthetrain.substack.com but is much less eloquent than your writing!