Katie's Little c

By Katie Ford Hall Cincinnati Woman Magazine

I heard that women really hit their stride when they turn 40. While I admit that part of me believed that people just said that as consolation for growing older, once I was there, I hopped on that bandwagon. By the time I hit 41 this past April, I was finally happy: a perfect job, two happy and thriving kids, great husband, awesome writing gig at Cincinnati Woman Magazine. I was humming along, thrilled with life.

Fast forward to June 23, 2008, my second annual mammogram. After the obligatory squeezing and twisting, I whistled on my way back to the parking garage, thinking about what a beautiful summer morning it was. Exactly one week later I was walking out the door to take the kids to piano lessons when I received a call that I had a “suspicious axillary lymph node.” I was tweaked but confident, even though at the time I had no idea what an axillary lymph node. They’re in your armpit, by the way.

I asked to have the second look done as soon as possible so I wouldn’t have this irritating little cloud over my head. Still the doctors weren’t satisfied, so I had to have a biopsy. It’s a tiny needle and it didn’t hurt. I was increasingly nervous, but still sure that the doctors were being overly cautious.

Learning the Alphabet Soup On Monday June 14th just after 8:00 am, I was on my way out the door, again, this time to take the kids to day camp then to head into work. Again the phone rang and the doctor told me that I had malignant cells in that lymph node, but they were the types of cells most commonly seen with head, neck or lung cancer.

Somehow, miraculously, I got the kids to camp and returned back home again without killing anyone. I went to bed. To me, the cancer virgin who got most of her medical training watching ER back in the George Clooney days, cancer in the lymph nodes was a death sentence: a doctor shakes his head and says there’s nothing he can do scenario.

I sought help everywhere, but only with strangers. My husband and I decided we couldn’t burden our children or anyone else with incomplete information. The odyssey of tests began and I started to learn the Alphabet Soup of cancer. CAT Scans, Bone Scans, MRIs, MUGAs, Her2 neu, core needle biopsies - I kept a notebook with me to keep it all straight. At one point a sympathetic nurse said to me that I’m definitely a special case, but she thought it was time for me to find a new way for me to be special.

By far, the worst part was uncertainty. I couldn’t stop my mind from dwelling in the worst case scenario. I finally wrote it all down: what if I only have six months to live? What if my kids have to grow up without a mom? How will my husband deal with growing old alone? I actually considered talking to my husband about my wishes for him to remarry, and how it was ok for the kids to call his new wife mom. Fortunately, that idea never made it off the page.

I wrote macabre scenarios about my kids crying themselves to sleep and about me making videotapes for them to play on their wedding days. Pretty much every conversation I envisioned could have come straight from Terms of Endearment. When I ran out of my best material and found myself pretty dehydrated from all of the crying, I tore the pages out, ripped them into little pieces and threw them out. “That’s the worst possible outcome, Katie, not your fate,” I said to myself.

Outpouring of Support Once I started to get better information from the tests, I began the difficult process of telling people. The outpouring of love, compassion, support and advice made me regret not sharing the news sooner. I contacted people I used to work with who had gone through breast cancer, people I had interviewed for previous stories on breast cancer, people who I barely knew. A friend led me to a fabulous surgeon and after the removal and testing of six lymph nodes on August 27 th, I found out I had Invasive Ductal Cancer, a common form of breast cancer. My chemotherapy is scheduled to run from September to December. After that is finished, we will reevaluate the tumor and surgically remove it.

Absolutely uplifted by the support I received, I decided to take my writing public. Fortunately, my wandering, wallowing journal pages were long gone. I started a blog to process my feelings, share medical information easily and to have a little fun. I named my blog Katie’s Little c, after a line in the book Crazy Sexy Cancer. The author advises to never spell cancer with a capital c. Even though some days I still feel down and defeated, I’ve got so many hands reaching to me with support, reminding me that the only choice is to move forward. Knowledge is the enemy of fear and when you get right down to it, the odds are solidly in my favor.

Please stop by and visit klfh.blogspot.com leave a comment or send me an email. I love the company!

Katie Ford Hall is a Cincinnati native. She is a writer, freelance editor and Assistant Director of Women Writing for (a) Changewho can be reached on the internet at www.katiewriter.com.