How I Found Out I Had Breast Cancer
And why a mammogram failed to detect my 16cm tumor
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 autum 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.
