How to Wait for Biopsy Results
without wanting to die
March, 25th 2025
Hi. I’m writing this from bed, recovering from a biopsy. So I’m sorry if I get crabbier with each sentence; the drugs are wearing off with every word I type. The needle they used on me looked like a goddamn sword. My right boob feels like it’s slowly catching fire.
But I’d much rather have the capacity to put out the fire in my brain while I wait for my results. My battered boob, I can stand. But I can’t stop picturing my two-year-old having to grow up without a mom because I’ve fucking died in my thirties from breast cancer. I can’t quit imagining a vanishing future. Like God’s just spilled a full jar of ink all over my handwritten story. “Whoops! Sorry! Who knows what the rest says!”
My biggest worry only a week ago was the air conditioner, and if I was over-using it. (To be fair, global warming is a legitimate reason for concern!). But the worry of an abnormally hot Spring day didn’t make me feel physically and emotionally in agony the way I am now. That was sort of a cozy worry— not a diarrhea inducing worry. I didn’t lose sleep and my appetite over my air conditioner! Who knew worry was such a spectrum?! This anxiety and obsessive thinking surrounding my biopsy is unbearable! For the love of God, take away my sick brain!!! Turn it off!! It’s too proficient in conjuring horrific imagined tragedies!!! I’d rather have cancer than this horseshit!!!
Because I am an immensely privileged person, a family member was able to connect me with an impressively accomplished breast surgeon named Karen. A few days ago, Karen went over my “suspicious mammogram results” with me by phone, detailing exactly what was biologically happening in my body. She explained why a biopsy was necessary, and used many clinical but helpful terms to teach me about calcifications— the scary cluster they found in my boob.
After Karen’s thorough private presentation she finally asked, “do you have any questions for me?”
Crouched on my heels while my toddler frolicked in our backyard, I lowered my voice and said, “Yeah, um… so I have a history of bad panic attacks. Are there any, like, facts you can share with me that might help ease my anxiety?”
Her tone switched from professional to that of your best friend’s mom, “Oh, sweetheart! I’m sorry nobody has said this to you yet; you’re gonna live to be a hundred.”
I was sorry nobody had said that to me yet too. And I wondered if the words “you’re gonna live to be a hundred” were potent enough to end my fear of death forever.
Karen continued, “because what you have, if it’s cancer, would be considered stage zero. That’s how early this is. If you have cancer— and you likely don’t— but if you do, you’ll be the poster child for all your friends of why you go get a mammogram. Because stage zero is how to take care of it, and make it a non-issue.”
She knocked it out of the park with that answer. I felt a million pounds lighter, now capable of asking a medical question:
“And if it’s benign, and they’re not going to remove it, then what should I do for the pain? Just ice it or something?”
She paused. “Pain?”
“Yeah. I’ve had weird pain on my right side for months now. That’s why I went to get a mammogram in the first place. I don’t feel a lump or anything. I just have an unusual pain.”
She paused for longer. “I have no way to explain that. Your calcifications are microscopic. There’s no way you can feel them.”
I stood up, stunned and needing more clarity, “but the pain is right where they found something. I feel something.”
Karen was confident, “Never in my career have I had someone feel something this small… so… the breast pain is probably coincidental and due to the fact that you’re a menstruating woman. Breast pain happens. Thank your body for the timing?”
The idea of my breast pain being a complete coincidence baffled and fascinated me. I thanked Karen profusely for her time, and we got off the call as I wondered whether I had an evolutionary mutation that allowed me to feel microscopic cancers, or a guardian angel.
My bewilderment reminded me of college, my first week of junior year. I lived with my dearest friend and roommate, Brittany, who was beginning to imagine her career in nursing while I studied film. One night, she and I went with our boyfriends to our favorite family-run Italian restaurant called Carlos. Knowing our sucker boyfriends were paying, Brittany and I ordered a silly amount of food and wine, searching for the limit. The veal, the lasagna, the bread, the squash blossoms, the tiramisu. My God.
I remember leaving that restaurant knowing I had overdone it. Did I need to finish the side of ziti? My belly ache argued with me as we took cabs to the club. I remember thinking, I cannot eat like that before partying ever again. I unbuttoned my skinny J Brand jeans, concealing my open fly under my flowy top, as I watched my friends dance with their untroubled digestive systems to the Black Eyed Peas.
The next morning, I awoke to find that my stomach ache was not even a little bit gone. Wtf? I couldn’t believe I was still paying for that gluttonous meal. And by 5:00PM, my gut was still nagging me. The ache had actually morphed into a new location, slightly to the right of my belly button, and the discomfort was becoming more and more indescribable. I knuckle-knocked on Brittany’s open bedroom door. In my loosest sweatpants, I poked my head in her room and said, “I once heard someone describe appendicitis as an indescribable pain that can move around. I think I have that?”
Brittany, everyone’s cheerleader and yes person, shot her chin up towards me and seized the opportunity without questioning, responding sharply, “Let’s go to the emergency room.”
Moments later, getting ready to leave our apartment, I lifted my knees one by one, putting on my old cottage cheese-esque Ugg boots. I’ll never forget how each knee lift intensified my weird tummy sensations, confirming for me in that moment, Yup. My appendix definitely wants to explode. I would’ve bet big money on it.
Within an hour, my fierce protector Brittany, marched me into the E.R. and approached the front desk. “My friend needs a doctor; she has appendicitis.”
The man at the front desk cocked his head as he registered my at-ease body language, asking, “What makes you think you have appendicitis?”
“I can feel it,” I said pointing to my abdomen. “Feels like a lava lamp in here moving around. Never felt anything like it.”
He stifled a judgmental chuckle. “If you had appendicitis you’d be doubled over in pain.”
Brittany barked, “Um. Excuse me! She said she has appendicitis.”
If it weren’t for Brittany, I would’ve left that ER. But instead, we waited to be seen.
After I was properly examined and tested, a doctor sat with me and exclaimed, “Well, you’re a first!” He then clarified, “We’ve never had anyone come in this early for appendicitis. It’s actually not medically considered appendicitis yet, but we can see that it’s about to be. So we’re going to go ahead and get you scheduled for an appendectomy. Lucky you can feel that!”
Brittany loved rubbing that information in the front desk guy’s face.
And I loved having a reason to believe my hyper-sensitive nature, a character trait I’ve often been scolded for, may have saved me from a much more severe situation.
My gut spoke to me clearly in college, and now my boob is speaking up too. But my nervous system can’t handle her message, almost wishing she’d keep that shit to herself!!! Karen’s words were soothing, but my anxious mind loves borrowing trouble, my two wolves arguing back and forth:
wolf 1: You gotta relax. Karen said you’re gonna live to be a hundred. Why won’t you relax.
wolf 2: Because she’s not a prophet! She cannot know that I will live to be a hundred! And if it’s cancer, they could find more in other parts of my body! Stage zero in my boob but stage four in my lungs!
wolf 1: You are not a doctor! You know absolutely nothing about cancer!
wolf 2: Fair point. Should we Google it?
wolf 1: No! No more Googling cancer!!! Stop stressing yourself out, you moron!!! Stress probably causes more cancer!!! Calm the fuck down!!!
wolf 2: I can’t if you keep yelling at me!!!
wolf 1: Well now I’M freaking out!!! AHH!!!
wolf 1 & wolf 2: AHHH! WE’RE GONNA DIE!!
In an effort to eliminate it, I’m trying to pinpoint the exact source of terror. The word death fucks me up more than the thought of sleeping forever; it’s not like I have to hang around to experience my own deadness and decay. I know I’m not immortal, but also, maybe I didn’t know that— not before a stranger told me I needed a biopsy. I may have always harbored, in my gut, where my appendix used to be, the belief that I can’t die. Because imagining my death as if it’s at least 70 years off feels indistinguishable from never dying at all. My body can’t feel the difference.
This week has taught me exactly how poorly my nervous system functions when my death feels closer. If I were 100 years old right now, would I feel this distraught over the thought of my last days? Is there such a thing as feeling prepared? Because I want that. To feel prepared. Regardless of biopsy results. I want to feel okay with death.
My crippling fear today comes from the thought of losing my gorgeous loved ones, from the thought of detaching forever. Psychologist Robert Neimeyer’s words have been playing on a loop just behind my nasal bridge all week; “we are wired for attachment in a world of impermanence.” So, we’re built for pain. But today I feel defective. I don’t feel built for anything but panic right now. I want to be comfortable with dying. Not because I am about to die, but because my mind’s take on death can ruin being alive.
March, 30th 2025
Before I could eliminate my own fears of cancer, with my own will and mental healthcare, the Breast Center called to share that my results were benign. And within 24 hours of that tension-releasing phone call, my appetite and ability to sleep soundly returned, my diarrhea subsiding (sorry but it’s true! if you can’t relate then just shut up and thank your lucky stars!). According to my husband, the color returned to my face. I came back to life, to match the truth. I was me again, now that I could erase cancer from my useless to-do list of immediate worries.
And I thought, how dare I feel “back to normal” after days of fretting my funeral. Shouldn’t I be a completely changed and enlightened human being after all this? Like George Bailey? Or at least like Brittany Murphy’s character from Clueless after those guys at the mall dangled her over that railing? Shouldn’t my mind be especially clear now? My outlook on life perfected?
I don’t feel changed. In fact, I woke up this morning sorta worried about my air conditioner.
Grateful for the exceptionally good news, I also felt frustrated for needing that news to function, to be okay, to feel the horizon again. I was furious with myself for worrying over nothing… for being fully rattled… for really suffering.
Because I’d forgotten something very simple. So obvious. What my body’s been trying to tell me for years:
Trust what you are feeling.
Did you know? It’s okay to be afraid.
The world made newborns and hydrangeas and finger tips. Accept your sensitivity, honey.
Kiss it!
It can make you crumble and
it can save you.
♥
It all feels much scarier now that we’re parents too. The thought of leaving my daughter is maybe what I’m most terrified of.
"Grateful for the exceptionally good news, I also felt frustrated for needing that news to function, to be okay, to feel the horizon again. I was furious with myself for worrying over nothing… for being fully rattled… for really suffering"
First of all, so glad you are ok!!!!! Second? The needed-news-to-note is normal. I allow myself 15 days prior to my yearly mammogram to fret. Waiting and not knowing is one of the harder parts of all of it.
CELEBRATE THIS WIN!