I didn’t need anyone to break the news to me. There was no crushing shock. I knew it already

As told to Shterna Lazaroff

I

was never sick. No one in my family was. If we had the sniffles, we grabbed a box of tissues and headed to school. Fever? We would sleep it off and get right back to work in the morning. My parents didn’t have a thermometer or any over-the-counter medications.

When I was 18, I had oral surgery to remove my wisdom teeth. The next morning, I went to the bathroom and fainted from the pain. When I fell, I slammed my head on the tiled bathroom floor. I woke up and got up to continue brushing my teeth. It didn’t even occur to me to take pain medications.

During my pregnancies, when the doctor would ask if I experienced certain symptoms, I never knew what to answer. I never paid attention to my body. In fact, I was proud of myself for powering past it. I would get out of bed the day after deliveries and never took naps — even if I had a fever. I was a mother with children who relied on me to be there, so I was glad to know nothing could knock me over. If I ever felt unwell, I ignored the aches and I’d eventually feel better. The philosophy worked for me because I did always recover — and it reinforced the idea that if I ignored everything, it would turn out fine.

Cancer proved me wrong.

My first cancer memory is sitting next to my husband at the Pesach Seder. Our kids were scattered around the table, too, sitting among their cousins. The baby, our newest addition, was sleeping in the stroller near me. I watched the soft rise and fall of her chest, her gentle sleep, and then told my husband, “I feel a lump.”

It had been there for a while, but first I ignored it, then my doctor said, “It’s a clogged milk duct.” Because I was nursing, it made sense to write the lump off as a common side effect.

I had tried all the clogged-milk-duct things, though. Heating pads. Massaging the area. Epsom salt. The lump wasn’t going anywhere, so I finally decided to mention it to my husband.

On Chol Hamoed, I called my obstetrician again. “We don’t even do GYN,” the office said. That’s why, in all my years of regular visits, no one had ever done a standard exam to check for any lumps.

The office referred me to the Chemed health center, and I scheduled an appointment. The sweet PA felt around for a bit.

“Is it a lump?” I asked.

“It’s actually two,” she said. Immediately after the appointment, Bikur Cholim scheduled me for testing at the local imaging center. I remember walking down the hill to their building and thinking, When you walk back up, you might be a different person.

I wasn’t shocked when I got there and they kept repositioning me to take more photos. I didn’t even blink twice when they became tight-lipped and said they were calling in other medical staff for “a quick peek at the scans.”

I didn’t need anyone to break the news to me. There was no crushing shock. I knew it already.